The West Surrey Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers

Home Page

Anne Willitts – Heartfelt: from Flat to 3D – a feltmaker’s progress

In November we welcomed Anne to talk about her work as a felt maker. One of Anne’s earliest pieces was a red felt hat she bought as a child in France. As an active member of the London Guild, Anne has done a lot of weaving, spinning and dyeing as well as attending workshops. She studied for her City & Guilds in embroidery at Richmond and while studying she made some felt work. These studies continued at Godalming and the study group still continue to meet and exhibit.

Part of these studies involved hat making and this inspired Anne to take a formal hat making Btec course at a London college. She was the only student to make her own felt for the hats rather than using commercially produced machine felt. She made some animal design hats and these were accepted at the hat museum in Stockport as part of their competition “when is a hat not a hat.” Anne continued her studies by taking a distance learning course in felt making and a teaching qualification.

We saw many of the different techniques Anne has used over the years in her work which included cutting through the layers to expose the colour underneath, needle-felting, Shibori, 3D work, nuno felt worked onto fabric and many more. Some of this work has been inspired by her travels to Islamabad and Nepal as well as by visits to the British Library.

During her trip to Nepal with other London Guild members, Anne worked on the nettle project with the local people. The aim was to provide the Nepalese workers with new ideas and inspiration to market their own work. They are already skilled workers but they lack the knowledge of what will sell in the commercial world. Anne worked on using the nettle fibres with wool to produce a range of cushions and bags.

It would have been good to have had a demonstration of some of the many felt-making techniques but unfortunately time did not allow us to see this. It was however inspiring to see some of the great creative work to be achieved by the use of wool and other fibres.

Janine Rees