Last year I posted about my foray into shyrdak making.  It is a time consuming process that involves both felting and sewing and quilting techniques to create beautiful traditional patterns from Central Asia.

I’ve been experimenting with prefelt techniques to create some of the same patterns only significantly quicker.

This rug is made of Icelandic wool from Fence Row Farm.  The blue is a mix of two colors I dyed myself then put through the drum carder.

These purses are made from the same wool as the rug above.  The design is cut from one piece of prefelt.  The mirror image is used to create a whole new purse.  This is one of the advantages of this type of design.  The negative space is designed to create an equally beautiful, often mirror image of the positive space.  There is very little waste.

These bags are another experiment in design.  They are made from one piece of flat felt that is cut and sewn together on the sewing machine.  Most of my bags are wet felted in one piece but that process takes longer than felting flat sheets.  I’m still trying to decide if it really saves me time if I have to add the steps of cutting and sewing, and deal with some scrap felt that is created.  Also there are aesthetic questions, which way is more beautiful?

These are two pictures of the same bag.  The positive and negatives were used on both sides.  Again it was made from a sheet of cut and sewn felt .  This felt is created with a merino felting bat.  Merino and Icelandic are now my two favorite wools, which I plan on using almost exclusively from now on, because both are extremely fast felters.

This has been my latest artistic endeavor. Ever since I started felting I wanted to make one of these.  In Kyrgyzystan they are called Shyrdak, in Kazakstan there is also a similar product. These rugs are cut, pieced and quilted from plain sheets of felt, which seriously increases the amount of work hours need to create them as opposed to rugs with felted in designs.  Shyrdaks are a traditional art that has been passed down for generations.  Like many traditional arts these days, it is being kept alive by a few conscientious artisans.  Here is a video of women from the Altyn Kol Women’s Handicraft Cooperative in Kyrgyzystan  making shyrdaks.

shrydak making video

My shyrdak began a while ago when I experimented with and indigo dye pot and dipped half a sheet of Icelandic felt into it. 

Indigo is a magical dye that is green when you pull it out of the pot and as it hits the air turns to blue before your eyes.

My next step was to cut a design from paper and cut the same design from both the white and the blue felt.

Pieces are then swapped into the opposite color blocks.  The felt is then sewn back together. 

And then two oppositely spun cords are couched down to hide the seam.

The two blocks are then sewn together and the whole thing is then quilted to another layer of felt.

It has been an amazing experience making a small sample of shyrdak.  The craft reminds me of the level of work that goes into a traditional American quilt.  Both crafts are passed from mother to daughter, usually done in community, and have a rich history of meaning associated with the traditional patterns.  The design I chose represents a ram’s horn.  Great atention is given to creating a design that has ballence in its possitive and negative images.  In mine the blue design creates an almost identical design in the white and vice versa. 

For my “real job”, the one that pays my bills, I am a preschool teacher.  This week we held a special event, a Fall Festival for the the families.  There were activities like pumpkin bowling, a hay bale climbing hill, cider and doughnuts and fall crafts.  Naturally felting had to be included because felting is the original fall craft.  Sheep are usually shorn in the early fall and naturally felt making cultures would make the bulk of their felt in the fall so that it could be used in the coming winter.  Here’s what we did.

In the week prior to the event the children helped me make prefelts.  I chose fall colors from my stash.  All in different kinds of wool. 

Then I asked festival participants to cut leaf shapes from the prefelt and throw it on the felting mat.   Small children cut mostly confetti shapes while adults made more leaf like shapes.  It did not matter as we wanted it to look like leaves on the ground, some of which will be broken.

When we had enough leaves the design was covered in three thin layers of Icelandic batting.  We then sprinkled it with soapy water, and rolled it up.

We took turns kicking the roll back and forth.  Since this was an event for little kids, we didn’t have time to finish the felting, but I took it home and finished rolling it in about an hour, thanks to the lovely fast felting nature of the Icelandic wool.

The result surprised me in that I didn’t think some of the wools would felt as well as the Icelandic.  I don’t tend to mix wool types as they will not felt at the same rate.  However all the colors seems to be fully felted into the base.  I think the Icelandic was good at reaching through the other wools and pulling them in fast.  I also may have helped that we used prefelts, so all the colors had a head start on the Icelandic.  This project has made me reconsider mixing a few wools now and then to see how it turns out.

