A few years ago I was invited to join a felting group. It is called Unperfect 10 and it is currently made up of 10 members who are based in Germany, The Netherlands, Portugal, Ireland and Canada. Distance requires that we meet online and we aim to be there every 6 weeks. The challenge is that we can only use 10 grams of fibre in our projects.
There’s a good deal of catchup and banter when we meet up. Then we each present our piece, our thinking behind our design and we briefly describe how we made it. After that we decide on a theme for our next meet up, whether we can use a resist and at times we will work to a specified colour too.
I thought I might show you some of the pieces I have produced over the past while and tell you a little about each piece.
The Twister:
The challenge was 10 grams of fibre over a 20cm circular resist and incorporating prefelts.
I thought I would play with differential shrinkage here. The dark base took a little over 4 grams of fibre (2 layers each side). The remaining weight was divided between 6 colours and an ombre effect prefelt was made in 4 layers. Then it was cut into 1cm strips, 7 in total. These were wrapped around the circular resist. This gave 6 layers around the main section of the resist and 30 layers where they all came together at the top and the bottom. It shrank nearly 50% and then I twisted it until I got this spiral effect.
Facing darkness:
was this session’s 10g challenge. My theme was life’s challenges, the curveballs that are thrown at us all. At first, they appear insurmountable, difficult to navigate, and find a way through. Then, often, we start to see the possibilities as we look closer. Or we experience acceptance and light dawns. We regain our momentum and move forward often stronger from the experience. My slide show takes the viewer through this journey from the darkness of the challenge when initially faced to personal progression. For this challenge, I laid out a variety of different colour fibres on the resist. Then I topped it off with the black merino and some angelina fibres. Once fulled, I cut out shapes and added a little stiffener to it as I wanted it to maintain its shape. An LED tealight completes the piece.
Home:
The theme on this occasion was Home. We were free to decide how we represented it once we kept to the 10 grams.
Home to me involves a specific room in the house, the kitchen. It is the place for gatherings, family and/or friends, happiness, and informality. This is not a time to pull out the best china cups. It’s the mismatched crockery and, at its centre, the cup of tea. It can be my kitchen or yours. It’s home, and no one present cares about dusty surfaces or dirty windows. It’s home and it’s love.
I worked around a resist and kept a little fibre back for the handle of the cup. I worked with a number of colours; peach and green for the outside, white for the inside and brown for the tea. I added the handle to the prefelt and formed the ‘cup’ by turning the top of the area (white and brown part) to the inside of the cup.
Carnival:
Another theme was Carnival. For this challenge we each made a piece of prefelt which we then sent to a partner. Our felting buddy interpreted the theme on the prefelt and then returned it to its owner.
I chose to go back in time to the early Venetian carnivals. These were “silent” celebrations, participants did not speak lest their accents gave them away! (In theory it was supposed to allow the classes to mix but I suspect that the wealth showed through on the garments) To ensure this ‘anonimity’, masks were held in place by the mouth, a strap for the men, and a ball or button for the ladies. Today, many feel it safer to ‘button our lips’ as our opinions are being shot down. This ancient addition acknowledges it.
The curls are a ‘nod’ to the Romans, who are believed to have invented carnival. I used part of the prefelt that my buddy sent to me, and added margillan silk, extra merino and, of course a button. Everything brought the weight back to 10g.
Escher inspired:
The next theme was Escher inspired.
- Black and white fibre,
- optical illusion,
- tessellation,
- 3D.
My illusion was the creation of 2D that presents as 3D. Mine weighed in slightly under the 10 gram (9.62 to be exact 😉). I decided to mount the finished work on pins so that it floated above the base. I created three prefelts which were then cut to a pattern I had made and felted together. I had to take great care that I did not all it to distort when it was shrinking. It was a real challenge and I learnt a lot during it.
Botanical:
I have many more but I will just show you one more.
The challenge was as follows:
- 3D or sculptural art piece
- Botanical
- 3 colours of summer
- 2 pieces unconnected, can be interactive, second piece can be hidden or integrated inside
- use resist or no resist
My inspiration came from the poppies growing in my garden. Being the lazy gardener, I love the way they self seed! Their petals are fragile so not a lot of fibre is needed. So photos here attempt to show the stages of growth, the closed petals opening and falling to reveal the pod. I hand beaded the seeds.
I hope this post might inspire you to set up your own group. A resolution for the New Year? It doesn’t have to be felting, it just needs to have a particular focus and a challenge that everyone commits to for the following meeting. I am here thinking it’s a bit like a book club but instead of reading and discussing a chosen book, everyone is presenting their interpretation based off an agreed theme and limits.
As a group, we are always amazed at how diverse the interpretations are. It’s great fun but it also gives me direction when I feel my creativity is drying up!
I wish you a wonderful festive period.
Thank you for reading this post (I know everyone is so busy at this time of year).
Wishing peace, happiness and great health to and your loved ones in 2026.
Helene@feltzen