This past Sunday I attended an excellent wet felting workshop in Toronto taught by Monika Aebischer. You can see her beautiful work and teaching schedule at http://www.theolivesparrow.com. I had gotten ill for the originally scheduled workshop, so I joined other participants who were learning nuno felting in which they combined silk and felt to create gorgeous scarves. I worked on a handbag with an inside pocket made with the resist technique. That’s a technique where you make felt by enclosing a pattern with wool roving and felting around it. The pattern is removed at the end and presto, you have a seamless felt piece. It’s something I had tried to learn from books, to no avail. I took the nearly completed bag home and have worked on it since, shrinking the fibre further and cutting out the handles. I’m very happy with the results and intend to try more resist felting since the method opens up many possibilities. Here’s some photos of the finished piece. An added bonus is that the purse can be turned inside out.
Arts of May 