The overall theme for this year’s challenges is felting techniques. We had a poll and vote over on the forum and “Choose a Specific Felting Technique” got nearly 60% of the vote. So each quarter, one of us will post a specific felting technique which will comprise that quarter’s challenge. We hope that you will consider participating this year and trying out a new technique or adding a twist to a technique that you might have already done. You have three months to complete the challenges and then we’d love to see what you created. You can share your results over on the forum under “Studio Challenges” or you can contact us here and write a guest post about your entry. The more the merrier!

My challenge to you for the first quarter is to use a flat resist in felting. Now if you’re a beginner and you have never used a flat resist before, that could mean you might want to try a simple circle to make a beret or a pod. Lyn and Annie from Rosiepink have a wonderful tutorial on wet felting a pod over a resist that you can see here.

Or if you have a bit more experience, you could try using the same resist but make different shapes when fulling the resulting felt piece. The photos above show the shape of the resist on the left. Both of the felt vases were made on the same resist but look very different because of shaping and embellishments. So how many shapes of felt could you make from one resist?

Maybe you have been wanting to make a felted pair of slippers but it hasn’t happened yet. You could follow Nada V’s tutorial on using the ear shaped resists shown above. Or perhaps try a new shape of hat, bag or mittens. The possibilities are endless.

How many shapes of resists can you create? I wrote a post about resist shapes a while back that might get your brain working.

If you have lots of experience with resists, have you tried stitching multiple resists together to make a complex shape? Perhaps you haven’t tried seamless clothing and want to go in that direction with a resist. What would happen if you stacked resists on top of each other with felt in between and kept layering different shapes? What if you cut your resist from a different angle or made a different opening? How would that affect the end result? What would happen if you added “ear shapes” (as in the slipper tutorial above) to a resist and cut it open from ear to ear? Maybe you haven’t tried using resists as surface design. Zed wrote a post about Surface Design Using Resists last year to give you some ideas. The skies the limit on what idea you could use with flat resists and wet felting.

So your challenge is to use a flat resist in wet felting in a way that you haven’t before. The suggestions I have given are just a starting point. Let’s put our thinking caps on and have fun playing with resists!