Winter - Classical Mileend Alpacas

FELT
Craft under pressure but Liz Brown
(www.heartfeltbyliz.com) can cope…
As a textile artist who works
mainly with felted fabrics, I am
always keen to try new fi bres.
Through a chance meeting with Pam
Fennell from Alpaca Scotland I was
intrigued about alpaca fi bre. I visited
Pam and Richard in Renfrewshire just
one hour from my studio in Ayrshire.
I immediately fell in love with these
beautiful creatures and speaking with
the couple realized that they felt it
important to be personally responsible
for marketing and selling their alpaca
fi bre. I was impressed at the standard
of farming. By keeping the paddocks
and shelters so clean and seed free it
means the fl eeces I would be working
with would refl ect the care taken.
Pam has her own workshop for
processing the fi bre into clean batts
for her established customers in the
Scottish Guild of Spinners, Weavers
and Dyers. She regularly has guild visits
to her farm.
I looked at what I could do as a
feltmaker to help use and promote the
use of this local sustainable source of
fi bre.
Initially we focused on the fi bre on
28 Alpaca World Magazine Winter 2004/05
the neck and legs, as the spinners and
weavers were not using this.
I was excited at the ‘locks’ they
varied in colour, crimp and texture just
perfect for my needs. I experimented
with the fi bre using many different
felting techniques and discovered that
alpaca fi bre needlefelts very well.
Needlefelting, which stabs the fi bre
with a triangular barbed needle, is a
technique used widely in industry on a
large scale to interlock fi bres.
I came up with some ideas. The
Alpaca needlefelting kit, is one of
these. This gives a photographic step
by step guide to creating a sculpture of
an alpaca head. The kit includes carded
batts and ‘locks’.
We both used our websites and our
summer visits to country fairs to launch
our kit. It was to be the start of a great
friendship.
I was keen to see how the fi bre
would work in my regular feltmaking so
I created shoes, boots and bags...hats,
jewelry and scarves. The fi bre
responded well and had the added
advantage of making a dense felt which
could be surface carded to give a long
fi bre which gave a furry texture.
In the baby booties where any long
fi bres are not suitable, I felted silk caps
to the inner and outer surface making
them very soft, warm and wearable.
I submitted some of this work for a
travelling exhibition by the International
Feltmakers Assocation called On the
Map. This exhibition was specifi cally to
promote local fi bres and the connection
between artist and grower. My bags
were chosen for this and they have
already toured several countries and
continue to tour well into 2005 (the IFA
website has details of where this will
tour next – www.feltmakers.com).
As a Yurt Keeper for the Scottish
Storytelling Yurt (a yurt/ger is a wooden
latticestructure with a felt cover, our
Yurt travels around the UK and abroad
teaching fi bre skills and telling stories)
I have access to a portable needleloom
machine and a fl atbed feltmaker. The
yurt group had purchased these for the
use of feltmakers in Scotland.
Pam had much success with both
machines and has made some lovely
sheets of felt ready to be cut and sewn
into garments.
I teach feltmaking in my studio and
promote the use of alpaca as a fi ne
fi bre. I also travel and do workshops on
specifi c aspects of feltmaking around
the country.
While researching the use of alpaca
fi bre in this country, I was disappointed
to fi nd that apart from a few clothing
manufactures the only other alpaca
goods available were from South
America. Apart from promoting the
use of local fi bre I feel it is important
to carry that through and promote the
artists/crafters who use this wonderful
medium. •