Have you tried to purchase 100% wool felt for your Japanese embroidery? It's almost impossible to find and very expensive when you do. It usually comes in wide width's so you must purchase a great deal more than you need at the time. I must order at least two months before I run out of current stock because of the time it takes my supplier to fill my order. And just what do we use the felt for, you ask? Well, it is the layer between the archival mat board and the finished Japanese embroidery when lacing our embroidery. (The Lacing Instructions tell you step-by-step what to do and how to do it.) It's there to even out the roughness of the wheat starch and the knots and the metallics on the back of the stitching. And, believe me, it really, really works.