Inspiration – Felting and Fiber Studio

A nuno felted loop scarf in royal blue and rainbow colors is on a grey surface

Trying out recycled banana fiber: an easy loop scarf project

March 12, 2026 kikistextileart Comments 14 comments

Hello all!

As you probably know, I firmly fall in the camp of the recycling fans: I love a good chance to use bits of recycled fabric, yarn or fiber, found objects and so on, often to surprising effects. Mostly the surprise is a good one, eh. My drawers and charity shops (or thrift shops, if you want) bargain baskets are source of plenty of materials to use in a creative way, and there is a particular satisfaction in using pre-loved materials and giving them a whole new life.

Some time ago I have bought 3 skeins of multicoloured recycled banana chunky yarn from Oxfam charity shop thinking that I was going to felt it into something and give that something a bit of jazz, much in the same way that I use recycled sari silk fiber. My idea is to use it by teasing the fiber away, but future experiments could involve using the yarn as is, as embellishment and to try maybe a bit of creative weaving with it, who knows.

Here they are:

Three skeins of colorful chunky yarn are displayed with their labels saying that it is a recycled banana yarn sourced by Oxfam. The top one is mainly bright pink, the middle one is mainly white and the bottom one is mainly red blue yellow — The Banana fiber yarns: they are colourful and shiny, they instantly grabbed my attention. They were a tad expensive, but I will have plenty of fiber to use, they will last me a long time.

I like the fact that they are not solid colours, as I can see them combine well with different palettes, without much thought about colourways on my part: when you are unsure about which colours to use together, a ready made mix of colours that you can already see is pleasant will hugely help you decide!

I have chosen to go for felting a loop scarf/cowl because it is a simple and fast type of project that I have already had success with. I have measurements that are fine for me, and I only had to find my rectangular resist that must be somewhere in there, maybe in the first drawer..or no, maybe in the second drawer..or no, maybe in the bubblewrap bag..or likely on the projects shelf..or..(do you think that I can blame the future guinea pigs or is it a bit too much?)

You know what, let’s forget the previous resist, I have my measurements in my project notebook (thanks God!) and I can just cut a new one from a piece of bubblewrap, of which I have an ever multiplying pile (they are possibly breeding in there, I started with just a couple pieces a few years ago, I do not know, they talk about rabbits but they are nothing to bubblewrap).

Here, so, my resist is a plain rectangle, 17 inches by 15 inches or 43 cm x 38 cm. The shrinkage was not supposed to be huge. I was aiming for a lightweight type of soft scarf with only 2 light layers of Merino wool.

A light blue bubble wrap rectangle is on a table covered by a white towel and clear bubblewrap. — My resist was in pale blue, so I guess you can see it, just barely.

I started by choosing my banana yarn, the reddish one that they have called Rainbow, then adding to it matching silk fabric from charity shop silk scarves, and I went on choosing the Merino wool colours to match and complement the other fibers. I toyed with the idea of a white background but I really did not have enough white Merino wool (I need to restock it), and I felt that a royal blue would make all the other colours pop out. So it was royal blue background, and coral, white and eggshell for the Merino wool accents.

There is the banana yarn in rainbow and there are small bags of Merino wool in royal blue and coral and white and eggshell. There are also two silk scarves in various colors, particularly red and blue and brown and yellow and pink. — Spotting similarities among different bunches of textiles is a lot of fun.

I was ready to start with a first layer of banana fiber: I teased it out by unraveling the yarn, and laying it in a clouds layout, trying to keep all the colours as mixed and varied as possible. I covered the whole resist, taking care of leaving maybe 1cm of free resist at the top and bottom (as the cowl needs a hole for my head!), and of going a bit out of the resist when covering left and right sides, to ensure that the design will run smoothly all around my cowl.

There is a hand pulling on a chunky multicolored yarn in the foreground, and a wooden floor in the background — Pulling at the yarn to release the fiber.

In the foreground there is a hand with a small piece of multi stranded yarn in it. in the background there is a clear blue bubble wrap. — The yarn was made of many small strands in different colours.

There is a rectangle covered in small strands of yarn in many different colors on a bubble wrap. — The effect is good and my first side is all covered.

When I was done with it on the first side, I decided for a thin layer of the royal blue Merino on top of the banana fiber before turning it to the other side, as I was afraid that the banana fiber would not stay put if I just wet it and turned the resist, as it was loosely laid out. That is not ideal, as I then had to carefully tease away the banana fiber from the Merino thin layer on the other side when I turned the resist, so by any means if you have a different design where you have a first uninterrupted layer, just wet it and turn the resist to the other side before adding a second layer. The right way to do it is to have the wet fabrics layer as first layer, I suppose, so that it is easier to turn: well, I just wanted to try out the banana fiber (shoulder shrugging), I have been waiting months to have the right chance, so that is what I used first! The felting police was nowhere in sight, so I guess I will get away with it, if there are no snitches here to make trouble.

I started from the edges all around, and then covered the whole resist with a first thin horizontal layer of Merino wool.

A rectangle shape is covered in rainbow fiber and in blue wool on three of the four edges. — Starting from the edges with the Merino wool.

A rectangle of rainbow fiber is almost completely covered in royal blue Merino wool fiber, and a hand holding more blue wool fiber is in the foreground. — First layer of Merino almost done

I put on it a net curtain fabric, wet and lightly soaped it, then carefully lifted the net away and turned the whole to the other side.

A green hand sprinkler can be seen emerging from the top of the image. At the center of the image there is a rectangle of blue wool under a netting, and it is becoming wet. — Wetting the side after putting netting over it.

There is a rectangle of colored fiber and some blue wool and colored fiber is sticking out from the sides of a rectangle of bubble wrap that is over the fiber. — The view from the other side, after folding the banana fiber coming from the first side.

As I said, I had to separate the banana fiber from the Merino where I had to fold it on the resist at the sides. Then I covered the resist with a layer of banana fiber, making sure that some would go also on the bits from the first side left and right, so as to make it seem a smooth continuum. You can not really see the layer of fiber on this second side of the resist on my photo, but it is there!

After laying out the rainbow banana fiber on the second side, I folded on it the blue Merino wool fiber that was along the left and right edges — Folding of the Merino wool over the left and side edges, over the first layer of banana fiber

Then, I folded over it the Merino sticking out from the left and right edges and went on covering the rest of the resist with a thin horizontal layer of Merino, exactly as I had done on the other side, but without doubling up on left and right edges, to avoid having two thicker areas at the sides.

After wetting and soaping it, I turned the whole again to the first side of the resist. I tidied up the upper and bottom edges with my fingers, pushing the wool fibers to form a neater edge. I do not care much about very straight edges, personally, but if you prefer them you can always cut your top and bottom edges with scissors and then seal them by rubbing them, towards the end of the felting process.

