Mary L's Teacher Ed Portfolio

Category: Free Inquiry

History of felting

November 29, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Making a felt robe for Bakhtiari shepherds. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ninara/5869184572/in/set-72157624401124997, via Wikipedia

Why look into the history?

Place-based learning and action is important to me. In some ways, felting already offers up a lot of natural connections to place. For example, when I went to the store in Victoria to buy materials, the owner could tell me which farm on which Gulf Island different animal fibres came from. Pretty cool. But what about the history of felting? Have Indigenous people in this region felted?

Indigenous felting on the west coast

The short answer is… no. Some of the most technically challenging weaving techniques originate here (see Chilkat weaving), but as for simply rubbing animal fibres together… I could find no examples. Note: Researchers do acknowledge the challenge of preserving historical items made of animal fibre, especially in places that are not famous for being dry. I wonder if the absence of a felting history is because there weren’t huge herds of domesticated animals in the Pacific Northwest, which my reading indicates is important. Only animal fibres can be wet felted, whereas plant fibres (like cedar roots, commonly used here), can be woven. Perhaps when animal hairs were available, it made sense to apply the same or similar weaving techniques that were already in place for plant materials.

Chilkat blanket
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textile_arts_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas#/media/File:Chilkat_blanket_univ_alaska_museum.jpg

The fur connection

Nevertheless, felting does touch Indigenous history and ongoing presence on the west coast of B.C., in the form of the fur trade. Fur traders ventured further and further into what is now called Canada to find furs to send back to Europe, particularly for felted hats. There is a lot of history and ecological consequence to delve into there, along with the historic trading networks among First Nations, including for items such as mountain goat hair.

All the places you could go with felting

In seeking an answer, I went down a bunch of Wikipedia rabbit roles (a favourite activity). There was a ton to look at connected to felting. Here is an outline with a bunch of topics and ideas that could be fleshed out in a cross-curricular way, with potential subject areas indicated.

Felt in Maymand, Kerman Province, Iran
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felt#/media/File:Felting_in_Maymand.jpg

  • oldest known textile! (socials)
  • fibres matted together – can be natural (animal hair) or synthetic (biology)
  • still made for tents, clothing, and rugs by nomadic people, particularly in Central Asia (socials)
  • appreciated for art making for its ecological consideration (art / science)
  • Scottish women stomping on the felt with their feet, to a song that sets the pace (socials)
    • The origin of ” to be on tenterhooks” (ELL)
    • Later, by water mills (physics)
  • Roman slaves worked the felt ankle deep in tubs of human urine (socials)
    • Urine was taxed by a Roman emperor! (socials)
  • Two theories on how wet felting works: scales on the hair fibres open and latch, OR fibres wind around each other (how do we not know this?) (physics)
  • Needle felting uses a notched needle (not barbed) (textiles)
    • Kawaii style from Japan – cute, basically (art)
  • Felted hats from the 17th century on used mercury compound that made people sick (socials)
    • “mad as a hatter”; see Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (English)
  • Felt used for cars, guns, casinos, and instruments (socials)
  • Landscape and movable figures make for great storytelling tool for kids (elementary)
  • Puppets! Muppets! (elementary)
  • Joseph Beuys – famous contemporary artist who used felt (art)
  • Top hats from beaver brings it home – fur trappers in Canada (socials)
    • Felt drove a lot of the “exploration” of North America
    • Underground felting and textile work, because early colonists were supposed to send raw products back to Europe, and import finished textiles. “One of the early acts of independence was to have the entire graduating class of Harvard appear in handspun, handwoven garments for their ceremony, instead of using imported English fabric for them!”
  • Russian valenki boots (textiles)
  • 2500 year old felt swan found in now northern Russia (socials – geography)
  • “International Felt Conference” to work around Soviet-North America issues (socials)
  • Interesting differences among places with domesticated animals (socials)
    • Egypt, with sheep, didn’t felt
    • Peru, with llamas and alpacas, didn’t felt
  • Differences in the role of felt (socials)
    • “Eliminate felt from Chinese, Greek, and Roman civilizations, and they would still remain what they are, not being in the least affected by this minus. Eliminate the same element from the life of the nomadic populations, and they would cease to exist, they would never have come into existence.”
    • Places that rely on agriculture (raising crops) versus herds = Chinese frontier history
    • Felt considered foreign and barbaric
    • Religious and spiritual uses (e.g. cut out a figure of felt and keep it in a special box)
  • Carpet weaving came from/after felting?
  • Deterrent to snakes and scorpions? (biology?)
  • Passing of ideas throughout history – so fascinating! (socials)
    • “It is therefore probable that the Romanic nations received the knowledge of felt not from the ancient Romans, but from Germanic tribes early in the middle ages. The latter may have acquired the art from their eastern neighbors, the Slavs; and the Slavs derived their knowledge from Scytho-Siberian-Turkish peoples. The Russian word for felt, woilok, is a loan-word based on Turkish oilik (“that which serves as a cover”); the same word appears in Polish as wojlok.”

