How We Felt: Designs and Techniques from Contemporary Felt Artists

Felt artist Carol Huber Cypher takes readers behind the scenes in search of the techniques and inspirations that define the best contemporary feltmakers. In this beautifully photographed book, images of signature works by admired fiber artists are complemented by in-depth information on creating their unique effects.

Beginning with an iconic project, the technique of felting around a ball that artist Beth Beede made famous and taught throughout the world, the book continues with more than 20 artists and highlights diverse forms, including hats, capes, a dress, bags, slippers, jewelry, rugs, pillows, a curtain, an ottoman, and other decorative pieces, plus vessels, hanging installations, a felted chess set, and other art forms. A gallery showcases other artists and provides further ideas to spark the fiber artist's imagination. Readers are encouraged to use the examples and instructions to inform their own creative endeavors.

In addition to practical information on creating the pieces shown, each project is accompanied by biographical information and insights into the artist's own inspiration. The combination of images, ideas, and information make this book a must-have for feltmakers who want to deepen their repertoire of techniques, aspiring fiber artists seeking new directions for their work, and any reader wanting to be dazzled with breathtaking images of inventive artwork.

Reviews: "A wonderful and very useful source on felting. If you own only one book on the subject, this is money well spent."- South Jersey Bead Society

Introduction

New Dimensions in Felt: Felting Around a Ball (Beth Beede)- Felting around a ball produces a simple, rounded, three-dimensional felt, which can then be fulled and formed into many shapes. It produces hats of many styles - cloches, berets, small-brimmed hats, pillboxes, caps - as well as masks, bags, vessels, and sculptural forms.

• Autumn Winds Vessel- Sharon Costello finds the vessel a compelling sculptural form. She is drawn to its feminine symbolism.
• Crown of Autumn Leaves- Omi Gray comes from a long line of hairstylists. Her earliest work with fiber was hairstyling in the tradition of Madame C.J. Walker, using a range of techniques from age-old African to new and innovative.
• Magnolia Lariat- Gail Crosman Moore has been making glass beads for over a decade. Wanting a material to juxtapose against her glass beads, she decided to pursue feltmaking.
• The Brick House Handbag- Lisa Klakulak cites our need to protect our vulnerable human selves as the inspiration for her handbag series.
• Coil-Rimmed Vessel- Heather Kerner debuted her vessels at the New York Sheep and Wool Festival in 2001. Her tasteful array of forms, which brought to mind ceramic pots and gourd baskets, married basketry techniques with felt and created a buzz that weekend.
• Scandinavian Booths with Hungarian Flair- Pat Spark uses a closed-template method learned from Hungarian feltmaker Istvan Vidak to make hollow three-dimensional objects in felt.
• Transition Felt Hat- Jackie Mirabel's stylish hats, though tempered by a refined elegance, convey a sense of humor.
• Zabuton Meditation Cushion- Theresa May-O'Brien has always found inspiration in the beauty of her surroundings. Having enjoyed recognition as a landscape artist, creative inquiry led her from watercolor to fiber, where she applies the eye of a painter to feltmaking.
• Slippers with a Floral Twist- Linda Van Alstyne was swept away by the immediate gratification, endless adventure, and physicality of feltmaking. Felting around a pair of simple oval resists yields a pair of perfectly fitted slippers, to which she adds a spike that blooms at the end.
• Gossamer Saffron Scarf- Elizabeth Buchman has a deep and abiding regard for craft, especially felt, which offers her a full spectrum of form through fabric, structural and sculptural techniques, and color.
• Ulonga-Bora Tote Bag- Alexa Ginsburg is intrigued by the complex cloth achieved by felting into silk. She frequently incorporates handdyed or printed silk fabric into her feltmaking as the base fabric and surface decoration.
• Transfixed Butterfly Cape- Lucy Zercher was a knitter and weaver when she came upon feltmaking in 1989.
• Tea Dress- Carol Huber Cypher enjoys imagining her surroundings rendered in felt. No other medium has offered her felt's capacity for color and shape.
• Zebrine Vest- Cassie Lewis is intrigued by the idea of creating fabric in this twenty-first century with the same simplistic methods used by the ancients. She finds the manual work physically and mentally satisfying.
• Floating Poppies- Linda Brooks Hirschman, inspired by the brilliant color and unique flower-like shapes of Dale Chihuly's glass sculptures, wondered if she could transform her handmade felt into a three dimensional translucent sculpture that resembles glass.
• Cascading Collar - Gar Wang, a painter and sculptor, enjoys feltmaking as an organic process that enables color and shape to evolve simultaneously.
• Heart Leaves- Diana Clark's parents raise alpacas on their farm. Faced with an abundance of this lustrous and luxurious fleece, she found the perfect use in feltmaking.
• Fantasy Necklace- Phyllis Dintenfass credits her lifelong love of creating beaded jewelry to growing up in New York City and living in Africa and Europe, where she was exposed to a variety of cultures as well as throngs of interestingly adorned people.
• Circus Ottoman- Nicole Chazaud Telaar was formerly a corporate textile designer, specializing in home furnishing fabrics. Since becoming a feltmaker, she enjoys this versatile, spontaneous and small-scale method of creating her own patterned fabrics.

Carol Huber Cypher is an accomplished beader and feltmaker who has studied felting for more than 20 years. She often teaches feltmaking alongside beadwork at national bead shows in addition to conferences, guilds, colleges, seminars, museums, and stores. Carol is an adjunct faculty member in the fashion program at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She has appeared on PBS’ Beads Baubles and Jewels, the DIY Network’s Uncommon Threads, and is the author of Hand Felted Jewelry and Beads (Interweave Press, 2005) and Mastering Beadwork (Interweave Press, 2007). Carol lives in Esopus, New York.