At this point I added a second thin Merino wool layer, vertical layer, and repeated the wetting and light soaping with a bit of pressure on the net to make the soaped water pass through the wool and fibers, but still no actual rubbing. I flipped it to the other side and laid out the second layer there, repeating all steps.

A rectangle of royal blue Merino wool that is wet, on a white towel covered in bubble wrap. — Two Merino wool layers done.

After flipping it again to the first side, I repeated the tidying of top and bottom edges.

Time for the silk scarves fabric and the embellishments! Firstly I added accents with coral, white and eggshell Merino Wool. Then, I cut out my 2 chosen fabrics in irregular pieces and placed them on the wool alternating the 2 designs. I made sure to overlap the side edges of the resist, so that the design could run in a smooth way all around the scarf. I usually take a photo of my design at this point, so that I can use it as reference for the other side and not go on completely differently once I turn to the second side (It happened, yes).

A rectangle of wet blue wool is covered in a design of pieces of silk fabric and wisps of Merino wool in coral white and eggshell colors. — It looks like total chaos but it will turn out one single felt, I promise.

After turning my cowl again, folding the fabric and wool overlapping the left and right edges, and completing the second side as well by following the same steps as the first, it was time to go back to the first side, net it again and put a little bit more soap on it to start rubbing properly. The aim is to have the silk bits be grabbed into the wool fibers.

A rectangle of wet nuno prefelt with pieces of silk fabrics in different colors on a blue background. — Wet and soaped.

I did that for both sides, and then something not related to felting happened and I had to stop everything. Nothing dramatic, I just had to go out in a bit of a rush, and one thing that I love about felting is that you CAN stop, put some bubblewrap on it and leave it there, and then come back to it after a few hours and all is fine. Not only fine, the soaped water has probably better seeped into the wool fibers, so it can go quicker after the pause.

When I got back home, I got out my sander, checked that all the prefelt was fully wet and soaped, covered it with bubble wrap and used the sander to make sure that all the fabric was securely rubbed in. One of the silks in particular was slower than the other in getting felted in, so I had to work on it a bit more.

After being sure that all the fabric was securely attached, I rolled the cowl, still with the resist inside it, for a few times in all directions. I did not insist too much on the rolling, though, as I like to manipulate my prefelt to take it to the felt stage and be able to keep a close eye on how much it is shrinking. Well, to be honest, I do not enjoy rolling as much as rubbing and kneading and throwing and so on, so I find a lot of excuses to cut the rolling short!

A piece of prefelt is being rolled on a table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap. — I did my rolling, and I have proof of it!

Thus, after a bit of perfunctory rolling so the rolling gods be appeased, I took the cowl from the resist and took care of the left and right edge by opening up my cowl, folding it in a different way so that the edges were now resting in the middle, putting a hand inside the cowl and rubbing the edges on the bubblewrap underneath. I will agree that this is a bit yuk! in colder months, as you have your arm inside a cold wet thing, but it is very quickly done if you have taken care not to overlap too much wool and fabric at the side edges. You may have to open up a little bit the wool (very gently) if you have pinched together a small amount of wool at those edges, but a bit of energetic rubbing will help smooth it all to nothing.

An arm is inside a large wet prefelt tube and rubbing it on clear bubble wrap. — yuk! but needs doing.

A hand is rubbing a blue wet felt onto a bubble wrap. — This is fun!

After that, it was all swishing the cowl on the bubblewrap in different directions, gently kneading it and a bit of gentler throwing, keeping an eye on the forming of more and more wrinkles on the silk and on the shrinkage. I may have overdone it a bit, as the cowl ended up slightly tighter than what I wanted, but still a good comfy size when I tried it on after the drying.

The wet finished loop scarf is on its pale blue resist, showing the difference in size among the two. — I do not know if you can spot the light blue resist behind the wet scarf, it shows the shrinkage that I obtained.

I rinsed it with clean water, and put it to dry on a rack close to a radiator.

Here it is: I hope that you like the effect of the banana fiber as I do! it felted so easily that it was comparable to silk or other plant based fibers that I have tried (mint and rose), and I definitely liked to work with it as fiber, as it was easier than silk fiber to lay out, due to it being less fine and less prone to flying away at a wrong breath.

A finished and dry wet felted loop scarf with rainbow fiber over a royal blue background is resting on a grey surface. — Side A

A side of a nuno felted loop cowl in blue, red , yellow, pink and white, on a grey surface — Side B

A person that is cropped out of the photo is wearing a nuno felted loop scarf in blue and rainbow colors by Kiki Peruzzi — How it looks like when you put it on.

Kiki Peruzzi is wearing her nuno felted loop scarf on her hair. — You can also wear it on your hair, very comfy, warm and soft, keeps your ears all warm if you like.

I also made a normal cobweb scarf with the smallest amount of yellow Merino wool and the pinkish banana yarn, just to try a very bright combination of colours:

In the foreground there is a tall oblong white paper lamp with a bright yellow and pink scarf wrapped around it with a knot. — Two bright colours for this cobweb scarf, daring a little bit more than my usual. It was fun to use this recycled banana fiber!

Now the only banana yarn that I have not used yet is the white one, so that will be the next one to try.

Do you also have an irresistible new upcycling material to try out?

Kiki

http://www.kikistextileart.com

Instagram: @kiki.textile.art

Test Felting New Materials

March 3, 2026 Lindsay Wilkinson Artwork Comments 21 comments

My wonderful local arts centre (The Horsebridge Community Arts Centre in Whitstable) has an art bank. People donate all sorts of lovely (and sometimes slightly odd) materials. Anyone can visit the art bank room, select things they’d like, then pay what they can.

I often have joint exhibitions in the arts centre’s galleries and do some volunteering for them too (mostly bar work). They work very hard to raise funds to keep the centre going and supporting the community. I live nearby so frequently pop into the art bank to see what’s there, and I sometimes walk away with a little challenge for myself. I’m going to talk today about felt testing two materials that are new to me: silk carrier rods and fine metal mesh.

A few months ago, I was unable to resist some beautifully dyed silk carrier rods. I enjoyed separating and sorting them; they reminded me of fish.

They got bagged up and filed in the ‘to do sometime’ section of my brain.

A couple of weeks ago, their time had come. If you’re not familiar with silk carrier rods, they’re a waste product of silk production. When silk is removed from silk cocoons, it is reeled onto a machine. Some of the silk thread and gum gets caught on the winding rods and has to be cut away. They resultant silk carrier ‘rods’ are quite thick and stiff with sericin gum. You can peel each one into layers. You can also stretch them length-ways to thin them out, but they don’t have any appreciable movement across the width of the rod. I suppose it’s because that’s the direction the individual silk threads lie and silk thread is strong.

