October 2, 2023

Needle felted wool sculpture of Katmai Bear #610. Bear #610 is a shy but resilient little bear at Brooks Falls, Katmai National Park, Alaska. She likes to fish for salmon in the lower (and quieter) part of Brooks River.

A look inside House of Paidia’s design studio!

Welcome to House of Paidia, a house of Play.

I am an interdisciplinary artist with a love for fiber arts and storytelling. I often times use protein fiber instead of words to tell stories. I am best known for my highly expressive, anthropomorphic interpretations of Katmai National Park’s famous brown bears. I love capturing the different personalities of these bears and hope that by sharing their stories more people will want to learn how to protect them and their natural habitat. (For more information on how to support the amazing Bears of Brooks Falls, visit Katmai Conservatory.)

What is needle felting?

This past year, a number of people asked me to show them what needle felting is, what tools and materials I use, and how I use natural dyes to color my fiber. I hope this helps!

Felt is the oldest known type of textile in the world. It predates woven and knitted fabrics. Felting uses a combination of water, agitation, and heat (think about what happens if you wash and dry a wool sweater) to transform protein fibers (such as sheep, alpaca, or mohair) into warm, dense material. Common examples of felted textiles include outerwear made from boiled wool (such as a peacoat), felted slippers, and cat caves.

Wool Felt Sheets, 100% Wool

Purchased from Living Felt for small parts like ears and wings. I like to add fiber over these wool sheets because it acts as a strong foundation and receives wool fiber really well. It is also easy to attach to my wool sculptures at any point in the process.

Needle felting is a dry felting method (no water) developed by the wool and textile industry in the 1800s. Originally, felting needles were intended for use in the commercial production of large pieces of fabric. It wasn’t until the 1980s that people began using the individual needles (taken from the factories) to create their own needle felted projects at home, and the craft evolved from there.

Needle Felting Tools

*My collection of single point felting needles from Living Felt and Felt Alive.*
*Felting needles are not the same as sewing needles. They have angled notches along their shaft to help catch and push the fibers together.*

Can you use any type of needle to felt? What needles do you use?

Needle felting requires specialized barbed needles to entangle, compress, and shape wool fibers into 2D and 3D forms. There are different shapes of felting needles, including a triangle shape, a star shape, and spiral. There are also reverse felting needles that will pull fiber away from the sculpture.

My favorite felting needles are a 40 gauge triangle and a 42 gauge triangle, with 42 being a very fine gauge. Both gauges are great when I am using a medium fine fiber because they give my sculptures a nice smooth finish. I also find that I am able to finish sculptures faster when I use a medium fine fiber. However, when I am using a medium coarse fiber, I have to go down to a heavier gauge 36 triangle in order to better catch these fibers. In order to get the same surface smoothness, I have to spend more time on sculptures made out of coarser fiber.

I currently have needles that range from 32 to 42 gauge, with 32 being the heaviest gauge for coarser fibers. While I favor triangle shape needles, I also really like crown needles because their barbs are concentrated close to the end of the needle. This makes for a very smooth finish. Star needles have a center channel running down each side of the shaft and spiral needles have a twist to them. I like to use them to further compact fibers because they don’t leave large holes in the surface of the sculpture.

I currently use needles from both Living Felt and Felt Alive. Living Felt has standard metal handles that I color code with OPI nail polish. I find that Living Felt’s needles are very durable and rarely break on me. They seem to pack more punch with coarser wool fibers. Needles from Felt Alive have a lovely silicone handle that feels wonderful in my hands. I prefer using them when I need to work on more delicate details.

Color coding my 38T needles.

*38T felting needles are a very popular gauge. These are from Living Felt.*
*Living Felt also has tubes where I can store my felting needles as well. I like to put a bit of colored felt in the bottom of the tube to match the color coordinated handles.*

What type of fiber do you like? What type of fiber would you recommend?

My all time favorite fiber to use is the proprietary MC-1 product line from Living Felt because it is a short, crimpy fiber that felts easily for me and allows me to work on a very small scale for my 3D sculptures. It enables me to get the very tiny detail I want while still being able to felt very firm, strong structures. Longer fibers such as New Zealand Corriedale and Tussah Silk fibers are great for creating longer fur or hair details on sculptures.

NOTE: Wool fibers that undergo a “superwash” are not suitable for needle felting. This type of fiber has been deliberately treated to remove the fiber’s natural scales. Without these scales, fiber will not felt if spun, knitted, or washed. When shopping for new fibers, it helps to tell suppliers what the intended use is as there can be different understandings and definitions for the same descriptive fiber terms. There are also differences in terminology depending on which side of the pond you live.

*1:12 Scale Stop Motion Puppets. Just under 6 inches (15cm) tall.*

*100% Wool and Silk Fibers, German glass eyes, hand-blown. 22 points of articulation. Corn and pumpkins hand sculpted from polymer clay, real corn husks, and twine.*
*Each puppet body can take over 40 hours to create. Clothes are also made by hand.*

Can you explain how you make these sculptures?

