Tag Archives: wet felting

Exciting Times We Live In

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Last week Ruth sent her usual reminder that I am scheduled to publish a post on the Felting and Fibre Studio Forum, a reminder that I am always grateful for as life often gets in the way and activities like writing blog posts always seem to be the first to fall through the cracks. I can safely say the last month or two definitely qualify as “busy”!

There are so many exciting things happening at them moment, where do I start…?

The New Studio

This one has been an emotional roller-coaster, flip-flopping between ecstatic excitement at the thought of having my own light, bright area where I can work and teach to feeling overwhelmed by living in a topsy turvy mess, never being able to find anything because it was moved to make space for builders to work or because the cupboards where it normally lives have been ripped out…

I have been working out of our double garage since we moved to New Zealand 3 years ago and while the space is (just about) big enough, it has almost no natural light (its still quite dark, even with the lights on), it’s drafty and very cold in the winter. A purpose-built, insulated studio is long overdue 🙂

I’m not convinced ensuite paddling pools will ever catch on…. The builders have had to remove some of the weatherboard cladding to pour the concrete floors, leaving us with 2 walls that are no longer waterproof, so every time it rains we end up mopping the bedroom floors… It rains a lot in Auckland!

Just after the concrete slab was poured

I have plans to install large cupboards with sliding doors along the wall nearest the camera, there will be two large laundry sinks on the right hand wall with drying racks over them and electrical sockets (with retractable leads if I can find some) in the middle of the ceiling.

As it looks this week

What is the one thing in your studio that you wish you had or couldn’t live without?

Auckland Felters Group Exhibition at the Franklin Arts Centre

Resilience – The Fibre That Connects Us

We have hired a gallery space at the Franklin Arts Centre in Pukekohe for 3 weeks. The exhibition will actually open on Tuesday June 18th but our main opening event will be on Saturday 22nd June.

Lynn Hefkey

We will have traders selling various fibres, felting equipment and finished felted items, felting demonstrations and free “have a go sessions” as well as live music all in a beautiful centre with a lovely cafe.

Teri Berry

Places on the “have a go” workshops will be limited so please arrive early to book your place and avoid disappointment. The event will be open from 10 am.

Sarah Ritchie

Everyone exhibiting has very different styles, you will get to see an eclectic mix of wet felting and needle felting, 2D and 3D art works, textural pieces, homewares and wearables.

Lots of Teaching and Fairs!

When I started teaching face to face again (after the lockdowns ended) I pictured maybe one or two classes per month but I have been blown away by the number of requests I received from groups and individuals to host extra sessions this year. Most of them are open to everyone but places are limited, so please drop me a line if you would like to join any of the classes.

Here are some photos from a few of the most recent classes (I keep forgetting to take photos):

Exploring different techniques and materials through samples, these ladies had never made felt before!
Felted Flowers at the new Textile Hub located on the Corban Estate in Henderson in collaboration with the Wool Revolution
A few of the name badges made by the lovely Waiuku Spinners
Envelope Hat workshop in Pukekohe

Two of the students from the hat class made a short video too, you can view it here.

I have several big fibre fairs coming up too:

This Thursday (9th May) is the Cambridge Fibre Fair:

And Saturday May 25th is Woolfest’s 10 year anniversary – if you can only get to one fibre fair this year – I highly recommend this one! There will be about 80 traders selling everything from raw fleeces to yarns and knitwear and everything in between, along with crafting equipment, demonstrations of a wide range of fibre crafts and of course the eternally popular pre-loved equipment stand. Entry is free.

Southern Hemisphere Felters Convergence 2025

Is coming to Auckland!!

I am so excited to be attending my first SHF Convergence I could burst! But confess I never expected to be organising the first one I would get to attend!! At least I have some awesome partners in mischief, Christine Roxburgh and Jenny Forrester along with the amazing Auckland Felters.

We have booked The Parnell Hotel and Conference Centre and Hotel and we’re confident we will be able to secure the school across the road for wet felting activities too. This combination of venues proved to be a hit at the 2015 Convergence. We have been talking with some incredible international tutors about what they could share with us, I so want to tell you who they are and what they plan to teach but until we have contracts in place I really can’t…. but I am sure you will be impressed!