I checked the internet for felting with silk carrier rods and although there were some images, it wasn’t clear to me how thin the rods that had successfully been felted were. I’d peeled mine as much as I was able but I didn’t want to stretch them out too far along the length as I wanted to keep as much of the shine and colour of the silk as possible.

I’d like to felt a school of fish shooting up through the ocean so decided I’d better make a small test picture to see how the carrier rods felted.

I selected a lovely red / yellow / green rod layer and trimmed it slightly to create a fish shape.

Here it is with a non-trimmed layer for comparison

I laid out 2 layers of merino to look sort of ‘watery’, placed the trimmed shape more or less in the middle and popped on a small eye using tiny bits of wet & rolled dark grey and white wool.

The felting went pretty well, though I started to worry that they eye wouldn’t attach so gave it a few stabs with a felting needle before I started the fulling.

Here it is after felting, still wet, with the other piece of silk for comparison.

You can see it has shrunk a lot along the length but only a small amount across the width, which is what I’d expected

And here it is dry.

So, what did I learn from my sample?

I’d soaked the silk briefly in water before I used it to see if it was dye-fast. It was. I also thought the water might soften it a bit, though I don’t actually know if this made any difference as I didn’t try felting with an un-soaked piece (good job I’m not a scientist).

I deliberately only pulled it out a little lengthways so I was running the risk of it not felting in well. I also didn’t trap the silk with fine wool fibres: the idea was to try it and adapt if necessary for a future picture. The fish is fairly secure – I couldn’t easily pull it off – but I’d say it’s not fully integrated in the felt. There’s some movement if you rub it, especially in the central body section. It feels like it’s partially sitting on the surface. The tail is the most integrated part; I probably pulled that bit out the furthest.

It’s probably OK for a picture but I wouldn’t want to subject it to a lot of wear and tear. Ideally it should be felted in more firmly.

Things to consider for a future picture.

Soak for longer
Stretch out more
Add some fine strands of wool to trap it across the fish
Scuff up the under-side slightly
Put some light clouds of wool in similar colours to fish behind it (poss in addition to scuffing up the back)
Trap it with wool strands round the edges

I may not do all of these but would probably do some and almost certainly stretch it out more.

I’m also not keen on the eye: it’s a bit cartoonish & feels like it should be slightly higher up on its head. Maybe next time I will bead the eye on at the end, or use grey wool instead of white. I’m not sure if I will ever make the school of fish, but I’m satisfied that the sample did its job.

My second test piece is a very small one. I recently saw in the art bank some tubes of fine metal mesh and, as I often do, wondered if I could felt them.

The mesh is in different coloured tubular strips: I think they are intended for jewellery making. You could put some beads inside the mesh tubes and place other, perhaps smaller, beads between them, on the outside of the mesh.

I like the idea of having the mesh on the outside of some felt, perhaps to make a seed head. You can see the mesh can be stretched out.

Again, a sample seemed like a good idea. I made it quite small, just to see if and how it felted. I didn’t want to waste too much.

I cut a small square each of merino prefelt and metal mesh, approximately 6 x 6 cm (or 2.36 inches)

Although it doesn’t look like it in this photo, the mesh is light blue.

And here it is when felted & dry.

Conclusions? It felted very securely: the metal mesh is well embedded into the felt. I managed to get 1/3 shrinkage. I tried for a while but it just wouldn’t shrink more. Perhaps I need a larger sample to test this. The mesh didn’t give the felt as much additional structure as I’d expected. It does fold into a slight crease and it bends a little to hold a curve. Again, I think I’d need a bigger sample to test these properly. On the other hand, it looks pretty and is quite sparkly. Perhaps even a bit like fish scales?

For now I’m parking this experiment too. One day I’ll think of a really good use for it.

I do wander around thinking about what would happen if I tried to felt different materials. It’s always pleasing to have a go and make a little sample. It doesn’t always behave as I expect – which is exactly the point of a sample – but the results get stored away in my imagination for the next time I need exactly that effect.

Let me know in the comments if you’ve tried felting with a new or unusual material and what happened.

Guild program: how you started, first pieces & tips

January 8, 2026 Jan Comments 11 comments

Welcome to 2026, I hope it will be a better year than 2025 was.

So far this year, I have been busy with the local guild (grant reports data from the library), and considering projects for the new year (including cottage) and shopping options. I will also have to put in an order for more needles soon.

At this time of year, Guild activities, including programs and workshops, can be thwarted by weather or the fear of weather. With presenters thin on the ground for January, the program team had a creative solution for a last-minute program topic. We would interview ourselves and find out a bit more about each other. They had 3 questions to answer.

What was the first fibre pursuit you learned, and who taught you? (Feel free to ignore sewing.)
What was the first full piece you wove, felted, or used your own handspun for? (Bonus points: bring it to show off if you still have it.) Or feel free to tell us about the first-ever piece you made using your very first fibre art.
What is the (or a) most useful fibre-arts related tip that you learned directly from another practitioner?

The weather on Monday had been lightly snowing when I left home, pretty decorative light snow… it kept snowing…… all day. I was alone working on the library until another guild member dropped in to consult the library around 11, but left by 12:30. I was starting to fear that I might be the only one attending the meeting. Much later than usual, we had others brave the snow. There were so few of us that we had the meeting in the studio, rather than the Unitarians’ room. I am sure we were doing quality over quantity! (Those who stayed home were smarter, since it was a slippery, slow, snow-filled drive home.)

It was an interesting meeting. If you are in a guild and need an emergency fill-in for a meeting, with a few tweaks to the questions, this may be helpful for your group, too. I will show you what my answers were.

1) 07-12-2025 Jan Demo, Glengarry Museum

Answers to January program questions (Jan Scott).

What was the first fibre pursuit you learned, and who taught you? (Feel free to ignore sewing.)

– We will not discuss my attempts trying to learn to knit. Mom was patent but it did not go well. My talents then were more in the acquisition of frogs, turtles and snakes, none of which she let me keep.

– ~1982, I started to seriously pursue my interest in fibre/textiles with the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism). My goal was to weave, then sew (post-weaving) by hand, my own Icelandic Viking clothing.

– ~1989 I joined the guild, became the librarian and then took my first weaving lessons with Donna Gerrarden in Cumberland (in 1989 or 1990). She had the guild’s old 100-inch loom and the guild table looms in her massive basement.

– One of my strongest memories about learning to weave was not just the magic as cloth formed from mere threads at the fell line, but the sound the heddles made as they jingled at every bump driving back and forth to Cumberland.

What was the first full piece you wove, felted, or used your own handspun for? (Bonus points: bring it to show off if you still have it.) Or feel free to tell us about the first-ever piece you made using your very first fibre art.