Sources

 

I felted a baby!

November 20, 2019 / / 0 Comments

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On the ferry over to Vancouver, I pulled out the last of my felt scraps, and felted this baby. Is it a little weird? Yes! Did it have the desired effect on my friend, who has a three month old baby named George? Yes! It was nice to make a gift with my newfound skills.

Method-wise, I didn’t even Google search how to do this. I had enough in fundamentals under my belt to start right away. First, I needled some core forms with the grey core felt – torso, head, arms, and legs. Then I attached them, and settled on the seated position with arms up. I shaped the whole body a bit, then moved on to “dressing” the kid with the soft merino coloured felt. Start to finish, it took about an hour.

I can see how I could really keep going with needle felting. Christmas ornaments, little gifts, hanging mini sculptures… it’s all doable. I haven’t done anything abstract yet. It feels like that is the arbitrary line between art and craft when it comes to materials like felt.

Felt art on the Bridge Studio Crawl

November 13, 2019 / / 0 Comments

An Art Crawl

Friday evening I enticed my partner to come along to Victoria’s Bridge Studio Crawl. There were five art studios on the map, and we managed to get to three before the time ran out. Side note: It was very lovely! People offered us wine and snacks! I wasn’t thinking about possible connections to my inquiry into felting, but lo and behold, there was felt amidst the art.

Connectivity Cloak, by Kim Leslie

This first piece really caught my attention.

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The artist, Kim Leslie, talked to me about the wet felting technique she used to make each small piece (I haven’t tried wet felting yet). They looked like little octopus arms to me. “Dendritic,” we agreed. Kim talked about the vulnerability when it came time to follow through on her vision of wearing the sculpture without anything else.

The artist statement does a good job of speaking to the meaning of the piece.

My reflection was that felting could definitely be used in an art classroom as part of a sculpture course. Students could make their own pieces or contribute to a collaborative one.

Kim Leslie’s website, for more on her.

Multiple works, by Connie Michele Morey

     

I only took photos of a couple of Connie’s felt sculptures. After exploring her website, I can see that felt has been a significant medium. She mentioned at the studio that she is now working primarily with reclaimed materials, such as reclaimed wood and wool blankets from thrift stores.

I took a photo of this artist statement about her piece Cushion, because I was startled to see the language of the art section of BC Curriculum. At first I wondered if this was a piece created by a class. But no, it’s her own piece, to which she’s brought a “Curriculum Big Idea”. Connie mentioned that she also teaches, at UVic and elsewhere. I have always imagined that teachers’ art practices influence their teaching, but I hadn’t thought about teaching influencing one’s art practice.

Again, my reflection is that felting (and other soft, fabric-related materials) can be used in a secondary art classroom.

In terms of reflecting on this inquiry project, it’s neat to see how even without going out to look for answers, I can find them, because I am attending to something.

Felting project #2

November 2, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Hello, fellow felting enthusiasts. I’m happy to share my second completed project of this inquiry.

As for titles… Fall feelings? Autumnal arrangement?

It’s a simple series of small felted sculptures (that word does sound a bit elevated for what these are) – a pumpkin, a pear, an apple, a leaf, a heart, and a few globes – bound with a piece of embroidery thread.

After mastering the flattened heart for my last project, I felt ready to venture into new felting forms. I did consult this Youtube video to get some useful tips on making the pumpkin.

Many thanks to the video creator, who also, as it happens, has done a cool school project with mixed felting methods.

For the other shapes, I just applied what I knew and made it up. I usually work with collected leaves in the fall, in some crafting form, so it was fun to extend that ritual into a new medium, making the felted leaf.

