Carol Ann Parker

As a fiber artist, I focus on making fashionable hand-felted wool hats.  I like to wear hats and felting my own hats gives me an opportunity to create new designs and styles, and gives me an opportunity to explore different color combinations.  I get ideas for color, lines and form from nature that surrounds me.  Working with colored fleece in the feltmaking process is much like the work a painter does with an artist palette.  I blend different colors of the wool fleece to give shade and depth of color to the felt.  I enjoy exploring techniques to incorporate decorative tucks, folds, protuberances, pinched ridges, decorative stitching, and cutouts in the design.  There is no end to the many techniques that can be employed to make the end product a unique piece of felt.  Some of the new techniques that I learn result from the unintentional consequences that occur when the felt takes on a shape of its own and takes on a new look.  That is not always a bad thing, and more often than not, it is a new interesting twist to the original design.

After felting for several years I never tire of the simple process of manipulating wool fiber in warm soapy water to make a fabric.  I am still fascinated by the magic that comes from starting with loose wool fibers and watching the fibers bond together to become a durable fabric that can be shaped into a stunning hat.  The simple, ancient art of feltmaking is a process that I enjoy teaching in hat-making classes.  Through teaching the process of feltmaking,  I hope to help keep this lost art alive.