Weaving:

– Donna taught me the 4-day beginner weaving workshop, then immediately continued with the 2-day Intermediate Weaving workshop. She then set me off to weave on my own. My first piece was not well met by some of the older weavers in the guild. I was still allergic to wool, so I had woven in cotton. I wanted a drapy hand to the fabric, not a stiff coverlet. I was attracted to pattern but was not sure I wanted the full intensity of that pattern. So I wove, I think it was called Ancient Rose, an overshot pattern, with a light and dark blue cotton, the pattern weft being slub. I set it at 12 EPI, not 24. I was fascinated by the pattern emerging and disappearing as the slub appeared and disappeared. It was exactly the drapy, shawl-like cloth I wanted. (It did not look like a stiff colonial coverlet that overshot is usually used to weave).

2.1) The sample piece was used as a basket cover for demos, one of my felt hats to the Left of the basket

Spinning:

– My first spinning was at an SCA event (war in Pennsylvania). I was still allergic to wool, so I was handed a drop spindle and a handful of cotton. I was not told this might be harder to spin, just “here, spin this”. I had to put a “bit more twist” than the students with wool. I spun it just fine; it was fun, but cotton was not a fibre I wanted to use to make that Viking outfit. When I eventually lost most of my wool reaction, I discovered that “a bit more twist” is very hard to stop doing!

Felting:

– I did my first felting with Maggie Glossip in the early part of the 90’s. It was a small vessel project using a resist in wet felting, then needle felting embellishments on it. I was not as fond of the wetness of wet felting, but the concept was intriguing. I did enjoy the dry felting, but it took a while until I got to try it again.

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2.2–2.4) wet felted Vessel with Needle felted decorations

Others Fiber Arts:

– I have also tried my hand at dyeing, basketry, fibre prep, tapestry, kumihimo, and historical sewing.

What is the (or a) most useful fibre-arts related tip that you learned directly from another practitioner?

Weaving:

– Jack Lane –was a fabulous weaver of tartan coverlets in 3 matching panels. He taught me how to lash on to the front beam rather than tie. And the secret of lay in 3 picks, then beat to start off. Jack was very generous with his knowledge and time to all guild members.

3.1) Jack Lain teaching how to weave a reversing border for a folded hem.

3.2) Jack showing one of his Overshot coverlets (he also did tartan coverlets, three panels wide)

Spinning:

– The most memorable suggestion for spinning came from a twist workshop on art yarn with Esther Rodgers. At one point, we were making beehives in our yarn, and she went around the class enthusiastically declaring, “Shove it up the Orifice!!!” You just don’t hear that every day.

3.3) 08-23-2014 Twist Saturday Art Yarn with Esther Rodgers

3.4) art yarn with Esther close up

Felting:

– Sara Razzulie – online purveyor of info on (mostly sculptural) needle felting and on-line felt-along-s. “Try it”. At the start of the pandemic, I was perfectly happy to stay at home and putter in the garden, watch YouTube and listen to audiobooks. But I also enjoyed the online camaraderie of every live felt-along, including the mermaid Sara made. She did it over quite a few weeks and included wet felting for the tail’s top layer. I like the concept, but wanted a mer-man, so I scaled up her measurements from her mer-woman. Then scaled them down to make Mer-kids. I had to make my own guesses for the mer-pets, “Try it”. I made samples of wire gauges and types to better understand my options. I am still working on my Mer-project, but some parts of the family and pets are done and they had lots of fun playing at the Almonte textile museum during the guild exhibit.

3.5) Sarafina Fiber Art, Mermaid Felt Along 1: Armature, May 9, 2020, keeping us sane during the pandemic.

3.6) The mermaid she made during the felt along.

– Ann McElroy – water can be used carefully so wet felting isn’t as horrible and can be fun, if your vary carful. (though I do feel safer when supervised by Ann)

3.7) Ann McElroy teaching wet felting

3.8- 3.9) careful use of water in wet felting

It was interesting to hear the answers from others. Here are a couple of shots from the meeting. I think there were 15 people who made it through the snow (a couple took over an hour to get in, much, much longer than usual). During the program, we took turns between the Zoom participants and those in the studio. I had Rachel of the Program Team read my answers since I had already written and printed them out.

4.1) OVWSG January Meeting, the Zoom attendees outnumbered the in-person people

4.2-4.3) participating in the studio and online

If you don’t have a local fibre arts guild near you, maybe you can start a group, a get-together at the local library, fibre store, or felt in? It is really nice to have others who get equally excited about fibre and felting!

Now I have to get back to work, I have a workshop on needle felted landscape on Saturday (my calendar was sure it was originally on the following Saturday). Have Fun and Keep Felting!!

Happy New Years

January 5, 2026 Shepherdessann Comments 17 comments

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope you are having a great holiday time. May the new year treat you well and help you get where you want to be.

Last year was a bit of a crazy, busy year. One thing I did that I have been wanting to do for a long time is to make an online workshop. I had to make a firm commitment that I would do it by a certain date, or I would never have managed to get to it. It was a huge amount of work, but so worthwhile. It’s funny, I was sort of dreading doing it, even though it was something I wanted to do. This year, I am planning to expand the existing workshop and possibly create another one. I am thinking of a ruffle scarf workshop, but we will see. I don’t know if it’s something people would like to learn.

I am taking a how-to photograph you fibre art workshop in the spring, so maybe my pictures will be even better

The second thing I want to do this year is take more pictures of scenery, plants, and things. I want to have a better library of pictures to work from. I am sure I will never get to Jan’s level, but I can work on it. This is some frosted milkweed in my garden

The third is to take some workshops. I am signed up for the Photographing Fibre Art that I told you about above, Spindle Spinning with a Medieval Distaff and Build your own LEGO Spindle. They are all taught by the Ottawa Valley Weaves and spinnes guild. I would have liked to take Rock wrapping, but everything I signed up for is clustered together, and rock wrapping is in the same time frame, plus I am teaching twice during that time. It never fails. Oh well, hopefully it will be offered again, and I can take it then. If you’re in the Ottawa, Ontario, Canada area, here’s a link to the workshops the guild is offering this winter/spring. https://www.ovwsg.com/workshops/

Lastly, I want to learn to crochet. I understand the concept. I’ve made a chain before. I am told I should make some dishcloths to start, but that doesn’t appeal to me. What other beginner/learner project do you know about? How did you start?

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Playing with prefelt

September 7, 2025 Lindsay Wilkinson Artwork Comments 16 comments

In May this year, I wrote about about a vessel I’d made for an exhibition called ‘Edge’. Although this hadn’t been the intention, the vessel gave me a sort of Japanese minimalism vibe, which was something I wanted to revisit.

The vessel fit the Edge brief in that I’d used a circular resist to create the shape but rather than cut the hole in the centre of the circle, I’d stood it on one edge, with the hole on the opposite edge. I like this shape and want to explore it further.

The fibre I’d used was something I also want to come back to. A beautiful fine carded merino and silk mix from World of Wool, it was time-consuming to lay out because of the short staple-length, but produced a lovely, light and velvety soft felt.

