Participants will learn basic nuno felting technique and a felting resist technique to create a seamless lightweight cowl. The term “nuno felting” is derived from the Japanese word “nuno”, meaning cloth. The technique bonds loose fiber, usually wool, onto a sheer fabric such as silk gauze, creating a lightweight felt. Participants will lay out thin layers of unspun wool fiber onto silk gauze, along with some embellishment fibers to create additional texture and design. The design is wetted down and then felted using light massage and rolling. As the fibers begin to felt, they migrate through the sheer fabric and continue to shrink as felting progresses.

Class minimum: 4

Class maximum: 6

About the Instructor

Melinda Schertenlieb has been working in the fiber arts most of her life:  sewing, embroidering, knitting, crocheting, etc.  She began exploring felting 12 years ago, and has taken a number of workshops (both group and individual) to learn techniques in wet felting.  Using unspun wool fibers, silk fibers, and other textural elements, Melinda primarily wet felts handbags, vessels, scarves, and brooches/pins.  She also enjoys working with fine papers and has studied bookbinding methods to create handbound journals, most of which feature an exposed spine to show the varied methods of stitching.  Melinda continues to explore techniques, and is expanding her fiber art learning to include eco printing on fabric and paper.  In that process, plants and leaves are imprinted onto a substrate through steaming.  She uses the imprinted fabric to create one of a kind handbags, and the imprinted papers are used to create unique covers for her handbound journals.

ACWL-Nuveen classes are supported by the Michigan Arts & Culture Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Nuveen Benevolent Trust, and CatchMark Technologies.