Felting Fun...
Posted by Zoe Fletcher on Saturday, October 9, 2010
Yesterday was a little manic but very enjoyable...after a really early start, my lovely friend Kellie and I travelled to Goole to see Paul and his amazing mill to pick up some combed tops (which literally filled the whole of my car!), ready for our next stop - Rotherham, where I had managed to rent a felting machine for the day!
After a really nice chat with the owners and a demonstration of how to use the massive machine (it looked just like a giant jacket press but with more bolts and fastenings!) we were left to our own devices and had a lot of fun laying out the wool, wetting and soaping it up before letting the machine take some of the hand work away! It took a few goes to get a good consistency - but we had a really great time experimenting and seeing the different thicknesses that could be achieved! The machine can make pieces as big as 3 foot by 5 foot , and works by creating friction between the wool fibres caused by the vibrating movements of the flat inside plates! I now have a huge soapy bag of big pieces of felt ready to hand finish tomorrow in my garage! Hopefully I am going to have time to experiment a little with using felted wool - maybe in a later project now though! However i'm definitely going to use it to see if its tough enough to create fastenings with!
Currently undertaking a PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University within the MIRIAD post-graduate department, I am beginning a practice based academic journey into British wool fibres and new technologies within knitwear design.
Graduating with Distinction from a Masters in Fashion and the Environment at London College of Fashion, specialising in hand-knitting and the British Wool Industry,
I have worked on a number of knitwear collections (personal and external companies), whilst freelancing and researching for a number of exciting projects.
My work revolves around the idea of sustainable fashion from a knitted perspective and the different ways to achieve this incorporating the ideas of slow fashion into mainstream society.
I love knitting.
And wool.
And double sided sticky tape.