Before leaping into making something with so many variables of shape, surface design and fibre, I knew I needed to make some samples and decided to think first about the surface design.

I have no real knowledge of Japanese minimalist art and am not trying to replicate it, just play around with some of the simplicity of design and colours as inspiration. I love problem-solving (or perhaps that’s problem-investigating) so was setting myself a bit of a challenge.

I’ve seen various images of beautiful Japanese brush work using black ink brush strokes and red circles on a white background and I wondered if I could create something like that in felt. The biggest challenge seemed to be how to wet felt black, red and white together while keeping the colours separate. Prefelt seemed to be one way to go so I made three different black prefelts to see which might look like black ink brush strokes.

Using commercial black merino prefelt, I cut a strip and felted it a little. I didn’t think this would work well as it’s the cut ends that move most into the surrounding fibres and this strip is basically all cut edges. Next, I tried lightly prefelting two other types of black merino wool: carded and tops, as if I was starting to make felt rope.

The tops and carded wool produced very similar-looking results and I confess, when I got to the making bit, I lost track of which was which. The advantage of these was that the fibres are mainly running along the length of the line rather than sticking out of the sides so there should be less migration into the white. I decided I’d use these rather than the commercial prefelt strip.

I then turned my attention to red circles. I suspect carded wool might be best but I only have tops in red so that was what I used. First, I just tried making a circle freehand. I got about 2/3 of a circle and a raggedy bit. On the plus side, there weren’t cut edges, so that should help minimise side-to-side fibre migration. On the minus side, the shape left a lot to be desired! Needs further work.

Next, I made some red prefelt and cut a couple of circles out of it. I thought this would work less well but I was interested to see how they compared with the freehand idea.

I was aiming for a very simple design, so played around arranging black strands and red circles in different combinations.

Now to actually make a sample.

I used a rectangle of white silk and merino commercial prefelt for speed, and felted it together with three black strips and a red circle to see what happened.

As you can see, the black didn’t migrate much on the long sides, though it did where I’d cut the shorter pieces (on the ends on the left side). The lines did, however, crimp and move a bit – maybe I need to prefelt these a bit less on the length and definitely more on any cut ends. Also, I must keep a better check on any movement as I felt.

The red, on the other hand, probably needed prefelting more as there was quite a lot of migration there. Basically, far too many loose cut ends, so either felt the edges harder or go back to a different layout.

At this point, I wonder why the heck I’m doing this: the layout looks so much better than the felted piece. Nevertheless, I decide to make a quick second sample before I finish for the day.

This time I used the freehand red circle with the raggedy edge. Somewhere in the dusty corners of my brain, I’d started to think about using resists to reveal the colours rather than just laying them on the surface. I hadn’t actually developed this thought but just plonked a resist on top of the red felt and laid a second layer of the white over the whole of the piece. I had some vague thoughts about the red incomplete circle looking a bit like a setting sun so placed it near the bottom and thought I could perhaps print some flying bird silhouettes on the upper part afterwards.

OK, I’m sort of freewheeling by this stage.

The useful learning from my experiments thus far was that the freehand circle (which has fibres running around the circumference of the circle, therefore avoiding lots of ends sticking out) works much better. You can see this very clearly from the under side. The cut ends clearly also migrate much more up and down as well as side to side. The freehand shape was probably also felted a bit harder than the red prefelt sheet.

Sample 1 underside: lots of migration round the edges

For my final two test pieces, I lightly needle-felted some red circles then wet-felted the edges to make them as neat as possible. I went back to using the original white carded 70:30 merino:silk mix and decided to concentrate on getting the red circle right. I laid out two layers of fibre at right-angles to each other and put a needle felted circle top right.

The needle-felted circle felted in well and when it was dry I printed a tree onto it. It’s a bit big but I’m going to make this into a birthday card for my Mum.

For my final test piece I continued with the carded merino & silk batt. I laid four layers of fibre round a circular resist and added one needle-felted red circle on each side.

As with my earlier Edge vessel, I cut it on one of the edges (rather than in the centre of the circle) and designed it to sit on the opposite edge.

Part-way through fulling, I worried that one of the red circles hadn’t felted in very well so did a little judicious needle felting around its edges before finishing the vessel.

This is a lot smaller than my original ‘edge’ vessel and much sturdier.

Conclusions?

The needle-felted and freehand wet-felted circles work better than cutting the circles from prefelt. I like the effect though could maybe make the need-felted circles a bit thinner: they do look as if they’re partially sitting on top of the surface. I’m happy that I’ve more or less cracked that bit of my challenge. As for the black lines, I’m leaving them for now but may come back to them at a later stage. The carded merino / silk batt was lovely to work with and I will definitely be making more things using this fibre. I might make a series of vessels using different colours and / or numbers of circles. I may also develop combining a circle and a printed tree. As usual, each experiment opens up lots of new possibilities. So much felt to make and too little time…..

Travelogue – Boise, Idaho

May 22, 2025 ruthlane Comments 10 comments

I am running late with my post today. We have been traveling and then got busy right away with class homework when I got home. I forgot my post! I hope you don’t mind but I will show you a few photos of our recent trip to Boise, Idaho to visit friends. Hopefully, you will be inspired by some of the landscapes and bird photos.

We took a hike on the road up to Bogus Basin (we were going to view the ski hill but the road was closed) and you can see that the area is high desert. Very different than the landscape I am used to in northwest Montana.

These rock formations were interesting. You can almost see a sleeping beast if you look closely.

The close up textures were fun too.

Even some lupine blooming which is ahead of the blooms at home. “My” lupine aren’t blooming yet.

We also walked along the Green Belt in Boise. It’s a wonderful path along the Boise River that was much greener than our previous walk. Plus there are various places to stop and have a drink or some food.

Then we went to The Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey. This is Janine getting her wingspan measured.

The center makes homes for birds that are injured and can’t return to the wild. I hope I get the right names for the right birds, please excuse me if I make any errors. This is a Harpy Eagle. He looks like a Dr. Seuss character to me.

The center has a great educational program to teach you about the habits of different birds of prey. They also have a program to breed condors which are endangered. They have so far brought the population in the wild of the California condor from 22 to more than 3,000. You couldn’t see the condors up close as they don’t want the birds to be habituated to humans. This red tailed hawk is Phoenix. The person holding him is a volunteer. This seems like a great volunteer job!

This is a Lanner falcon.

Barn owl at The Peregrine Fund's World Center of Birds of Prey

This was my favorite. A barn owl whose name I have forgotten. The program was great because the owl flew over your head in a closed room from perch to perch.

We had a great visit to Boise, Idaho (thanks Howie and Janine) and I hope you enjoyed a few of my photos.

