Felt Unique

<h1>Home Page</h1> <hr> <h2>Felt Unique</h2> <p>Welcome to 'Felt Unique' - a platform for the felt making activities of Tessa Mendez.</p> <table border="0" align="center" summary="" cellspacing="5"> <tr> <td> <h3>Instruction</h3> <div class="c1" type="disc"> <p>Individual instruction and group workshops by arrangement.</p> <ul type="disc"> <li>City and Guilds Certificate Holder (Creative Studies CGLI 7901). <li>Teaching experience in Design to City and Guilds students. <li>Recreational classes. <li>Felt maker since 1989.</li> </ul> <h3>Exhibition</h3> <ul type="disc"> <li>Felt articles made by Tessa are available for exhibition.</li> </ul> <h3>For Sale</h3> <ul type="disc"> <li>Ready made articles for sale. <li>individual requirements on a commission basis.</li> </ul> </div> </td> <td><IMG height=350 alt="White Bag" src ="images/white_bag1b.jpg" width=353 align=right border=0 name=pic_size ></td> </tr> </table><hr> <h1>Background</h1> <hr> <h2>About Tessa</h2> <table width="95%" border="0" align="center" summary=""> <tr> <td><img src="images/scarf1b.jpg" width="178" height="349" border="1" alt="scarf"></td> <td><h3>A Lifetime Working with Materials</h3> <p>I cannot remember a time in my life when I was not involved in crafts and design; my interests began in childhood with hand knitting, and has evolved over the years to include a variety of different disciplines, from Machine Knitting, Spinning, Dyeing, Hand and Machine Embroidery and Felt-making. </p> <h3>Getting Started with Felt</h3> <p>I have been making felt since 1989, it has been an enduring passion since my first very `soggy’ encounters changing woollen fibres into felted fabric. The felt-making process indulges my love of working with wool as a medium and the finished result enables me to employ some decorative techniques in dyeing the fibres and embellishing this by either hand or machine embroidery. </p></td> </tr> </table> <h3>An Individual Style</h3> <p>My felt will usually include other fibres and fabrics such as silk, muslin, and occasionally man made materials, (often unrepeatable as I source many fabrics from Car Boot Sales and Charity Shops). I particularly enjoy making fine felted items such as garments and scarves using silk, mixing coloured fibres to create pictures, as well as three-dimensional items such as bags, hats etc. </p> <p style="text-align=center"><img src="images/pennine_perspective2.jpg" width="518" height="350" border="1" alt="Pennine Perspective"></p> <h3>Teaching Experience</h3> <p>After studying for City and Guilds Certificate I qualified as a teacher and for a while taught design and machine knitting to adults at Joseph Priestley College and centres around North Yorkshire, however circumstances dictated that I return to full time employment and my craft activities have been part time since. </p> <table width="95%" border="0" align="center" summary=""> <tr> <td><img src="images/red_horse_bag.jpg" width="483" height="350" border="0" alt="Bag in 'red horse felt'" align="left"> </td> <td></td> </tr> </table> <h3>Status as a Felt Maker</h3> <p>I am a member of the International Feltmakers Association and exhibited a picture in their travelling exhibition two years ago selling a piece from Stockport Art Gallery. More recently as a member of the Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers I designed felted work under the title of The Red Horses, I dyed all the fibres used in this work and it was exhibited in York. </p> <h3>Passing on Techniques</h3> <p>I enjoy sharing the knowledge I have gained over the years and am happy to consider running workshops. I am also happy to discuss individual commissions should you like what you have seen in my gallery. </p> <hr> <h1>About Felt</h1> <hr> <h2>History of Feltmaking</h2> <table border="0" align="center" width="95%"> <tr> <td><img height="350" alt="" src="images/red_horse_hanging.jpg" width="313" border="1"></td> <td> <h3>In Early Times</h3> <p>Wool felt has a very long history dating as far back as 6500b.c. Feltmaking has its place in Britain's history as well as, Scandinavia, Russia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, India and China. Utility and decorative items are still being made In the middle east today such as Yurts, rugs, bags etc.</p> </td> </tr> </table> <h3>Present Day</h3> <p>There is a growing body of contemporary designer feltmakers worldwide, who have gathered together to form the International Feltmakers Association. Its aim is to develop and promote feltmaking as a medium for expressing art, craft and design.</p> <hr> <h2>The Technology of Feltmaking</h2> <h3>The Structure of Wool</h3> <p>The structure of wool is similar to that of hair consisting of overlapping scales with serated edges.  The scales of the wool open up during the felting process (by the application of a mixture of heat and moisture soap helps the fibres to move around) and the fibres become tangled together, shrinking lengthways forming the felted fabric.  This can be used in the design of an item to determine the shape and character of the finished article.</p> <h3>Moisture, Friction and Heat</h3> <p>Except when it happens unintentionally! - felt requires a degree of effort. In order to felt woollen fibres they need to be exposed to moisture, friction and heat, this is done by laying out the fibres in layers of alternating direction, on a bamboo mat and / or bubble wrap, wetting the wool with soapy water and rolling it, turning it after every hundred rolls or so, this creates the friction, soap is applied to help the fibres move together and heat is gradually introduced to help the process on the way.</p> <table border="0" align="center" summary=""> <tr> <td><img height="467" alt="detail of sari vest" src= "images/sari_vest_detail.jpg" width="350" border="1"></td> </tr> </table> <h3>Felt has a different structure from the wool fibres it is formed from.</h3> <p>In other words the poor fibres are badly abused. When exposed to these elements the scales of the fibres open up and move around getting in a general tangle. The serrated edges of the fibres latch together forming a matted mass, which is your felt.</p> <table border="0" align="center" summary="" width="95%"> <tr> <td><img height="351" alt="" src="images/feltbag1b.jpg" width="263" border="1"></td> <td> <h3>A Wide variety</h3> <p>There is no `correct way to make felt. There are probably as many ways to make felt, as there are felt-makers, so it is a matter of what works for you. You expend a lot of physical effort in the felt pieces and it is better to understand how the fibres are going to behave, than to set out on a large project to find the felt is not what you had intended. This is why it is probably better to make small pieces of felt first and experiment, to build up a body of information, which will be more made more useful by making notes on what fibres, quantities and methods you have used.</p> </td> </tr> </table> textile,weaving,material <hr>