People assumed felt could never get this thin, and so they never tried,” said designer Hope Newman.

Ms. Newman, 34, is the creator of Yomo, a line of jewel-colored scarves, wraps, purses, and hair accessories all made from a chiffon-thin, yet remarkably warm felt blend of wool and silk that she is in the process of patenting.

Before starting Yomo a little more than two years ago, Ms. Newman was an art director and graphic designer, and her foray into fashion was something of a fluke. Dared by a friend to make something for his booth at Union Square’s Holiday Market, Ms. Newman made small clutches from felt, which she pressed in her kitchen sink.

She was inspired by a class she had taken while in art school at Syracuse University, where she stomped on wet fabric to make felt, “like Lucy in the bathtub with the grapes” in the classic scene from “I Love Lucy,” she recalled.

Ms. Newman’s clutches caught the attention of the handcrafts catalog Ebiza, which placed an order for fall 2002.

As she experimented with the process of pressing fabric, Ms. Newman developed her unique ultrathin felt, which she made by blending wool and silk. “Yomo” is the Japanese word for wool, which Ms. Newman chose to emphasize the fabric’s Asiatic origins. Felt, which is made by compressing fibers, Ms. Newman explained, is thought to be the world’s first fabric. It was purportedly invented by Mongols who stuffed wool into their boots to pad their feet. As they marched, the sweat and the friction compressed the wool, and a new material was born. (Reports differ as to the exact origins of the fabric, but Ms. Newman’s explanation is a charming one.)

Ms. Newman believes her education outside the garment industry was a boon, allowing her to create a fabric that most textile designers would have dismissed as impossible. “I didn’t know anything,” she said. “But that’s actually an asset.”

Beginning with simple scarves, Ms. Newman has since branched out into handbags, wraps, and hair accessories, which are sold at Henri Bendel (712 Fifth Ave., 212-247-1100) and at various boutiques across the city, such as Lee Anderson (23 E. 67th St., 212-772-2463) and Swallow in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn (361 Smith St., 718-222-8201), as 764 1026 859 1037well as on her Web site,www.yomony.com. Prices for her scarves range from $60 to $260, and hair accessories are priced at $30. She is currently incorporating her signature fabric into designs for lamps and screens to be sold at Sublime American Design in TriBeCa.

In some ways, Ms. Newman is the best advertisement for her designs. For our interview, she wore a super-thin turquoise scarf around her neck that set off her blue eyes and beach-blonde hair wonderfully. Ms. Newman hails from Boston, but she has the sunny exuberance and freckled complexion of a California girl.

“For a woman to get compliments from strangers, whether she’s walking the street in Cleveland or dining at Le Cirque – that’s what women want,” said Ms. Newman, who focuses particularly on color in her fashion designs. “It’s not about what’s trendy, it’s about what looks good next to your face,” she said of Yomo’s palette, which runs the gamut from elegant cream to royal purple to rich garnet.

Despite the growth of her business, Ms. Newman still makes much of the merchandise herself, though it would be inaccurate to call it hand-made. After composing a fabric of unspun wool and silk, she will wrap it up in a bamboo mat, place it on the floor, and roll it under her feet for 20 minutes. Isn’t such intense labor hard on the soles? “No, but it’s great for your bottom,” she laughed.