When I first learned to felt, I was under the assumption that everything needed to be felted together, in one piece, otherwise you weren’t truly felting; you were cheating.
Fixing things was a bit of no-no or the sign of a not good enough felter.
I disliked having to be perfect, especially with nuno-felting and knowing that one slip-up, could ruin the whole piece, took all the fun away. When I realized I could make that slip-up a design element, well, the whole world changed.
Lo and Behold when I freed myself from that concept, the true creation, for me, began. and I was freed to explore an endless variety of possibilities. I could inject my sculptural and visual fine arts background into my felt works.
I began with making nuno-felted fabric as the base for my cloche hats - I bought a 1920’s sewing hat pattern and began cutting the fabric and piecing it together. It opened up possibilities that making a hat in one piece, didn’t afford. I found the hat in the fabric and used the oops moments as creative design possibilities. And yes, I even fixed the silk down with a needle and thread, where it hadn’t attached properly. I cheated all the time!!!
And gosh, it made me happy!!!
Judith Mueller - www.judithmueller.ca