Fabulous hand-felted Fedora

Left: inspiration- a computer generated image of a Fedora found on the internet. Right: the hand-felted reality (made by L, a 12 year old student)

I love working with kids; I love their ambition and enthusiasm; and there’s no where quite like a Special School to find young people (with Autism) who are determined to complete their vision.
 
While working as textiles teacher at Brantwood Specialist School, Sheffield (Mar 2015-Nov 2016) I had the privilege of working with a broad range of students with various special needs including Autism and PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) and guiding them through various, completely unique, textiles projects.

The Felted Fedora made by L, a fairly new student to the school, was completed in my last few weeks at Brantwood. L (aged 12) had spotted the felted top-hat which had been made by one of the senior students at the school and he decided that he too would like to make his own felted hat. The major difference was that the older student was a fairly experienced felter and L had no previous experience of felting at all. But it is pretty impossible to say no to a student who is determined on a project and so, even though I knew that I only had a few weeks left at the school, I let him go ahead with his project.

We used two colours of Norwegian wool fibres, sky blue and lavender, to make L’s Fedora. Norwegian Wool is really suitable for; felted hats, slippers and handbags because it results in a firmer felt and is less prone to pilling than Merino wool fibres.

The first step in making a made-to-measure felted hat is to measure the circumference of the wearer’s head. Other measurements of importance are; the depth/ height of the crown and the width of the brim. You also need to know how much shrinkage to expect during the felting process. I phoned Maggy at www.norwegianwool.co.uk to check my shrinkage and then got my pencil and calculator out to work out these measurements (see photo below).

L wasn’t very involved at this stage partly because of his special needs and also partly because I knew we had a very limited amount of time left until my leaving date.
However he was involved with every other stage in the process and was very focussed on his project. 

I then drew out the bell shaped template on a piece of paper and cut out a resist from stiff builders' plastic. 

L also watched several videos on YouTube which explained the need for a Hat Block. I let him research suppliers and costs of hat blocks and then explained how we could economise by making out own hat block. Give a student a saw and a block of polystyrene and they are obviously going to enjoy the (messy) practicality of this wet-felted hat project! 

The first layer of the 'laying-out' process

Building up the layers until there were five layers of wool fibres on each side of the plastic resist

Flipping the wool/ plastic 'sandwich' over and rubbing to felt the wool fibres together.

After rubbing, rolling in a bamboo at is another method of tangling the wool fibres together.

L cutting through the felted layers to remove the plastic resist.

Tossing the wet and soapy and fedora. This tumbling action is yet another method of continuing the shrinking process.

Still some work to do! 
Over the next few textiles sessions L progressed through his wet felted Fedora project. He seemed to enjoy all the stages but especially the process of shrinking the the fedora onto his own bespoke hat block and the finer detail of the shaping of the top of the crown and the curve of the hat brim.

Marking and cutting the brim to size.  

Rinsing the soap out.  

L worked to get the achieve the traditional Fedora shape.

L made design decisions as his project progressed. He decided to finish the edge with bias binding made from fabric that he had found in the textiles store cupboard at the start of the project. 

Adding a red gem to the front of the crown was the finishing touch. 

L was incredibly proud of his hat (and quite rightly so!) He went on to wear it at school and at home every day for almost a year. This was also an excellent experience for me as his teacher- it was so good to see a young student's confidence blossom. I was lucky that my head teacher gave me the freedom to run projects which were bespoke to each student as this enabled me to achieve so much more success with students in this Special School. 

Roomy and Stylish Felted Handbags that you'll use every day!

Bryony models one of my spotty big bags- notice the mauve colour that I used for the inside.

I have often seen bag making felting workshops advertised but when I have checked the dimensions of the bag I have realised that it is a very small bag; and even some felting kits that are available online are for tiny bags, the kind of bag that I call a ‘wedding handbag’. 

So I decided that if I was going to run hand felted bag making workshops it would be to make a practical and roomy handbag; the type of bag that I would like to use everyday. 