All of the felt was leftover bits from my last project. Being forced to use colours based on what I had was actually a nice constraint. I’m pleased with the final project, which is now warming up the vibe in my bedroom, which has felt a bit sparse for my taste. Happy autumn to all!

Musing on the inquiry process

October 25, 2019 / / 2 Comments

Three little felt sculptures I made for the season.

Is this working? What would it take for it to work?

I feel a bit stalled out on the inquiry process in this “edtech” course, to be honest. Maybe it’s because I haven’t had a coffee today. Or maybe it’s something about the design and how I interact with it. In our observation course, to provide a comparison, we have a single inquiry project, and scaffolding in terms of weekly or every-two-weeks assignment deadlines. So far, they have been: submit an idea; submit a proposal with inquiry questions; submit an annotated bibliography of minimum 5 sources related to your inquiry. The next will be a set of interviews about our topics. Having the process broken down into chunks has definitely helped me.

In this course, the inquiry process is a lot more open. The edtech inquiry (for me: podcasting and the classroom) has no scaffolding except a presentation at the end, and that will only be 7 minutes. I have been thinking about podcasts more than usual, and have self-assigned a couple of blog posts to share out some thinking, but the reality is that my inquiry will be light. As for my free inquiry (felting!), the process has had a rise and fall. I was excited at the beginning because I thought I chose strong questions, and actually used a PSII resource to make them. But I do note that the PSII resources include a teacher role, mainly to keep the learner accountable and advancing. In my professional life, I really notice the value of regular meetings, just to keep me and my coworkers on track, because we are accountable to each other if nothing else.

If I go back to the PSII resource, and move on to “Step 2”, I see: Engage in research (books, internet, discussion, reflection, mini-project, lab…) that will better inform the inquiry. I have been doing mini-projects in felting – the hearts and then the fall sculptures above. I suppose I could proceed to doing some research for books about felting and about fibre arts among First Nations in this region. I could talk to my art instructor and ask if she knows about felting used in K-12 classrooms. Admittedly, I’ve mentioned both of these already, and have them on my Trello board. The issue is that both feel more like academic work. There is resistance, and pushing through might benefit me, but I don’t particularly feel like prioritizing them, without feeling accountable to anyone. Maybe this is a sign to keep the free inquiry more fun? Musings…

 

One project down

October 18, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Completed chakra hearts felt project in my living room

This is a short post to showcase my first finished felting project.

Final work

It did take a bit of a push to finish.

Once the seven hearts were felted, I did a little editing on them, adding a few fibre strands, needling some loose areas, and trimming some stray bits. I couldn’t find clear fishing line, which I usually have in my crafting boxes, so instead I used embroidery thread and an embroidery needly to stitch together the hearts.

I made the mistake of going up through the bottoms of the hearts, and had to do a little needling to get things back into shape. The piece of driftwood I already had. I used some necklace line and a pushpin to hang the driftwood.

Now I am happy to have the project hanging in my living room, next to my work desk.

Reflections

The project had two tricky parts – getting started, even once I had my materials, because I didn’t know how long it would take to learn, and finishing. Other than that, it was really enjoyable, portable, and addictive.

My inquiry question #3 was about using felting in the art classroom, and I think these are useful reflections to weave in. I think it might be important to support students in pushing through initial resistance, and in helping them to complete.

As for this particular project as a classroom option, I will have to think more. One the one hand, it’s a great first project, because it’s straightforward. On the other hand, it doesn’t involve much “voice” and “choice”. There were worksheets regarding each chakra and colour significance, which I haven’t blogged about, and I do think that those could be woven into a classroom for therapeutic value.

Going forward

As I mentioned in my last post, I feel like I am at a fork in the road: I can continue playing around with my leftover felting materials, or I can start doing some research into felt practices over time in this region. I think I will play around a bit more, which is both exciting and intimidating. Stay tuned.

And… I’m a felter!

October 7, 2019 / / 0 Comments

My completed seven “chakra hearts”

The first stab is the hardest

I had so much resistance at the beginning. This is common for me and new projects. There is a period of resistance, after which I’ve decided on something, and maybe even gotten the materials, in which I just can’t start. Finally, late one night, I pulled up Jen’s Facebook videos (Jen of Felt Me Now) to get started with her felted chakra hearts project.  Half an hour later, thanks to her relaxed and competent instructions, I had a fuzzy red heart in front of me.

Jen teaching me to felt with a Facebook video

My first heart!

