
Wool fiber laid out by hand to create an autumn woods scene
Just like a painter blends their paints or inks, fiber artists need to learn how to mix wool fibers to achieve the desired shade for their felt. Blending is necessary to avoid looking like a colouring book (unless that is your goal)!
Wool fibers are dyed their own colour that doesn’t change when you mix them together. Instead the intimate blending of two or more colours allows our eyes to visually mix them. If you look very closely at a piece of art felt, you can see the hair sized strands of different wool colours intertwined with each other.
Landscape colour mixing can be done without any specialized equipment, I use only my hands. Pull small amounts of fiber from the colours you want to combine, overlap, pull apart, overlap and repeat until the strands are mixed to your satisfaction.

When working on a very large project where you need a quantity of a blended shade, carding could be the way to go. Wooden hand carders are often used by spinners to blend colours and align the fibers for spinning. Another option is to use pet grooming brushes.

Another technique for blending is to create a transition from one colour to another. This is done by laying whisps of one colour down in a row, then add another row with a new colour slightly overlapping the first. The wet felting rubbing and rolling will help to mix these shades together.

The shade of the base layer of wool fiber can also affect the colours you place on top. In the felting process the fibers can migrate through each other and alter the result. Working on a gray or dark under layer can yield a very different look than working on a white wool background. Before embarking on a large project it is best to make samples with various techniques to see what gives you the desired look.