Introduction

New Dimensions in Felt: Felting Around a Ball (Beth Beede) – Felting around a ball produces a simple, rounded, three-dimensional felt, which can then be fulled and formed into many shapes. It produces hats of many styles—cloches, berets, small-brimmed hats, pillboxes, caps—as well as masks, bags, vessels, and sculptural forms.

Projects

Autumn Winds Vessel – Sharon Costello finds the vessel a compelling sculptural form. She is drawn to its feminine symbolism.

Crown of Autumn Leaves – Omi Gray comes from a long line of hairstylists. Her earliest work with fiber was hairstyling in the tradition of Madame C.J. Walker, using a range of techniques from age-old African to new and innovative.

Magnolia Lariat – Gail Crosman Moore has been making glass beads for over a decade. Wanting a material to juxtapose against her glass beads, she decided to pursue feltmaking.

The Brick House Handbag – Lisa Klakulak cites our need to protect our vulnerable human selves as the inspiration for her handbag series.

Coil-Rimmed Vessel – Heather Kerner debuted her vessels at the New York Sheep and Wool Festival in 2001. Her tasteful array of forms, which brought to mind ceramic pots and gourd baskets, married basketry techniques with felt and created a buzz that weekend.

Scandinavian Booths with Hungarian Flair – Pat Spark uses a closed-template method learned from Hungarian feltmaker Istvan Vidak to make hollow three-dimensional objects in felt.

Transition Felt Hat – Jackie Mirabel’s stylish hats, though tempered by a refined elegance, convey a sense of humor.

Zabuton Meditation Cushion – Theresa May-O’Brien has always found inspiration in the beauty of her surroundings. Having enjoyed recognition as a landscape artist, creative inquiry led her from watercolor to fiber, where she applies the eye of a painter to feltmaking.

Slippers with a Floral Twist – Linda Van Alstyne was swept away by the immediate gratification, endless adventure, and physicality of feltmaking. Felting around a pair of simple oval resists yields a pair of perfectly fitted slippers, to which she adds a spike that blooms at the end.

Gossamer Saffron Scarf – Elizabeth Buchman has a deep and abiding regard for craft, especially felt, which offers her a full spectrum of form through fabric, structural and sculptural techniques, and color.

Ulonga-Bora Tote Bag – Alexa Ginsburg is intrigued by the complex cloth achieved by felting into silk. She frequently incorporates handdyed or printed silk fabric into her feltmaking as the base fabric and surface decoration.

Transfixed Butterfly Cape – Lucy Zercher was a knitter and weaver when she came upon feltmaking in 1989.

Tea Dress – Carol Huber Cypher enjoys imagining her surroundings rendered in felt. No other medium has offered her felt’s capacity for color and shape.

Zebrine Vest – Cassie Lewis is intrigued by the idea of creating fabric in this twenty-first century with the same simplistic methods used by the ancients. She finds the manual work physically and mentally satisfying.

Floating Poppies – Linda Brooks Hirschman, inspired by the brilliant color and unique flower-like shapes of Dale Chihuly’s glass sculptures, wondered if she could transform her handmade felt into a three dimensional translucent sculpture that resembles glass. 

Cascading Collar  – Gar Wang, a painter and sculptor, enjoys feltmaking as an organic process that enables color and shape to evolve simultaneously.

Heart Leaves – Diana Clark’s parents raise alpacas on their farm. Faced with an abundance of this lustrous and luxurious fleece, she found the perfect use in feltmaking.

Fantasy Necklace – Phyllis Dintenfass credits her lifelong love of creating beaded jewelry to growing up in New York City and living in Africa and Europe, where she was exposed to a variety of cultures as well as throngs of interestingly adorned people.

Circus Ottoman – Nicole Chazaud Telaar was formerly a corporate textile designer, specializing in home furnishing fabrics. Since becoming a feltmaker, she enjoys this versatile, spontaneous and small-scale method of creating her own patterned fabrics.

Gallery
Felting Basics and Information
Sources
Artist Contact
Index