| Simply magic! Eureka! That's how it "felt" when I first discovered needle felting at a small Bangor workshop in 2001, and I have felt that way many times in the years since. I love the simplicity of the materials and the process. Some natural or colored fibers, my hands, the felting needle )or needles, sometimes used in combination), and a piece of foam to work on, to minimize stabbing myself - and Band-Aids for when I inevitably do - and I'm in business! I also love the soft, warm, tactile quality of the creations.
Growing up on a dairy farm in Alaska, I had ample time and space to exercise my imagination in several creative ways, but my main form of creative expression became large wood sculptures, until a few years ago. At that time, pounding wood was growing to taxing, so I cast around and rediscovered the joys of color, in a pastel-painting phase.
Later, when I first tried needle felting, I recognized that the process offered a unique blend of form and color in one medium. With what other single medium can you create both sculpture and paintings?
Just what is needle felting? Most people think of felting as the millennia-old tradition of creating non-woven fabric from animal fibers, using hot water, soap, and extensive rolling and rubbing. Needle felting also creates felt, but with the use of special needles instead of soap and water, so it is sometimes called "dry felting". The needles were originally designed to be used in large numbers in massive machines for the industrial production of felt. In a fascinating reversal of the Industrial Revolution, around 1986 someone decided to try jabbing the fiber with a handheld needle, and needle felting was born! The "magic" of needle felting lies partly in the nature of wool and other fibers. Microscopic scales on the fiber shafts are grabbed, and forced to interlock, by small grooves on the thin needles, with the repetitive jabbing motion. The process is often used to create very simple forms or decorative embellishments to other fabric, sometimes combined with wet felting. I prefer to create more complex sculptures or paintings, by building up tufts of pre-dyed fiber, like clay or paint. Compared with wet felting, needle felting affords much greater control of the ultimate form and design.
I hope this brief description helps you understand the basics of needle felting, but doesn't dispel the feeling of magic. It's still magic for me. |