A surprise at the party

April 26, 2025 Jan Comments 13 comments

Over the last few years, I have been regularly following a couple of you tube channels on Felting. I occasionally trip over others too, but if Sara from Sarafina Fiber Art or Marie from Living Felt are doing a live chat or felting video I try very hard to toon in. Unfortunately the last couple months, I have been randomly surprised as to what day it is, which has made watching live chats much more challenging.

I defiantly have vague memories of Living Felt talking about having their 21^st anniversary party for the company, but could not remember the date, but I knew it would be on a Wednesday! I just had to figure out what day Wednesday was, and pick the right one. Thanks to my Computer, who kindly will tell me what the day is, if I hover over the date!, I was able to attend the virtual party they were throwing.

1.1) Living Felt 21^st Online Birthday Party, April 9^th 2025.

Marie Throws a fabulous on line party! Instead of the guests bringing Living felt presents, she was drawing names, from those who had commented on 2025 videos after they aired, and those in the live chat and giving them presents! There were various fiber packs, wet or dry felting kits, I think there was a workshop and i defiantly saw felting tools. There were many comments of Congratulations, Ooh-ing, and AHh-ing at the prizes! They were very generous too.

1.2) About a thousand names of people who had commented on 2025 videos in the you tube comments.

1.3) Names from the live commenters are being added to the drum. (My name is in there, somewhere). More names being added to the drum!

Then the party began! With presents randomly dawn for the party gests. They started out pulling names from after video commenters, from the basket. As you can see above, the basket was huge and Marie had mentioned she thought there were about one thousand names in it.

1.4) various presents that valorous names received.

At about 20 minutes into the party, Marie turned to the mettle turning drum, to pull names of people watching live. One of the name papers from the drum tried to leap out as they opened the drum. She joked about it for a moment and then read “Jan Scott”. OH! That was a surprise! I wonder what is in the bag? It a big pink bag, maybe Maori or burckshaft fiber? Or a wool Wow mat, maybe with a topper? Ok calm down, and wait for them to open the bag.

1.5) 20:05 name trying to escape the rolling drum as the door was opened, a large pink bag appeared from under the table.

From the pink bag a blue bag appeared, ooh I like blue! Marie explained it was the Wet Felting Tools Bundle. Well that is a surprise!

I suspect this is a sign I will be visiting Ann for some wet felting fun as soon as she is off work! We have a couple purses to make and maybe I can sneak in a pair of slippers? It will help me get out of my dry felting comfort zone again!

The presents continued but I was kind of in shock! I won? Really? Well that cheered me up! I have been a bit glum, being stuck at home and looking forward to pain meds is a bit of a downer. (I am getting out a bit now but I take a few days to recover, but I think it’s worth it)

About 2 weeks pasted and anesthetic brain fog ate my memory of winning. So when, on the evening of April 22^nd, Glenn walked in with a big box, I immediately thought, “ah he must have being doing another board game trade”. No, it was for me. Oh no, did I ordered something and not remembered? NO!! it’s from Living felt in Texas!!! Yah!!!! (now i remember)

Drat! It’s much too dark to take pictures tonight, I want you to see what’s in the box too. I must be patent and wait until tomorrow, when, hopefully, there will be light. (I’m optimistic the light will return tomorrow.)

2.1) A Mysterious Box, for me?

So now that its tomorrow (time is passing randomly quickly in this blog, just as it has been for me lately. Is this Tuesday? I will ask the computer, no it’s second Tuesday which means its Wednesday.) Lets open the box!! I Can’t wait any longer!!!!

2.2) A large, slightly squished, Pink Paper bag!

2.3) there is a card and note! That was so kind!

OH the pink bag!! What’s in it? It got a little smushed in the box but I found it has a lovey note in it!

Let’s peek inside the pink, its Blue!! With another present beside it! the pins are quite cool and there is a small note book too!

2.4) the blue bag is actually a backpack! “Living Felt BFF Backpack, Quick Dry Nylon”. 2 cool pins and a small note book! with pretty cellophane ribbons!

Let’s investigate further, what’s in the blue bag?

2.5) first peek in the blue bag,

Wet felting supplies! Too many to see while there in the bag! Is that the nose of a ball braus? Also, what is that box shape I feel at the bottom? So many questions, I should unpack it and we can find out.

2.6) what’s inside the bag,

You still can’t see exactly what all this cool pack has. Let’s look at things in smaller groups.

2.7) the Ball Brause for wetting the fiber and “Nuno Felting resist small bubble 24″ x 36″”

2.8) this is the “Wet Felting Thin Resist”

2.91) more of the items in the blue bag displayed on white fabric

Inside the From Left to rite and back to front; “Bamboo Mat” (Fabulous my last one died ages ago!). “Premium Mesh 54”x 1 yard” and “Thin plastic sheeting 9′ x 12’”. Orange ties, (these are the same material I use to tie up the loom for warping, but the warping ones are mostly blue), and finally “Olive Oil Soap” we should probably take a peek inside the box and see what it looks like. I tried some very cheep olive oil soap the last wet felting project and liked it, so this much nicer one should be wonderful. its also Much bigger!

2.92) olive oil soap, I am looking forward to trying this!

It’s been a rough couple months here, and it will be a bit longer before I can get back to normal. So this was a wonderful boost to my spirits and gives a focus to look forward to later this summer.

Marie has been a great enjoyment through this, even if afterwards I am a bit unsure of what the chat had been about, and was a source of inspiration before surgery. She tends to have more introductory felting topics but many of them have inspired something different from what she had intended. If you have felted before or felted a lot, you can take the idea and run with it in a different direction or if you are new to felting you can follow along as suggested. You may remember my Bat on a stick (ok it’s a mettle chopstick) let me show you what I should have been making first, then show you what I did with the instructions. (I got distracted and added an armature for wings, with muscles.)

3.1) Needle Felt Simple Animals: Bat, Owl, and Red Panda Forest Friends! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vePY10Y72U&t=19s

What my bat looked like. I gave him arms and added biceps, triceps and deltoids.

This was a fabulous surprised and really cheered me up. Thank you to Marie who is inspiring so many people to try felting, wet or dry.

______________________

Off topic, I was starting to suspect that we would never get spring. (Someone was hogging it!!!) Well I think it may be arriving, I saw scilla, crocus and lungwort in the front garden! The weeping pussy willow even has kitten(?) on it! There is No sign of the tree migration yet, but any day now I’m sure! We even have a new side-door-rain-cover, which we found at Ikea. Here are a few shots to inspire you, in case you are still waiting for spring too. Soon we can all set up our outdoor studios, wash fleeces, and have fun!!! Happy felting!!

4.1-4.3)

4.1- The Scilla has escaped the flowerbed and attacked the Nabors grass! A single white crocus.

4.2-The purple Crocus are coming up. Part of the front bed and a close up. note the aggressive flower attacking that leaf!

