Book Review: Lizzie Houghton - Felting Fashion

Felt is one of the most ancient of textiles, felting one its most ancient techniques. That felt is still very much with us today, and the techniques are still fresh, viable and sought after, when so many other textile traditions have fallen into disuse or been discarded by more recent technology, says much about the method, and the durability of the fabric.

Felting is a great teaching technique. It is fun to do, it is a hands on technique, and the results are always vibrant and durable. What’s not to love?

The renowned feltmaker Lizzie Houghton has published a book that should be a must for all feltmakers, and indeed potential feltmakers. Felting Fashion: Creative and Inspirational Techniques for Feltmakers (published by Batsford), is a book that is project-based, with a whole range of practical, easy to follow projects for wearable felt, anything from hats to jewellery, vest tops to coats.

All the projects in the book feature Lizzie’s stunning and original design work, and the book guides the reader through every stage of feltmaking, from choosing materials and equipment, to embellishing and dyeing your own wools and silks.

If you want a book that is going to take you from wishing to wear the unique and the original, to actually creating unique and original clothing, then this is the book for you.

Lizzie Houghton trained as a fashion designer and has always been a clothes maker. Specialising in felt textiles, she exhibits widely and sells her wearable art throughout the UK and Europe. She teaches workshops on feltmaking and dyeing from her studio in Penzance, Cornwall.

Felting Fashion is widely available from the specialist textile art and design publisher Batsford.

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Creative Dyeing from India Flint

Illustration: India Flint. Original textile work.

The Australian textile and dye artist India Flint has taken elements from her family history and turned it into a creative journey that gives the impression of becoming a lifelong one. Flint has always been intrigued and imbued with her family's make-do-and-mend attitude. An interest that has taken up her family's particular practical interest in textiles and natural dyeing, expanding the experience to produce work that is staggering in its range of complexity. Using a variety of raw materials and experimental processes, she has managed to deliver an ever-widening range of unique colours and textures.

Although this article could well concentrate purely on the textile artwork of Flint, it seems more pressing and relevant to focus on her groundbreaking work concerning the natural dyeing process. It is her belief in achieving a near-zero impact, within a textile dyeing capacity, that has become an inspiration to others not only in Australia, but also across the globe. It is a belief that could will impact on all those involved within textile art and crafts and seems well worth expanding within this article.

Illustration: India Flint. Dyed paper work.

One of the major concerns troubling the modern textile world, whether professional or amateur, mass or hand-production is the impact that textiles and particularly that of the dyeing process, has on the environment. Commercial dyes are both hazardous to the world around them, whether that be the natural world, workers who produce and are employed within the industry, or communities that depend on that industry. Flint herself has taken the stand of only using specifically naturally sourced dyes in her work. However, she has pushed her personal beliefs and judgements concerning natural dyeing much farther than most. She has in fact produced an ongoing dyeing project that aims to project and publicise the natural dyeing qualities to be found in many, if not all vegetable plant life. This is not a case of using onion skins to produce insipid tones of yellow. Flint has produced a startling spectrum of colour and tone variety from forms of plant life that most textile users would never dream of finding useful or relevant.

Illustration: India Flint. Dyed paper work.

The images portrayed in this article were all produced using various hand-dyeing techniques and processes, some on fabric, others on paper. It seemed important to emphasise the staggering range of colour variation that Flint has been able to achieve purely through the natural dying process, and this surely must be an inspiration and guide to us all. Her ongoing experimentation with raw materials for dyeing, using both the mundane and the obscure, must in time be seen as a unique and important record towards the vocabulary of the natural dyeing craft that will be used for generations to come.

It can only be imagined where this rich creative journey will take Flint next. So many of us either take the natural world for granted or use it as an observational tool for compositional or inspirational work only. However, few of us nowadays see the natural world as forming any part of a practical function, and if we do, it is usually extremely limited in scope as to its practical and personal relevance. Flint's seemingly universal inspirational use of raw materials within the dyeing process surely must make us think again about the natural world around us. Our world is much more versatile and useful than we have been led to believe. If Flint can achieve such inspirational colours and tones from personal experimentation and a belief in the ability of the natural world around her, you have to wonder what could really be achieved if all those inspired by the world of textiles were to use the same level of experimentation and unfettered enthusiasm.

