I’ve discovered another loved fiber art technique: Needle felting! It’s great fun made by hand from pure wool fibers. The basics are that you use special needles with barbs along the shaft. These barbs help to weave the fibers of the wool as you punch the fibers on a felt base.
I’ve learned so much from others who enjoy felting and are incredibly talented at it.
Visit Debra at http://www.etsy.com/shop/Deebs. Her work is amazing and she has been kindly sharing her knowledge with me. Debra refers to this process as “wool painting”.
Together with my friend Marina we have been creating beautiful artwork using this technique. Just today we spread out Merino wool fibers in a wet felt process and made felt mats, which will be used as the basis for later art projects.
Here are a couple of examples of some new pieces I made this week that are for purchase via my Etsy shop.
-
- Jordan River Needle Felt
-
- Sea of Galilee Needle Felt
Let me know if you want to learn to do this. It’s handmade so required supplies basically consist of wool fibers and needles. I found a local store to buy the supplies, called HabayitShelBitik.
1 Comment
Margaret and Linda
September 15, 2011 at 5:00 pmHow true! My partner in all things sheep/fleece/fibre, Linda, is a lifelong artist, and when she discovered needlefelting it was very inspiring. We also call the workshops we offer “painting with fleece” — that describes the process so well. The wonderful thing about needlefelting is how flexible a craft it is. People engage with it in a very personal way and can create very satisfying pieces at any level of experience. I hope you can connect a lot more people to this wonderful craft.