I made my first All SensesArt 'big bag’ back in Summer of 2011 and I have been using it everyday since. Over the months it seems to have softened and moulded to my body shape...a bit like an old Harris Tweed jacket, so it has actually improved with age!

I have run several day long AllSensesArt Felted Big Bag workshops since making my own so I thought it was time to share some of my creative process. 

This is how much it will shrink in size!

I used a favourite bag as a guide for the shape and proportions that I wanted my bag to be. From experience I know how much shrinkage to expect so I scaled my outline up and then cut a template from plastic. I like to use the builders' roofing plastic that is easily available (and very cheap) from builders merchants like Wickes and B&Q.

Laying out the wool takes time but is worth the effort.

To get a good finish and to help reduce the chances of the surface of the finished bag pilling I laid out twelve very thin layers of wool fibres (six layers on either side of the plastic). 

This is much better than laying out fewer thick layers.

I love Cate's choice of rich colours and flamboyant design. 

Even in a day long workshop there isn’t really lots of time to lay out a very complex  design. At the beginning of the session we make our own two sided pre-felt i.e. with two different colours of wool fibres so that it can be used either way up. I often keep my decoration simple by cutting circles, but simple flower shapes, leaf shapes and other geometric shapes are all possible.

Extra decoration can be added using whisps of other coloured wool tops or fluffy knitting yarns such as mohair. 

Cate. These projects can seem enormous at this point!

As we are working on a large scale I have kept the size of workshops quite small- with just four participants per workshop. This means that everyone can have a table to themselves and also that there is enough room when we need access to the kitchen sinks (the hall that I have used has two stainless steel sinks which is great). 

Cutting open to remove the template and further work the handle strap.

It is always an exciting moment when the fibres are felted together enough to cut the template out. But not the time to get too relaxed as there is still quite a bit of felting to be done to further shrink the bag! 

Getting smaller but not quite there yet.

Trish with her finished bag.  For her design she needs to sew on her orange and red felted handles.

Some people like to add a magnetic closure but I have opted to sew a gusset of heavy duty satin lining in with a zip closure. I really like this as it isn’t visible from outside, doesn’t spoil the way that the bag hangs and makes sure that everything is secure inside. 

Cate's completed bag; it is fantastic!

If you would like to make your own felted big bag with me then just get together a group of friends or work colleagues and I can run a full day workshop for you. I need just four people to be able to run these full day classes for only £69 per person. These classes are usually held at Martin Heath Hall, Christchurch Lane, Lichfield, Staffordshire. WS13 8AY but if you prefer I can come to a venue of your choice. 

Cost: £69 (this includes all wool fibres, use of equipment and tea coffee and biscuits).

Spectacular Felted Slippers/ Socks with a Roman Twist

It seems that I am always describing my felting projects as fun and exciting... but really they are! 

Wouldn’t you say that these felted slippers are spectacular? They were made by 25 year 4 children from St Mark’s Primary School, Shelton, Stoke on Trent. That means that the children were all aged between 8 and 9 years old. Wow! they did a fantastic job.

There are lots of reasons why this project was so enjoyable. One is that I had 4 days with the children so we had enough time to make a much more interesting project than simply making slippers. In fact the children were studying the Romans so to start our project off they visited The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery (Stoke on Trent)  and met Peter; a really quite fearsome Roman Centurion.

Through his dramatic performance, storytelling  and props he really brought the Roman era alive for us all.

I had researched and found that although the majority of Roman clothes were woven they did indeed wear some felted items 

Sikyonia embas were fancy women’s shoes made of white felt.

Embades were enclosed boots which had to be ‘put on’ with a foot stepping into them. The boots were lined with felt or fur. 

Piloi were felt socks used with leather sandals and boots to keep feet warm and protect them from getting chafed. 

What a perfect opportunity for a felted slipper project. Whether you call them slippers or  socks the making method is completely the same. 

Here a Roman sock from the famous Vindolanda site in the UK. Note that this one is woven.

On the first day at the museum I also had enough time to introduce the children to handling merino wool fibres and to actually make five large pieces of felt. It was all pretty fast paced with five children at each table but this was a good way to see and feel the wool fibres felting together under their fingertips. 

