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| FULLING AND FELTING |
| Felt has been around for thousands of
years. It is a strong, warm, durable and versatile fabric.
Traditionally wool felt was made by using warm water, soap and lots and
lots of rubbing. Doing this caused the individual strands of wool
fiber to join together and become more and more dense until the wool turned
to a single piece of felt.
The process changed very little until the industrial revolution when felting by machine came along. The felting machines employed thousands of small barbed needles which would cause the fibers to interlock and felt without the use of soap or water. "Needle felting" as an art is a term for using one or more felting needles by hand to create flat felt or felt sculpture. The first use of felting needles in this manner that we know of was in the early 1980's. It allows great freedom for the artist to sculpt and shape the wool, creating flat as well as 3-D pieces. Each of the needle felted pieces in this exhibit represent thousands and thousands of pokes with a small sharp needle into un-spun wool (and possible some pokes to the fingers as well). "Fulling" is the term used to describe the felting of any constructed (knitted, crocheted, woven) item after it has been made. For instance, a hat can be knit, then subjected to hot water, soap and agitation, thus being "fulled". If the hat is formed by fiber subjected to heat and agitation and shaped, it is "felted". |
| Michelle Martin
I have had a love affair with giving form to raw wool since first learning to use a drop spindle in college. Over the years I have experimented with spinning, knitting, weaving and now felting. While I use both wet and dry felting techniques, my passion is needle felting. This involves using a very sharp needle with barbs on the shaft to lock the wool fibers together, forming felt. I find a great deal of freedom and creativity in the process. There is a great joy in taking ordinary objects from nature and giving them personalities as a face is created. It is a pleasure to see how unique each and every piece is, even starting from the same base shape. some projects change midstream as the personality of the face evolves. Needle felting came into my life in 2004 after a trip to Rainbow Fleece Farm in New Glarus Wisconsin. In the beginning I experimented on my own and learned from books, creating toys for my two children and as gifts for friends. Then the 2006 Felting Symposium offered a wonderful range of gifted instructors and the creative process broadened. I became even more immersed in the creative process later that year as I healed from the death of my father. It became an amazing outlet for me to channel my energies and nurture my soul. I live on the near-east side of Madison. WI with my partner, two children and four guinea pigs. In addition to felting enjoy being a stay-at-home- mom part time childcare provider, and Reiki practitioner. |
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| Sharon Costello
Sharon has been a fiber artist for twenty years and has specialized in feltmaking for seventeen. She is well known for her wonderful needle felted art dolls and felted vessels. She has studied feltmaking in the US, Turkey and Scandinavia and shares her knowledge of the craft teaching workshops through fiber and doll guilds, art schools, colleges, and fiber and doll making conferences throughout the US, Canada and the United Kingdom. She has produced a teaching video on her unique doll making technique. Sharon's work has been featured in Shuttle. Spindle and Dyepot (Handweavers' Guild of America), Echoes (International Feltmakers' Association), North American Felters' Network, Cloth Doll Magazine, Soft Dolls and Animals Magazine, Hudson Valley Magazine, and a wide range of fiber guild and doll makers newsletters in the US and abroad. Her art dolls have been featured in one woman and group shows from New Fork to California, as well as on the Home and Garden Television Network. Sharon is a member of The International Feltmakers Association, North American Feltmakers, Original Doll Artists Council of America (ODACA), the American Academy of Doll Artists and the American Craft Council. Her feltmaking business is called Black Sheep Designs. Sharon has a Fine Arts degree from Syracuse University and an MBA from the State University of New York at Albany. |
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| Kay Kaduce and Judy Jacobs
Kay and Judy, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, have been best friends for over 20 years. They have co-written 2 books on needle felting and have a third in the works. Both books are filled with projects anyone can complete with basic guidance. They have also been teaching classes throughout Wisconsin and Minnesota, Their greatest joy is teaching a class and having the participants "become as excited as we are about needle felting". |
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| All items on display are for sale in this
exhibit.
To learn how to felt, you may want to attend the Midwest Felting Symposium, July 25-29, 2007 featuring artists from across the world (Hungary, Canada, New York, West Virginia, Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, Minnesota, Illinois, and Wisconsin) in Madison, Wisconsin. http://www.MidwestFeltingSymposium.com for details. For future symposiums, contact the sponsor, susan@susansfibershop.com |
| Ruth Knight Sybers
Knitter's Treat Monticello, WI 53570 www.209main.com - Textiles - current and past exhibits at The Dining Room knitterstreat@wekz.net - to join e-mail list for announcements of knitting workshops/new exhibits at The Dining Room at 209 Main knitterstreat@wekz.net - to order patterns, books, Vivian Hoxbro kits, yarn, etc. Lily Chin - March 9, 10,11,12, 2008
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David Braunschweig who assists in "hanging" each exhibit. |
Photos by Lori Manning
Copyright © 2007.
Past Displays:
Nostalgia
- Apron Collection by Jean Adler
TEN
YEARS OF TEXTILE EXHIBITS - Ruth Knight Sybers
SILVER
THREADS -- Lee Ann Kleeman
Point
of View: thread-work by Beth Blahut
Latvian
Textiles
HANDKERCHIEFS
Hooked
Rugs by Ellie Beck
ELIZABETH
ZIMMERMANN
JOYCE
MARQUESS CAREY
AESOP'S
FABLES
First
Knitting Invitational
Weaving
and the Structo Loom
Valentina
Devine Creates
JAPANESE
TEXTILES -- OLD AND NEW
Wearable
Art
Moving
Weft
Men
Who Knit
Quilts
by the Thursday Friends
WEAVING
WITH SEWING THREAD
HISTORIC
MONTICELLO WOOLEN MILL
Katherine
Pence Inspired by Everything
WHY
DO I SPIN?
THE
EARLY KNITTED WORKS OF JOYCE WILLIAMS
EMBROIDERY - the late Ellen
Scheidler
QUILTS OF MONTICELLO
23 HATS BY ESTHER AND OLGA
FROM GRANDMA'S TRUNK
JEAN NORDLUND - Ewe Hues
NAVAJO RUGS Weavings - Fran
Potter
KNITTED LACE
SOCKS
FIRST SHOW Knitting - Ruth
Sybers, Wall hanging - Kathy LaBeil