The Dodo Blog

I’ve been working on this online course for some time, and I’m happy to announce, it is now available in my Etsy shop.

If you’re familiar with my workshops, you’ll find this one very different from the ones I’ve created before. Instead of teaching you how to make a particular piece, my goal here is to talk about one theme – in this case, play fruit – in a very comprehensive way.

The idea is to enable you to create other similar pieces, based on what you learn here. So, more than a workshop, this is a course for beginners.

That’s why I’ve also added a bonus PDF, that’ll give you the chance to learn some of the basics, if you’re entirely new to felting.

What’s included in the course?

1. Introduction (1 video)
2. Materials And Equipment (1 PDF)
3. Making The Pre-Felts (1 video)
4. Using Wool Leftovers To Fill New Felt Pieces (1 video)
5. Oranges, mandarins and lemons (3 videos)
6. Peaches and plums (3 videos)
7. Strawberries,...

Today I’ve got a short video for you.

It’s on a subject that I haven’t heard anyone talk about yet: recycling felted wool rests.

It might not seem very important to you, if you’re just starting out with felting. But if it’s something you do on a regular basis, I bet you’ve already asked yourself what you should do with all those bits and pieces that you got from cutting parts off your projects or from items that just didn’t turn out the way you expected.

To me this is really something important. I work with high quality wool (with the certifications Öko-Tex® Standard 100 and Global Organic Textile Standard), so it would never cross my mind to throw away any rests. I keep every little bit, even the pieces my students don’t want to save, when I’m teaching live workshops ? This means I ended up with bags full of all shapes and colors, and I really wanted to do something with them.

When I started filming my latest felting...

A couple of days ago I bumped into a short video, while browsing the internet. I was awed by what I saw and I was left wondering how I had never heard about this before.

After that, I went searching, and here is some of what I’ve discovered.

“[This] ancient thread, known as byssus, […] is mentioned on the Rosetta stone and said to have been found in the tombs of pharaohs.

[…] It was the finest fabric known to ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, and one of its remarkable properties is the way it shines when exposed to the sun, once it has been treated with lemon juice and spices.

[…] The raw material comes from the glistening aquamarine waters that surround the island. Every spring [Chiara] Vigo goes diving to cut the solidified saliva of a large clam, known in Latin as Pinna Nobilis.

She does it early in the morning, to avoid attracting too much attention, and is accompanied by members of the Italian coastguard – this is a protected species. It...

Last week I did a short introduction to nuno felting, on how to choose the right materials and a couple of other tips to help you start experimenting with the technique.

Today, I’d like to show you some examples of samples I made before I decided to felt a bigger piece, what materials I chose for them and what went right/wrong.

I’d like to start with the samples where the wool covered the whole fabric surface, just because I find it an easier way to start than just applying stripes, dots or any kind of other motives on the fabric, since the smaller the area that the wool covers, the more difficult it is to make it attach properly to the woven surface.

Sample 1 – This is probably the easiest of them all to get good results. I used an extra-fine green merino and a white cheese cloth for this. Since this type of cloth has a very open weave, the fine merino fibers have no problem attaching to it. I find it produces a very interesting surface, that could look great on a...

I often get questions about nuno felting, so I’d like to share a couple of tips to help you start experimenting, and to get the feeling for it, especially if it’s something entirely new for you.

Nuno felting is a very recent felting method, and it was developed when designers rediscovered felting, and started playing with new ways to use this old textile technique. It was developed by Polly Stirling in the 90s, when she combined the traditional wet felting with light fabrics, like silk for example. In her own words:

‘In 1990 I became entranced by the myriad of transformations of the rich and ancient textile called felt. I spent most of the ensuing decade seeing what new forms could evolve, as appropriate for the subtropics of Australia where I had lived for nearly 20 years. The techniques I developed for making lightweight felts soon led to experiments combining other materials, and in 1994 my assistant Sachiko Kotaka and I developed the technique we termed...

I’ve been working in a new video workshop, which I hope to finish and post in the next couple of weeks. And the video tutorial I bring you today will be part of this workshop.

I wanted to share it with you, because I know there are so many questions about how to make a pre-felt.

Hope you enjoy it!

Talk to you soon!

Even if you’re more experienced in wet felting, you’ll still have projects that don’t go the way you planned. Sometimes that can lead to surprising results and to discovering a new technique, but sometimes they just turn into something you’re not happy about.

So, the question is ‘what went wrong?’ I often say that wool has a mind of its’ own. That’s actually one of the beauties of felting. But it’s also true that so many times the cause for a ‘failed’ project is you didn’t pay enough attention to a part of the process.

In some cases, you can still ‘save’ the piece, but the best way to deal with this is to know where things can go wrong. This way you can avoid running into problems in the first place.

Now, we know there are 5 important factors for wet felting: 1) wool, 2) soap, 3) moisture, 4) temperature and 5) pressure. So, if something went wrong with the process, we can assume that something went...

I now know that several people have had problems finding the password for downloading the videos when they’ve bought a video workshop in my Etsy shop. So, I thought it would make sense to write a short post to make your downloads easier.

So, here’s how buying a digital item on Etsy works. After you’ve paid for your workshop, you get immediate access to all the PDFs included in the tutorial. But Etsy doesn’t allow sellers to upload videos, so the only way is to upload them on another website. I use Vimeo for this.

That means that every video tutorial has at least one PDF with the downloading instructions. It starts with a short text about the workshop, followed by a photo of the item you’ll learn to felt and the Vimeo links. STRAIGHT AFTER THE LINKS YOU FIND THE PASSWORD. So, you’ll have to scroll down to the end of the document to find it. But it’s there. I promise!

So, summing it up:

1. Download the PDF.
2. Click on each link in the PDF and a...

The video workshop on the English Rose Brooch is available in my Etsy shop as of today. If you are more of a visual person, this is definitely the best option.

If you’d like to know more about the workshop, check out the video introduction.

Are you on the Dodo email list? If so, you’ll be getting an email shortly with a coupon code you can use in the next two weeks. It’ll give you access to 25% off not only on the new video workshop, but on any product in the shop. Enjoy!

You might have noticed I haven’t posted last week. The thing is I’m in the middle of moving to a new apartment, so I have a lot going on. This means I won’t be posting as often during the summer, but I promise to bring you something new whenever it’s possible.

Meanwhile, you can keep in touch through email.

Talk to you soon!

About two months ago I published the English Rose PDF tutorial. But if you prefer seeing how all the details are made, there’s a huge advantage in video. And that’s why I’m now releasing the English Rose Video Workshop.

Here’s the introduction, to give you a taste of what you can expect.

The English Rose is a flower that has been designed primarily to be applied on brooches. But you can use it for hair accessories or anything else you might think of. And, of course, you can make bigger or smaller versions of it.

What’s particular about this workshop is that you’ll be learning how to wet felt a flower that is extremely light weight, but resistant at the same time. And that’s all due to this mix technique (needle and wet felting) and the wool type I use.

This is an intermediate level workshop, so you should have experience felting and feel confident with the wool already. The project should take you about 3 to 4 hours to complete.

You’ll...