Monday 11 October 2010

THE CONTEMPORARY FELT SCENE

Our meeting on Saturday 9th October was well attended for the talk by Sheila Smith who told us about how felt originated thousands of years ago in Central Asia.  It was an important part of life for the Nomadic people who created tents made from long strips of felt which could be rolled up, bags and carpets, for easy transportation of their homes when the shepherds were  looking for new grazing areas.

Sheila had attended a symposium a few years ago in Hungary which included workshops on inlaid felt, run by women from Kirgizstan.   She had several samples of this technique, including 3 or 4 she had made herself, plus a lovely little traditional doll made by the women – picture below.

P1010255

Sheila passed around many samples of her work, from the early thicker pieces to the very fine work she likes to create now.

She described the making of Nuno felt onto scrim or silk chiffon as a backing fabric and the use of prepared needlepunch felt which is available widely nowadays.

For those of us who like to recycle old knitwear, Sheila had made a bag from an old sweater – but warned that if you want it to shrink by washing in the machine, first make sure it is pure wool!  It can be very disappointing to open the washing machine to find the sweater has only partially shrunk due to a mixture of wool and acrylic fibres having been used.  Her warning was – read the label first!  All is not lost however as it can be attached to a layer of needle punch felt and worked on an embellishing machine – hers was a bag to be proud of.
(Note: On the other hand I had the terrible experience of washing my daughter’s sweater purchased in  American with the USA flag on the front, and which had been worn once – put it in with other washing at a cotton setting!!!   Need I say more – it would have fitted a small baby – wish I had had my embellisher then – could have made her a very nice bag!)

The photographs below show some examples of Sheila’s work.

P1010253
Part of a waistcoat front using grey wool fibres, black silk chiffon and painted silk flowers.

P1010254
Sample technique piece used as a demonstration at a show – hand punching knitting wools and fibres into a pre-felt backing.

P1010256
Bags need to be made from a thicker felt and are made on a template the shape and size of the finished bag – a lot of hard work – I know I have tried this method!

Thank you Sheila for a very entertaining afternoon.

No comments:

Post a Comment