Fibre Sculptures

My World of Fantasy, where I can let my imagination wander freely, giving me hours of fun!

My ‘little people’ are individually sculpted by me, using barbed needles that are used in industry to produce non-woven fabric. I use Cheviot wool for building up the interior, and then cover the ‘skin’ layers and clothing details with dyed 50’s wool blends. For hair I either used dyed Cashora goat hair, Wensleydale, Leicester Long Wool, or natural Blue-faced Leicester locks. They take many hours to make, as I have to build them up gradually, and therefore they are non-repeatable and totally unique. As they slowly appear in my hands, they take on their own identity and character - elves and fairies who weave their own kind of magic! And now Mermaids and Merboys..................

In preparation for one of my latest book, I have just completed a large-scale figure of 'Neptune', which stands 4ft 6ins high. Working on such a large project was very much a challenge at times, but nevertheless a valuable experience, and one that is not as daunting to execute as you would imagine. You just have to allow yourself plenty of time, and of course the amount of material you use far exceeds that of the smaller-scale figures. To help others undertake large-scale fibre sculpture projects, I am including detailed instructions for such figurative work in my book, 'Felt Figures Great and Small: Wet and Dry Sculpting Techniques', which is now on sale from me.

Hints and Tips

Wool for building foundation in U.K. : CHEVIOT, or any other coarse wool with long staple (length of hair).

Wool for outside covering in U.K.: English Blends 50's for dry needle-felted finish. Merino 64's for delicate wet-felting finish to obtain a smooth effect.

For quick results, use 'Tops' (commercially combed wool prepared for spinning).

For Hair: Dyed wool 'locks', natural Blue-faced Leicester, or fancy yarns.

Small figures can be built up on a wire armature.

DEVELOPMENTS I have just been working on a series of small scale all wool dry needle felted animals, which make ideal projects for first time 'needlers', and developed a number of 'Starter kits', with full explanations and all materials needed to make them (instruction sheets, Norwegian wool in greys, black, and white + 2 regular and 1 Star needle and a sponge) for £15 + £3.50 UK postage (overseas airmail shipping £5). These, and other boxed kits can now be obtained from me by Mail Order, or from my Shopping site

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS I have been working on a new series of 'Book People', starting with characters from Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland', which were exhibited at my Solo Exhibition, 'Journeys' at Birnam Arts Centre in 2007.

I have used old wine bottles as foundations for these figures, and have built them up with seamless felting techniques and dry needle-felting modelling. If you would like to see them in greater detail, click here.