Once I get going

As soon as I had I mastered the basic technique, I wanted to keep making. So I did. Within a week, I had turned out all seven hearts. Classmates on Tuesday saw me felting in class. Hopefully instructors didn’t think I was tuned out. It’s just so relaxing and helpful to keep my hands busy while I am listening. It’s definitely better for my attention and brain than scrolling web pages or thinking about upcoming assignments and errands.

Felting in class

Cruising

So, what’s it like?

I’m ready to start answering my first inquiry question:

  • What is the practice of felting like? – Is it easy? Hard? Frustrating? Fun? Quick? Time-consuming?

Answers:

  • It’s easy!
  • It’s fun!
  • It can be quick (I got down to making a heart within 30 minutes), but it can also be time-consuming, in that you can keep fine-tuning and fine-tuning forever, or you could choose a more challenging project.
  • It’s possible to start experimenting right away

Experimenting with blending colours, by adding a little orange fibre to the yellow, to make it a stronger colour.

Experimenting with making an all-indigo heart, versus using core grey felt for the centre.

What’s next?

I still have to finish this project, by stringing a fishing line through the centres to make a wall-hanging. Then I might explore making more objects (seasonal gourds?) with the materials I have leftover. I could move on to my other two inquiry questions – What is the historical and ongoing practice of felting among First Nations communities in the Pacific Northwest? / Would felting make for a good medium for the secondary school art classroom? – but I feel like I want some more exploration of the material/medium first.

Hearts waiting to become a wall hanging.

A visit to the felt store

October 2, 2019 / / 0 Comments

This post is really just photos.

I wanted to share the amazingness that is Knotty By Nature.

Look at this store!

I could have ordered felting materials online, but I prefer to visit places in person when I can. One of the benefits, I find, is that then I have a human connection, a place to go with questions, and possibly the start of some community.

Based on my online research, Knotty By Nature is the only store in Victoria with felting supplies – at least the kind that I was looking for.

The store stocks books, magazines, and products by local artists.

   

The person working there, whose name I now forget, was wonderfully helpful. I was able to get everything on my list below, plus a couple of great tips, including on the proper way to pull apart felting wool – by keeping the hands far apart, so you aren’t gripping the fibres and getting in your own way.

The only mistake I may have made was in failing to get a 40 gauge felting needle. The shopkeeper insisted that a 36 and 38 would be all I needed, but I think the smaller one (higher number = smaller needle, maybe because it’s 1/40th of something?) was the right choice.

Anyway, that’s starting to get into my next post – an update on my first project. It definitely begins to answer the first question I posed in my initial felting post, “What is the practise of felting like?”

I’ll report out soon.

Getting started with felting

September 24, 2019 / / 0 Comments

What am I inquiring into?

For my free inquiry project, or “passion project,” I’ve chosen felting – you know, the fuzzy fibre art. I struggled with committing. I was also curious about delving into the youth climate strikes, into gardening, or into textiles more generally. In the interests of getting started, though, I am choosing felting and moving forward, trusting that the process will lead me where I need to go.

Where did this come from?

A few years ago, I hitchhiked through the Kootenays and met an accomplished felt artist, Jennifer Cookson, of the website Felt Me Now. I looked her up more recently on Instagram, and became more and more engaged by her small felt creatures and creations. When I saw that she was offering an online course on felting, I decided to take the plunge! Well, I applied too late to receive her kit of materials, but she kindly provided the shopping list and access to the videos for the course.

Where am I going?

Ok, instead of figuring this out from scratch, why not use some pre-existing materials, right?

Our instruction in “Ed Tech” as we are calling it showed us this 4-page resource from the Pacific School of Inquiry and Innovation:

PSII-inquiry-guide-fillable-blank1

If I understand correctly, this guide is meant to help students develop their inquiry and learning plans. Here’s a screenshot of “Step 1” of the resource.

My initial questions, based on interest/curiousity around felting include:

  • What is the practice of felting like? – Is it easy? Hard? Frustrating? Fun? Quick? Time-consuming?
  • What is the historical and ongoing practice of felting among First Nations communities in the Pacific Northwest?
  • Would felting make for a good medium for the secondary school art classroom?

Sneak preview into next week

I’ve actually already visited a store in Victoria for materials, and it was great! So look forward to photos of the shop, and of my report out from actually digging in and starting to felt.

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