I’ve been back  for a couple of weeks from the largest of all SCA events, Pennsic War, held each year in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania.  Each year 10-15 thousand people show up for this two week event.  A dizzying array of activities are available including fighting in mock battles, attending classes on all manor of medieval topics, seeing live music, dance and drama, shopping, and of course no end of socializing opportunities.    All this combined with typical August heat is exhausting and one must pace oneself.  And it is only after being home for two weeks that I have the energy to write this post. 

I had several positive felting experiences this year.  First I participated in my first Pennsic Arts and Science display.  

Everyone that wants to participate brings their projects to the display area and sets up at a table.  Then all day long people pass by and look at your work, some stop to talk with you about it.  My theme this year was Ottoman Turkish felt designs.  My documentation was entirely too long for this venue, so look for it in the about felt section of this blog if you would like to read it.  Also I plan on taking it to some Arts and Science competitions where the judges have to read it!  LOL.  Seriously, I’ve been fascinated lately by the idea that historically in urban areas there was probably a thriving feltmaking industry created by skilled felt artisan guilds. 

My next felting activity involved a camp mate of mine.  He showed up one day with a bag of New Zealand wool and wanted me to help him make some felt to put inside his period leather shoes.  I had to tell him that I didn’t know how well New Zealand wool would felt, so it would be an experiment for both of us.  The results are New Zealand wool is a slow felter.  But I think my friend has a nice soft sheet of wool to pad his shoes. 

Next I participated in something new at Pennsic, Artisan’s Row.  The concept was that there would be a theme for each day and artisans would demonstrate and teach their crafts in a casual hands-on way.  Previously the only avenue for that at Pennsic was to schedule a class.  Artisan’s Row turned out to be great for felting because, as I discovered a couple of years ago, teaching felting to a big group of people is really hard.  I believe that first people should watch an experienced felter at work, and then work with or side by side with the felter in order to get the best learning experience.  Besides being such a tactile craft that defies explanation, the process is also totally foreign to most people and people need to see both the process of felting and examples of good quality felt products just to get their bearings before even beginning a project. 

I had a wonderful experience that day.  I made this rug from natural colored Icelandic felting batts.  I’ve always enjoyed the fast felting nature of Icelandic wool, but combined with the heat and humidity of the day this was a super fast felting rug.   I chose to make a simple design by drafting roving to create the lines.  The motif is a classic Mongolian eternity knot.

To my surprise another very experienced felter showed up!  Even in the SCA felters are few and far between, especially those who have put any amount of time into it.  This woman had never been to an SCA event before and was only there to see her son be Knighted!  How fortuitous that we should meet!  She has even studied with Mehmet Girgiç & Theresa May-O’Brien, felt artists I have been hoping to study with for some time now.  So we generally geeked out over wool, soap and felt philosophy. I was really touched to spend time with such a kindred spirit.  She remarked how surprised she was to not see much felt at Pennsic given how common it would have been historically, esspecially for Near Eastern cultures.  We talked at length about this.  My main theory is that unlike other crafts, sewing,weaving, etc, felting almost died out, esspecially in the west.  People are just now finding out about it.  I hope to do my part to introduce felt to the SCA both by providing a quality product for purchase, but also by teaching people how to do it themselves.   Its not hard, just hard work!  

I also had a student.  She came wearing a bag of mine that had been given to her as a present and said she wanted to learn to make something like it.  She was surprised to learn I was the one who made her bag.    She watched for awhile, then tried some rolling.  She seemed inspired and I hope she goes on to make some felt of her own. 

So to top it all off we made it in the paper.  A reporter from the Pennsic Independant, Pennsic’s own daily newspaper, was there and interviewed us.  To my surprise she got all of our information right!  Here’s the article:

I’ve had this batt of angora/merino in my stash for a couple of years now.  I had dyed the wool when I bought it, (chemical dyes) and meant to use it long ago.  Finally I pulled it out and made this sweet baby rug.  It is sooooo soft.  I put a piece of cotton gauze in the middle to add strength and keep to keep the piece light weight.  The design is inspired by Ottoman Turkish art of the 16th century.

turkish tulip rug

This design is another example of the prefelt technique, except this time all the pieces were cut free hand, instead of by a pattern.  There are no examples of Ottoman felt from the 16TH century, so my inspirations are coming from other textiles and pottery such as these period examples.  The first is silk and housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the plate is at the Smithsonian’s Freer Sackler.