After all, wool felts on the sheep with no help from soap and hot water.
Not strictly true. On the sheep, the sheep’s own secretions - sweat and lanolin - combine to form suint, which is (or acts like, I haven’t looked at the chemistry) a soap.
Lots of people wash their fleeces in “Suint fermentation vats”, using this natural soap to do the cleaning.
In both cases, natural heat aids the process - in the former, the body heat of the sheep, and in the latter, the heat of the sun.
Any ideas?
The key ingredients for wet felting are lubricant, heat (or temperature shock) and agitation.
So, you are using unwashed fleece, which contains the lanolin and sweat, ie, the lubricant. In theory, if you add warm water and agitation, you have the ingredients for wet felting.
Blue-faced Leicester is the prince of wet-felting fibres in my experience, wet-felts far more readily than the merino everyone seems to use in preference.
I’d be inclined to try something like, using raw wool straight from the sheep (don’t wash it), weave a peg-loom rug then bung it in a warm bath - just warm water - and tread it, then plunge into a bath of cold water and tread it some more, or put it on a rough surface, dampen it and walk on it a lot with heavy boots. (Yes the latter treatment will make it dirty, but an overnight cold soak and a good shake after it’s dried will bring it up pretty well.)
I’d love to know how you get on! Please tell us what you try and what works and what doesn’t!