Past Work - Teapotty: Felt (wool)
 | Completed teapot | |||
 | An experienced felter, Lou Mills-Watts, guided me on this project. The first step was to cut out a disc of damp-proof membrane about 1/3 bigger than the diameter of the teapot. The next step was to felt it on both sides - Lou had a handy tool for doing this, rather than rubbing with your fingers. The next step was to cut a slot in the side, remove the membrane disc and then tumble-dry it, to shrink it a bit. | |||
 | The next step was to stuff it with Kapok and then needle-felt it to close the hole in the top and shrink it to size. I struggled to get it down to size so we tried some more rounds of wetting and tumble-drying. | |||
 | This is me needle-felting the teapot handle, on top of a block of foam. Felting needles are villainous - they're barbed - so stabbing yourself is to be avoided. | |||
 | Me with the completed teapot in Lou's kitchen. The spout was made in a similar way to the handle - needle felting - but round and tapered, with concentric layers of different colours. The "lid" was made by needle-felting around a circular object. The bobble on the top was fixed with glue, eventually, because needle-felting turned out not to be strong enough. | |||