We chatted about the Roman Sumptuary Laws and how they would have dictated what colours could be worn by people of various social classes. My plan was to use strips cut from these large pieces for a later stage of our Roman Project. 

My second day with the children was in their own classroom back at St Marks. They had already drawn around their feet and I had worked out three sizes, small, medium and large and had cut plastic templates ready for them to felt over.  

I like the two slipper method that most felters now seem to use. They always look huge at the beginning but you have to remember that the the wool fibres shrink by about a third during the felting process. 

I really do wish that I was better at names but I do know that the young lady on the left is Noor. She is starting on her first layer of wool fibres. 

We used white, cream and taupe coloured fibres for the layers which would be on the inside of our slippers. 

We wet the first layer of laid out wool tops, flicked the wet wool and plastic template upside down and then folded the overlapping fibres to hug the edges of the template.

In order to complete the slippers in just two fairly short school days we laid out only two layers of wool tops on either side of the plastic template. However as you will see these layers aren't the thinnest/finest. Each time we laid out a layer we wet it, flipped it over and folded in the edges. 

The first thing that we did at the beginning of day 3 was to decorate the slippers. The children loved this as they were able to get creative with colour combinations and patterns. I admit that we stopped being very authentic with regard to Roman colours at this point but I knew that people feel much happier when they have some free reign over the colours that they are creating with and I wanted the pupils to be excited about wearing their freshly felted slippers.  

There was definitely plenty of enthusiasm for the felting process!

Straight after lunch we cut the slippers in half and the children very excitedly pulled out their plastic resists. 

They put the slippers on 'like boxing gloves' and rubbed any ridges that had formed along the edges.

Finally the moment that we had been waiting for! The moment when everyone ripped off their socks and put on their soggy slippers to felt them onto their feet!

A memorable moment for Mrs Tough the children's teacher. Who needs a fish pedicure when you can have your pupils help to felt your slippers for you?

I love working with children especially because they have such amazing enthusiasm and energy and I have to say that the room was a frenzy of activity that afternoon!

Mrs Tough wanted the children to do some hand sewing during our Roman project so I decided that we would use strips cut from the large pieces of felt that we had made on day one. I told the children how we could use these strips to decorate tunics. People often think that Romans always wore togas but actually tunics were a very important item of clothing which were worn by everyone either as a main garment or under a toga.

The tunics were often had a decorative stripe woven or stitched onto them adding detail. These stripes (Clavus)  were an indication of status, office or rank and were also covered by The Sumptuary Laws.

I searched the internet for images like these to give the children suggestions as to where to stitch their own Clavus. 

Hand Stitching isn't all that simple with 25 children and just a few adults. 

Mrs Tough, Frances (my fantastic student who was on work experience with me for this project) and I had our work cut out for us on our fourth day (the sewing day). Also in the morning the Teaching Assistant, Mrs Khan  was there to help with threading needles and cutting out all these circles from our hand made felt.

So the children stitched their Clavus in place onto their tunics (white tee shirts), sewed decorative circles on and also sewed buttons onto a second felted strip which we used to make their belt/ girdle.

We were all delighted with what the children had achieved and I was really pleased when Mrs Tough got a photographer from the local newspaper, The Sentinel, to come to the school and photograph some of the children with their hand felted slippers (Roman inspired socks). 

She was fantastically proud of the children but also said that she wanted to let teachers at other schools know that they could also book me to run an AllSensesArt felting project at their school. 

This is the pose for the newspaper photographer.

The children had some more Roman celebrations at the end of term so I returned to see them really getting into their own Roman re-enactment routines. They wore their felted Roman socks, tunics, girdles and used their decorated shields to impress me with their marching, drill and tortoise formation.

And finally just to remind you that these gorgeous slippers were made by 8-9 year olds with virtually no adult assistance. 

The project was organised via the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery (Stoke on Trent) Community and Educational Outreach Department.

Photographs of the slipper making process were taken by my incredibly helpful work experience student Frances Wright.