Sometimes it is easier to show what I do rather than try to describe it. Below is an example of my art process when sculpting my popular fat Katmai Bears. I first begin by forming a very firm, small ball with the fiber. I then continue to build up fibers from there. Once I get a larger ball, I can begin to shape it into an animal or puppet. Toward the very end, I blend and add different colors for shading and add details. In this video, I am using Maori Batt which is a coarser fiber then I am used to using. It is a gorgeous fiber, not carbonized, and is very soft to the touch. I think it produces beautiful sculptures and is worth the longer build time.

Why do you hand-dye your wool?

In 2021, one of the major dye houses (Littlewood Dyers) in the wool and textile industry was destroyed during Hurricane Ida. As a result, there has been a shortage of dyed wool fiber across the industry as many people relied on this company to dye their wool. While I have ventured out of my comfort zone to try other types of fiber such as Maori Batting and Bergschaf, I still prefer the finer fiber of MC-1.

With a background in art conservation, I thought it would make sense for me to use my experience with natural dyes to hand-dye the MC-1 core wool from Living Felt. I chose black walnut and cutch to create a range of browns needed for my fat bear sculptures. Preparing dye baths and calculating formulas takes time, but I like the option of more subtle shades of browns and tans for my bears.

*Bear #902: Peanut*

*The little sister and smallest cub from Bear #128 Grazer’s 2016 litter.*
*Her main color is blonde and was made from immature walnuts.*
*In this photo I have not yet added darker shading on her four paws.*

Natural dyes also create colors that are very dimensional and have more depth due to their complex molecular structures.

In the next episode, I will delve deeper into how I produce color with natural dyestuff.

NOTE: Like all of the other fiber in Living Felt’s product lines, the MC-1 core fiber is not carbonized which means that no harsh chemicals are used in the cleaning process. Some vegetative matter remains in the wool but this is easy to pick out as I needle felt it.

*Hand-dyed MC-1 Core Wool Fiber from Living Felt.*

Wool sample on the left was hand-dyed with a walnut powder from Hillcreek Fiber Studio. Walnuts most likely from early summer, so only a light tan color was achieved at 100% walnut powder on the weight of fiber (WOF) and no mordant. Traces of vegetable matter still present.

Will natural dyes fade quickly or rub off your sculptures?

The natural dyes I gravitate toward are biodegradable and non-toxic. This makes them ideal for me to use, store, and dispose of on a regular basis without a negative impact on the environment. Not all natural dyes will yield colorfast results. However, both synthetic and natural dyes will fade over time if left in intense sunlight.

I chose high quality dyestuffs known for their excellent colorfastness and lightfastness qualities. These include cutch, black walnut, madder root, cochineal, and indigo. I use 100% natural protein fibers (animal based) which accept color more readily than cellulose fibers (plant based). Protein based fibers also tend to produce more vibrant, bold hues than cellulose fibers dyed with the same dyestuff.

When I use natural dyes, I am confident that they not only elevate the aesthetic of the piece but also add an element of luxury and personality to each work of art.

Hand-dyed wool

***Right:*** *Cutch w/ only an Alum Mordant*
***Center:*** *Cutch w/ Alum Mordant and Iron Modifier. Left in Iron bath for one hour.*
***Left:*** *Cutch w/ Alum Mordant and Iron Modifier. Left in Iron bath overnight.*

How did you get into needle felting?

From as early as I can remember, I was always creating miniature sculptures and architectural models. After I graduated from college, I worked as an art conservator in ethnographic textiles. During this time, I learned more about how protein and cellulose fibers take up natural dye, how mordants and modifiers can shift the color of a dye vat, as well as the chemistry behind conservation and preservation techniques.

Later on I became interested in wet felting and felting over a resist. However it wasn’t until around 2017 that I began experimenting on a more regular basis with needle felting with the intent of creating stop motion puppets and art dolls for a fantasy worldbuilding project. This came after a short-lived attempt to create art dolls from Sculpey Premo polymer clay. While I was able to create beautiful sculptures from the polymer, I was frustrated with constantly having to pick out dust that accidentally got into the material. Also, I didn’t like how fragile the dolls were after curing and I didn’t want to create a product that could potentially break if dropped or handled too roughly. I also didn’t like the idea of resin cast dolls (as beautiful as they are) because of the issue of discoloration of the resin over time. I found that I could create very high quality sculptures using wool fiber. They proved to be extremely durable, delightful to the touch, and very easy to love. I was able to sculpt the color right onto the bodies and did not have to worry about the color rubbing off as it was a permanent part of the wool sculpture.

During the 2019 Covid-19 Lockdown, I found that I had more time to devote to the live cams from Explore.org where I have enjoyed watching brown bears fish at Katmai National Park for quite some time now. With more time to watch bears and needle felt, I developed a very recognizable, 3D illustration style of some of Katmai’s most famous bears.

Episode 1: A Peek inside the Studio.