Cactus Garden in Felt
3-D Felt Making
Soosie Jobson is a felt maker who has taken the craft to a whole new level.
The images you are seeing here are not cacti, they are felt. Of all the things to try to create in soft fuzzy felted fabric, sharp prickly cacti would have to be right up there on the degree of difficulty, but just look at what she has achieved.
Soosie and her cactus garden will be on show in the FeltWest display at our Perth Craft & Quilt on May 18 to 22, 2016.
Soosie also has a new e-book and we are pleased to share this review written by one of the leading textile artists in Australia, Nancy Ballesteros.
A book review: Structural and Sculptural Complex 3-D Shapes in Felt by Soosie Jobson, Perth, Western Australia
Judging by the title, this is not a book for beginner feltmakers. It is however, a great easy E-book for anyone with a little 3-D experience to extend their knowledge and skill base. I love the fact that you can quickly download this book onto your tablet and take it with you anywhere to read and apply the techniques.
The books briefly covers the basic felting skills needed to accomplish more complex 3-D forms, ie. layout, prefelting, fulling and resist making. There is a discussion of differential shrinkage rates when wool is layered differently in different areas, and for those more technically minded there is also a discussion with Shrinkage Rate Calculations. These basic skills are only covered at the start of the book and then you are continually referred back to this information as you need it. A clever way to keep information in the following chapters simple and to the point. Your focus is mainly on learning the specific skills needed to execute the relevant 3-D shapes being taught.
A huge variety of resist forms are covered, Soosie eases you into resist making with a simple Evening Purse, then moves into the very interesting creation of a multi-angle resit in the form of a Barrel Cactus. Tubes/Snakes and Negative Space resits are covered. A complex box is also tackled, quite a difficult task in felt. Soosie then moves onto stitching construction methods for creating 3-D forms like Echeveria cactus and Peony Roses from prefelts.
There is quite a lot of information to digest in the small E-book and for ease of learning it is packed full of pictures and diagrams. Felters wanting to take their 3-D repertoire to the next level, this E-book is definitely worth purchasing.
By Nancy Ballesteros
Treetops Colour Harmonies
For more information about Soosie’s work and her books, visit http://soosie.com.au/