4.3- the portable forest awaiting the beginning of the migration. The weeping pussy willow has had kittens!, the new sun shade by the side door(the garden bench will get moved back on the weekend).

Another book resist shape sample

April 24, 2025 Shepherdessann Comments 8 comments

This is the shape I am currently working on. It started as half circles with a section flattened so I could tape them together the other way around.

I have a flower shape in my head.

I didn’t get very far before life interfered again. We had all the snow I showed you last time melt, and then another dump of snow and melt. Now the scillas are out.

Sometimes, when I think about the cuts I am planning, I think it will work, and then other times, I think no, that’s not going to work at all. Then, I started thinking about how to figure it out. The best way for me to do that is to write out how to do it. Then I had to sort out what would be the best way to try it out without having to actually make it.

I figured out a good way to model the shapes and wrote that out, but now I have to do a trial run to see if it works and if I missed anything.

It mostly worked the way I think it will, but I have another idea I am thinking about that may work better. Thinking is as far as I have gotten with that.

So far, I think the online class will be a 3-week class, with several weeks of after-class help access. How long is normal for after-class access?

Self-Felting; a Fictitious Fun Felting Class for The Fur-bearing Who Lack Thumbs

March 17, 2025 Jan Comments 21 comments

Here’s a quick update: I am improving, but it’s two steps forward and a step and a half back. Unfortunately, the two blog posts I have been working on are just not ready to go yet. So I wanted to tell you about something a bit different, I have been working on. It is felting adjacent and made Glenn laugh a lot.

The local guild is working on recruiting new teachers for our workshops. One of the barriers suggested to the acquisition of new teachers is “the paperwork requirements are intimidating”. I am easily intimidated by forms, but I didn’t find this process at all scary.

The request was:

Craft CV (basically, what’s your background in your craft and how long have you been doing it?)
A lesson plan for your first workshop. Giving a suggestion of what you will be teaching, outcome goals for the students and a very basic idea of how you will do this.

Later all the teachers will fill out a spreadsheet that is used to create the schedule, and the web pages. I made a yearlong catalogue of workshops to be displayed at demos and the guild sale. I used the information the teachers provided, and the schedule the team put together to produce it. After I had all the cut and paste and layout done, there were always lots of spelling mistakes that would be attributed to me….. I cut and pasted! Not my spelling problems!! Since the pandemic, we are no longer doing a full catalogue, but I am no longer in trouble for other people’s spelling problems. I do miss the fun of layout.

Now, on to the point of this very odd post.

I wanted to help by giving a non-intimidating sample form, for “New teacher”, of a new yet fictitious felting class. After writing this, I had this odd idea that actual felters might enjoy reading about this very unlikely felting workshop I created as a sample to make the forms less scary for potential new teachers. I have simplified the wording of the original questions again to reduce fear.

__________________

This is a craft CV ( which is just a fancy way of saying “what you have been doing in your craft”). It’s a way to find out about the potential new teacher’s background in what they want to teach. (it doesn’t have to be a stuffy list of all relevant education and exhibitions!) So let’s see what Miaka has to say about herself and her felting background. She has added some extra remarks beyond the questions that she hopes the teacher acquisition committee will take into consideration.

Fiber CV for Miaka Scott-Martin,

Education: Home schooled and self-taught felter. I have been the Center of the universe for many years, directing my staff in its running. Unfortunately, my staff are not too bright and refuse to do my carefully explained bidding. I use my love of felting to relieve this stress and utter disappointment.

o When did you start the craft you are going to teach? In my teens.

o Have you taken workshops on this topic, or are you self-taught? I developed this technique myself.

Craft experience: I watched my mother weave, felt and spin and assisted in some of these activities. Then, in my teens, I started to experiment with techniques of self-felting. After years of experimentation, I have come up with a style of felting suitable to those of us inflicted by a lack of thumbs.

My technique is suitable for most fur-bearing people who shed. It is easier if you are also able to purr. I practiced my felting for close to 20 years.

Teaching experience: my full-time job has me instructing and supervising the staff, but I must be patient with their inadequacies. I have extensive experience successfully instructing the big barking bad smelling new sibling on how to be the perfect cat.

o Do you have teaching experience (with adults)? Great success with other fur-bearing people, the furless ones have proved a bit dim.

o If you do not have previous teaching experience, you can partner with a guild teacher in your field to help give you experience.

Shows and exhibitions: This is not essential. Guild members can participate in guild shows and exhibitions if you would like the experience.

o Have you participated in any art shows or exhibitions in your field? Alas, with my busy schedule of keeping the universe running, I was unable to enter any shows or exhibits even though I was a family member of the guild my entire life. I was also unable to make anyone understand my superior typing style of body slamming the keyboard, so all the needed letters were there; you just needed to sort them out on your own.

Portfolio: Show examples of their work in the field of their workshop. (shows that the prospective teacher has not just taken a workshop on a topic, and after one piece is wanting to teach the topic.) Some teachers have a web presence and we can be directed to see their work there.

o Do you have a portfolio to show us or a website to direct us to? Due to the ephemeral nature of my work and the horror of passing vacuum cleaners, most of my art installations have not survived. Please talk to my mother (one of the Guild librarians) for further details on them. I was particularly proud of my master-work, “Self-felting on white Dining room chair cover”. Alas, this great work too was lost to the horrid vacuum.

o Please provide a good quality digital photo of yourself for web publicity and teacher bios.

Possible teacher photos:

small black and white cat sitting on cow hide in a spot of sunlight 1) Miaka, taking a break from work,

2) Miaka, looking out back of her sports car,

3) Miaka, center of the Universe, “Don’t interrupt me I’m Busy!”

____________________________________________________________________

New instructors were asked to write a very basic lesson plan of their workshop, giving an overview, goals and objectives. This gives the committee an idea of how the topic will be covered and that the teacher has thought through and has an organized presentation. This is Miaka’s plan to teach her workshop on self felting.

Outline of lesson plan for workshop

1 day workshop with longer homework project

Class size; maximum number of fabric-covered chairs that can sit in good direct sunlight. Any Students who are too big to lounge on a chair are required to bring a blanket or pillow that they will fit on.

Prerequisites for this workshop:

No experience in felting necessary
Must have shed-able fur

Housekeeping

introduction of the teacher and what the workshop is about
where the washrooms are
point out the coffee maker, microwave and fridge
Mention local food sources.
Gets students to say their names and felting experience

Overview of the course

what students will be expected to do and learn
What the final project will be.
Notes can be given at the beginning or end of the workshop
Contact information for the teacher in case the students have questions

Introduction to felting, (fibres and how it works)

How to grow your own fiber (good diet, lots of naps, dual coat, good grooming, etc)

Tools required

Sunny spot with a comfortable sitting item (Chair, couch, other fabric covered object)
An un-sunny spot can also be used, but it’s not as warm. This is sometimes the better location to felt, depending on your home cleaning staff.

