Learning to Felt in the ACC Library

The American Craft Council Library recently hosted a Textile Center of Minnesota class, Intro to Needle Felting. Christy Binoniemi instructed a group of 11 students on the basics of needle felting, guiding students to create a needle-felted chickadee by using a photograph as a tool. Binoniemi recommends Watercolor Felt Workbook: A Guide to Making Pictorial Felts Using Wet and Dry Felting Methods by Patricia Spark as an excellent resource for beginners, and we own a copy.

The ACC Library has numerous other books about felting, including Lark’s New Directions For Felt: An Ancient Craft, which presents the history and culture of felt as well as the technique, written by Gunilla Paetau Sjoberg and translated by Spark. The Art of Felt by Françoise Tellier-Loumagne opens with teaching techniques in wet felting, needle felting, and tufting, and then gives specific instructions on creating everything from types of clouds to the sky at specific times of day. In yet another instructional book, Chad Alice Hagen presents 15 hand-sculpted hat projects in Fabulous Felt Hats.

In 1980, the American Craft Museum (then a part of the American Craft Council), hosted “Felting: An Exhibition of Traditional and Contemporary Work.” It presented a broad range of work by 11 American fiber artists alongside examples of traditional work, and it included photographic explanation to illustrate the origins and process of making felt. Nearly 20 years later, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum hosted the exhibition “Fashioning Felt.” The exhibition and its catalog explored felt’s rich nomadic and industrial history and presented innovative and commercially produced designs that demonstrate felt’s tactile appeal and versatility.

The ACC Library has other books, exhibition catalogs, and magazine articles available on felting as well. A recent issue of Fiber Art Now features “Felt Making Across the Globe,” for example. To enjoy these print and visual resources on felt (and the rest of our collection), please stop by the library!

A weekly shout out to the printed word, From the Stacks highlights what's new and what's loved in the American Craft Council library.