I have been making a great quantity of felt the last couple of months because I am getting ready to sell at public crafts shows this season.  The Spring Craft Show in Saline Michigan, on March 24th will be the first.

Changing from selling only at medieval themed to modern events gives me freedom to create new designs…

and use modern colors!

Here are a few of my felt balls I’ve turned into ornaments for the Holiday Handspinners’s Fair on November 26th.  The photo doesn’t show it well, but I’ve mixed in some synthetic sparkly fibers.  I’ve added them on a few other projects including children’s crowns, candle holders and a scarf.  

If you are able please come to the sale and support local artisans this holiday season.  If you are not able to make this sale, think about how you could fulfill your holiday shopping list with local products.  When you support a local business you are supporting more than just that person, you are also supporting everyone they buy goods and services from.   This keeps more you your money in your community.

I’ve also updated my Etsy store.  Did you know that you can search for local products on Etsy? 

For SCA people coming to the Holiday sale, know that I will not be bringing most of the SCA specific items like hats and belt pouches, but I will also have a few things not listed on Etsy, like balls and cat nip mice.  However if you see a hat  you would like to try on let me know and I’ll bring it along.

Today there are few opportunities for artisans of traditional arts to make a living.  Yet until recently the opposite was true.  Civilizations thrived on artisans and the trade of their work.  

Wandering Sheep is my tribute to this tradition.  I do not depend on Wandering Sheep as my livelihood, but as an integral part of my SCA game.  As well as studying and practicing the craft of felting in the SCA time period, I am studying and practicing the art of business in the SCA time period.  I have chosen a craft that requires some amount of specialization, and likely would have been produced by specialized artisans.  Through “playing store” at SCA events I enhance the medieval feeling of my SCA experience and, I hope the experience of others.  I strive to create quality products that are useful, beautiful, and enhance the medieval look and feel of the wearer.  I hope my merchant booth is more than a fun place to shop, but also a place other felt artists can come to learn and be inspired.

As I progress in my studies, I am trying to be more authentic in my choice of materials.  This has led me to buy wool from local farmers who breed period sheep, experiment with natural dyes and fiber preparations, and utilize local fiber mills for processing.  Ironically my studies of medieval felt making fit well into the modern sustainability movement.  In addition to the support of my local economy and small businesses, felt and other wool products are inherently eco-friendly. Just another example of how keeping past knowledge alive can help us in the future.

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:

This cute little basket is actually the baby version of a bigger one that sold before I could take a picture of it.  Fortunately I sold it to a friend, so maybe I can get a good picture of her with her with her basket in her garb.  This basket is made of natural colored Icelandic wool, grown on a small farm less than 100 miles from me.

I was thinking awhile back about my style of bag making and where it comes from.  Most of the bags I make are the envelope style, and in essence they are felt emulating a fabric form.  When I’m making felt with historic re-creation in mind, most of these smaller accessory pieces are conjecture.  I may have an example of a bag in a painting, but it does not tell me what the bag is made of or how it was made.  Since felt is so moldable I find it interesting that I sometimes think of my work in terms of other mediums, felt in the form that fabric or pottery would normally take.  In this case, its felt in the shape of a basket.  What strikes me about this kind of 3D felt vessel is that it is much more true to the nature of felt and how it wants to behave.  To me this form feels less like felt trying to be something else, and more like felt being and doing what felt does best.