Shedding

Practice shedding with suggestion from the teacher. (use of music, turning and repositioning regularly, long yawns and brief naps may be helpful)
Some find shedding easiest at certain times of the year, others are more fortunate and can shed whenever and on whatever they like.
Professional shedders can shed a single colour to stand out most on what someone else is wearing.

Self-felting

Regular turning and repositioning with constant purring will improve speed of felting.
Drool may also be applied but is not necessary for felt integrity.
This is not a quick process, and may be best achieved on a fabric surface not regularly used by others.

Problems you may encounter

BEWARE of the Vacuum, which can ruin months of good shedding and felting! I suggest “vomit in shoe” revenge if this happens.

Inspection and Positively critique the sample felting produced today.

Be positive and make suggestions for use on their masterwork home project. Answer any questions the students may still have.
Fill out the workshop questionnaire, since the students lack thumbs, their staff may assist them.

homework student master pieces

Students will practice what they have learned in the workshop at home, in a location of their choosing.
Suggested time line is working over the summer and have your self-shredded felt ready for the September show and tell meeting.
Students will bring in their finished felt for show and tell to a guild meeting. (get your staff to drive you back on the meeting Monday)

________________________________________________

After a teacher has done their CV and Sample lesson plan, the teacher acquisition committee will review the information provided and, if accepted, will pass along to The Workshop Coordinator a list of new teachers. The Coordinator will send out a spreadsheet of questions to fill in for each workshop that the teachers are offering for the time frame she has requested. That looks a bit scary but the questions are not too hard. Like, what time do you want to start your workshop, when do you want it to end? After teachers spend a bit of time answering all these odd seeming questions and sending it back, the workshop team will create the schedule.

Fill in the spreadsheet sent to teachers, it will have questions about the workshop and your teaching availability, and what level of students you want to teach.
You will also be asked for a couple of high resolution (good number of megapixels) photos for your workshop. What you are making is ideal. Miaka has elected to show an example of shedding for both cats and barking cats, as well as a shot of her wanting to felt but not having thumbs.
Availability: Let the coordinator know when in the next workshop time period you will be available. Eg: evening workshops, but not Friday, weekends good, not in March or September. Have holiday plans for April 1 to 4^th so not available.

Workshop description (this information is used to publicize the workshop, on the web, at demos, or at guild meetings) Here is an example of what Miaka’s workshop might look.

Title: Self-Felting: for those who are lacking opposable thumbs

Instructor: Miaka Scott-Martin
Level: Beginner (B)

Prerequisite: no felting experience necessary, must have own fur, ability to purr is an asset.
Cost: (to be determined by Workshop team, by the number of hours the class runs)

Class size: 10, determined by the maximum number of fabric covered chairs and good direct sunlight. Students who are too big to lounge on a chair are required to bring a blanket or pillow that they will fit on.
Venue: Studio

4) Don’t let the lack of opposable thumbs get you down and keep you from enjoying the wonders of 2-D felting

Description:

Have you always wanted to felt, but lack opposable thumbs? This is the workshop for you! We will be creating a self-made 2-D felt. Taught in the guild studio, we will spend the day covering the topics of growing your own fiber, how felt happens, strategies for shedding, and where to shed for best felting outcome. We will make a small sample in class, then produce your masterwork at home. The teacher will provide notes and be available to answer questions if you have trouble during your homework.

Start your self-felting fun today!!!

Example of group self-felting project, in progress, tragically destroyed by a passing vacuum

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5.1) Barking Cat and 5.2) the Center of the Universe, collaborative felting project in progress

Students should bring: On the day of the workshop, bring your own un-brushed fur (to produce the best effect, avoid the brush for a few days to a week before the workshop)

Materials fee: $3 includes all the materials required for the workshop. To be paid to the teacher.

___________________________________

I hope you have enjoyed reading about Miaka’s proposed self-felting workshop, even if you are not self-producing your own fiber to self-felt. There may be a fur-bearing instructor near you, who is willing to provide a similar workshop that you could investigate.

As to her technique, the purring defiantly helps the felting, but I’m not convinced you have to listen to progressive new opera for the best results. This is a slow, careful build up of fiber, and requires time to get just the cohesive layering you are going for. It requires long periods of napping and body readjusting to perfect the felting process. This technique is not advised for those with fur allergies or those who lack fur. <Grin>

Miaka lived to just short of her 20^th birthday. Luckily she got her Giant fish cat cave, which I told you about before, early and got to enjoy it for a short time. She continued her self-felting projects, experimenting with various work surfaces, into her very senior years. I am sure if she had run this workshop, it would have been successful, (I would have helped her with notes and photos).

6.1) The Giant Cat cave fish, to give you an idea of the size of it

6.2) Miaka, curled up beside her Cat Cave fish. Tiny cat giant fish!

If you have the opportunity to share your knowledge with others who are interested in any of the fiber arts, please do. That could be formally as a teacher or informally at a social or chatting at a fiber fair. Sharing knowledge keeps the techniques from being lost or forgotten. Often when teaching, you will have a student try something that is brilliant and you will also learn from them.

Hopefully this hasn’t been too strange a post, I will endeavor to make more sense in my next one.

Have fun and keep felting!

felting techniques class

January 24, 2025 Shepherdessann Comments 12 comments

Sorry For the late post, I thought today was tomorrow.

Last weekend I had four ladies for a techniques class. This is not an advanced class, but it is also not a beginner class. People had to already know how to make felt.

First, we did inclusions. They used a piece of thicker prefelt and elastics to enclose some large glass beads (the kind they are used in the bottom of vases for decoration) and a felt ball. Then laying out a base and top they enclosed some glass beads, a felt ball, a circular resist with a hole and a squashed tasimo pod with a resist over it. Sorry, I forgot to grab the camera until they were at the rubbing stage. Part way through they cut some holes on top of the beads and pod.

When they were laying out I had them cover a pebble with 2 layers in different colours. I had them put a resist on top of the first layer and wrap it with the second colour. They popped them into a piece of nylon stocking to contain it all and make it easier to felt. You can see the first sample on the table in the picture below. They mostly felted the pebbles during lunch while eating and chatting. Once it was mostly done they cut a hole in the top and after healing the cut edge removed the resist and cut a smaller hole to reveal the pebble. Similar to the one below that I made a few years ago.

Next was cracked mud. I had them layout two 10×10 pieces( top and bottom) they added painter’s tape in 2 widths and then added the top

Naturally, because it was a wet felting class, they had to do some rolling.

I had them cut the mud sections at different stages of felting, prefelt, mostly done and done. so they could see how that affects it. I think they could have used more felting before the fulling but we had limited time and had to move on to book resists. I had them make a four-page book resist using half circles. they managed to get it laid out and wet down but then we were out of time so they had to take them home to finish.