Motivated Motion

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Tufted Needle-Felting

I have tufted needle-felted works before for effect, but I have never tufted a whole piece before.

Today is a landmark day for me in this aspect.
Today I spent 8 hours tufting a commissioned piece I am doing.
After I finished the great little needled felted rabbit, it was just missing something.
I could not put my finger on what it needed.
I knew I wanted to tuft a bit of the top of the head and face and after I finished that I realized that the piece took on a life of its own and began to get the dimension that the rabbit needed to look realistic.

I then set out to tuft the whole piece.
Tufting is basically adding hair strands individually to create 3D fur.
You can trim the fur to the depth you want. What I wanted was something petable so I went with a velour consistancy.

My first exposure to tufting by hand was with Canadian Aboriginal women who tuft beaver and elk and moose hair into small 3D pictures. I took my skill as a needle-feltor and applied this ancient technique of tufting to it. Needle Feltors do use a similar technique for adding long shaggy hair to a piece, but I have never actually seen it trimmed and tufted before my own works.

I am so stoked by doing this I think I will write a manual on it. I am really happy with the
technique.

I am thinking that this might be the world's first completely tufted animal miniature. The fur is now dense and about 3cm thick. The tufting brightens the colours and make the sculpture so soft.

I do realize that I will have to charge more for future tufted pieces. So this customer is getting a real bargain because I was inspired to tuft on a regular commissioned piece quote.

I will write the seminar and create the book quickly so I can pimp it to publishers! I want to be a ground-breaker in this aspect of Needle-Felting!