Illustration: India Flint. Textile artwork.

Flint's journey of experimentation and exploration should be a revelatory inspiration to all those involved in textiles. It is an art and a craft that by its very nature embraces the inventive, the investigative and the exploratory. To be able to push the boundaries of any aspect of this world should be a natural reaction and any individual artist, craftsperson or designer who does so should be applauded.

Flint has exhibited across Australia and extensively within Europe. Her work can be found in a number of collections on both continents. She has produced stage costumes for contemporary dance, has been involved in a number of publications promoting natural dyeing and runs various workshops. All this information and more can be found on her comprehensive website. Anyone wishing to follow Flint and her creative journey should sign up to follow her regularly updated blog Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost. Links to Flint's website, blog and books that are available on Amazon, can all be found below within the Reference links section.

Illustration: India Flint. Dyed paper work.

All images were provided with the kind permission of the artist.

Reference links:

Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles
Felt (Handmade Style) (Handmade Style)
Island Life: Inspirational Interiors

Felt Artwork of Nancy Clearwater Herman

Illustration: Nancy Clearwater Herman. In the Lady's Room.

Felt work can be achieved through a number of formats and craft disciplines. To many it may seem thick, woolly and uneasy to manipulate. However, there are various means of controlling the chance and often arbitrary results of standard felting. Needle felting is a particularly good format as it allows a larger element of both precision and definition within felting. Compositions can be manipulated and engineered into any amount of decorative pattern and artwork. The artistic parameters of needle felting are particularly rich as is shown in the textile artwork of Nancy Clearwater Herman.

Herman has produced a set of compositions that helps to lay to rest the idea that felt is a medium best suited to the practical and domestic aspects of textiles, rather than any form of fine art textiles. She has produced work that is extraordinarily exact, while at the same time being free from most forms of mechanised textile production.

Illustration: Nancy Clearwater Herman. Secrets.

Needle felting at its simplest level can be produced using one thin barbed needle. This simple but effective tool lends itself to be interpreted by any artist as would a pencil or paintbrush. Herman has used this process to produce work that although textile based has the look and feel of a more exacting discipline. However, the element of control over both the process and result are tempered by the intimate relationship between both tool and raw material. The artist is well aware that she is using a process that is countless generations old. Felt goes back in time to our earliest craft discoveries. It is both this sense of the endless continuation of tradition and the familiarity and the contained intimacy of the craft of needle felting that has produced the resulting work of Herman.

I have personally chosen only a few of Herman's felt pieces; she has many more compositions available to view on her website. What intrigued me most about the examples shown in this article are the contemporary but also ageless aspect of the compositions. It is intriguing to ponder that although the work of the artist has been produced in our own century, how much of the timelessness of the compositional material has been affected by the ageless process of both the felt making and the use of natural and naturally dyed wool. This begs the question how much of who we are now is us and how much is a memory of generations past.

Illustration: Nancy Clearwater Herman. Seeing Eye to Eye.

This of course does not take away from the achievement of Herman who has managed to both manipulate and personalise a tricky and not easily mastered technique. She has added enormously to the parameters of felt making and has helped to open the suggestion that there can be more to both felt making in general and needle felting in particular, than that of embellishment, decoration and pattern making.

The needle felt making aspect of Herman's work is only a partial one, she has a whole range of work in a number of mediums. Her work is in a number of private and public collections across the US and she has exhibited her work for the last thirty years. Her extensive and comprehensive website can be seen by following the link within the reference links section below. Herman also has a couple of regularly updated blogs, which can also be found in the reference links section.

Illustration: Nancy Clearwater Herman. Pass the Word.

Images of the artwork are used with the kind permission of the artist

Reference links:
Nancy Clearwater Herman website
Nancy Herman Paintings & Prints Blog
Postcards From Merion Blog