One of the most wonderful things about Convergence is the generous sharing of ideas and techniques, while the headline tutors are certainly a key part of that, we also have a small army of volunteer tutors who give up an hour of their time to share an idea or demonstrate a technique. I have to say, I am just as excited to attend some of the volunteer sessions as I am the headline tutors! We have already received some really intriguing offers but are looking for more to fill all of the time slots, if you plan to attend Convergence and have and idea you’d like to share or a technique you can demonstrate in under an hour we would love to hear from you! Please contact us here

If you’d like to be among the first to hear who our fantastic tutors will be, you can sign up for email alerts about Convergence here.

Dates for your diary: Thursday (registration will open in the afternoon) 25th September to Monday evening 29th September 2025.

Hope to see you there!

The 30 day Folding Challenge Part 3

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Day 16

Carrying on with the pentagons from my last post… what if I stacked increasingly smaller pentagons inside each other?

I felted each pentagon separately and then assembled them like a Russian doll, starting with the smallest in the centre, using loose stitches to hold the “petals” together.

Day 17

I took this book out at the library, it contains some interesting shapes but the instructions weren’t all that helpful, they seemed to be missing quite a few steps and while I love a puzzle, I’m afraid I just couldn’t figure most of the pieces out.

Kunihiko did introduce me to an interesting concept that rang true though – anti-origami. This is a branch of origami where you are allowed to use tools and even (heaven forbid) glue! Breaking a few rules sounds liberating and fun! 🙂

This was the first piece I tried to make from this book:

And (I’m ashamed to say) this is what I produced:

Moving swiftly on from my embarrassing fail I thought the Greek ball looked intriguing. After a couple of failed attempts using Kunihiko’s instructions I turned to Google for help.

Et Voila! How did we ever cope before the internet?!

Then I realised (after several hours of research and wrestling with paper strips) that neither of these projects met my challenge brief – To explore a different folded / pleated shape every day

However, I’m still intrigued by the challenge of trying to make a Greek ball in a seamless way in wet felt.

Going back to the pile of pentagons on my desk… I wondered what if I moved the semicircle folds so they sit over the points of the pentagon?

Admittedly, this way up it doesn’t look significantly different from the Day 11 pentagons.

However, this way up you can see the points are more elevated. I’m undecided if this will be significant but I like this shape.

Day 18

After my first blog post, Henny van Tussenbroek (an extremely talented and knowledgeable felt artist from the Netherlands whose name you might also recognise from her work with the IFA) got in touch. It turns out Andrea Noeske-Porada was not the inventor of the kaleidocylce, she was (one of?) the first to interpret Escher’s design into felt. This is Henny’s book.

I searched online and discovered this book has been translated into several languages and has seen multiple editions. After feeling dismayed that all sellers were asking at least $100+P&P I was overjoyed to discover a copy for just $8NZ, I rather skeptically clicked the link expecting to discover a $100 P&P fee, but no, it really was in NZ and only $4 postage, I literally pounced on the “buy me” button!

It arrived this week and while it is quite a slim manuscript, it really packs a punch for its size. It is nearly 50 years old and it reminded me of reading a scientific journals with its formal style and constant references to Fig.X 🙂

It covers a variety of topics, including the all important plan for a kaleidocycle, but also several geometric forms, different shaped kaleidocyles and something I wasn’t expecting; considerations for repeating patterns to seamlessly decorate them too.

Escher died before I was born but he sounds like a really interesting person – this book describes how he created a space where art met mathematics and geometry and how he coaxed them to become entwined to mind-boggling effect.

I thought I would attempt one of the “simpler” patterns first – an icosohedron (a hollow form with 20 triangular faces):

I now have an internal conflict…. part of me says this form should be easy to recreate in felt using a book resist but as I turn the shape over and over in my hand looking at how the angles of each face change the inner engineer still needs to be convinced….

I need to let this idea percolate for a while.

Day 19

I thought I would try one of Escher’s “proper” Kaleidocycles from a pattern in the book, this is the hexagonal kaleidocycle:

I was a little surprised to find it would not turn / rotate like my felted version does, this is as far as it will go before it feels like the card will tear:

Looking more closely at my felted version I see it has 14 segments compared 6 segments in this card version, I’m not sure it that is why it doesn’t turn or if it is due to the rigidity of the card compared the much more flexible felt? I predict a much larger card version is coming….

Day 20

I revisited a couple of felt pieces, wanting to play with them a little more… Adding a felted ball and a few stitches to the Day 14 pentagon:

Day 21

Adding some stitches to the pentagon with curved pleats from Day 15.