Fantastic Felt Workshop for Schools and Youth Groups

This art workshop specializes in teaching young people the process of making felt, as well as cultivating their creative confidence.

Felt is the one of the oldest fabrics known to man.  Many historical specimens of felt have endured the test of time; highly sophisticated felt artefacts were found preserved in permafrost in a Siberian tomb.  These felt relics date back to 600 B.C.

The process of felt-making requires wool fibres to interweave and condense.  These fibres form a dense mat when subjected to heat, friction and changes in alkalinity.  This is done using hot water, soap, and a combination of rubbing and rolling the fibres.

This felt making art workshop is one of those activities for children that offers an expansion in creativity, encouragement in learning new concepts and a chance for young people to fully express themselves.

What happens in this art workshop?

The facilitator will inspire the group's creativity by showing examples of felt making and felt banners that were made at previous workshops.

Students will be introduced and become more familiar with the materials they will be using, such as merino wool tops.  The facilitator will demonstrate how to make a piece of wool felt from an initial design.

The group will be given time to create technical working sketches of the design that they wish to make.

Participants will work on their felt pieces with the facilitator on standby to offer help, ideas and encouragement.

While their felt pieces are drying, students will be able to create a luggage label tag to complement their felt design.  These luggage tags will be made from coloured and recycled materials; students can write down any thoughts and feelings they have experienced during their creation process. 

To finish off this creative art workshop, students' luggage tags will be laminated and attached to the final pieces of felt with ribbon.

What will young people get from this art workshop?

• A broad scope of creative learning experiences, focusing on the felt making process.
• The opportunity for students to exercise their creativity and express themselves in a fun and easy-going environment, where all opinions and ideas are encouraged and welcomed.
• Development of new skills by allowing students to work with new materials while having a professional artist answer questions and encourage participants.
• Support in working toward a common goal, as well as an opportunity to share ideas and develop communication and presentation skills.
• A greater sense of self-esteem, which inspires participants to become involved in future creative pursuits.

What do young people say about this creative workshop?

“My favourite hat is made out of felt, so I was really excited to make my own felt piece.” – Linda, age 10

“I had so much fun with the other kids making felt.” – Kiera, age 9

“I'm happy I got to make a luggage tag - I can use it for my bag when I go on my summer holidays.” – Ian, age 11

"I can't wait to make more things out of felt." – Charmaine, age 12

What size does this creative workshop come in?

For these creative workshops we offer three different sizes:

• 1.5 - 2 hour sessions - These sessions include an introduction to the felt making process.  Each student leaves with at least one handmade felt piece.
• Half day sessions - The half day sessions include time for initial design, hands-on felt making and creating one practice piece and one final piece to be mounted on the flat felt squares.
• Full day felt banner session  - The activities for children in the full day workshop cover design time as well as making up to three felt pieces.  Participants will be able to display their felt creations on flat felt squares, mount them on canvas and also on ribbon banners.  These final creations are suitable for display in school and community centres alike.
• These sessions are available to be run as after school sessions.

How many young people can this art workshop accommodate?

This creative workshop can accommodate groups of 15 students.  The full day workshops can be split to cover two groups of 15.

Like the sound of this workshop?

Then you might also like to check out our other textile art workshops:

Colour from your kitchen

Or our other creative workshops:

Jewellery making workshop

Contact us about this workshop:

Our workshops can vary in cost, so please provide us with some more information eg, numbers, location and the workshop you are interested in and we will provide you with a personal quote.

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We are very proud to say that we always aim to beat our competitor's costs whilst providing first class practitioners who will inspire and engage the young people they are delivering too! (Just take a look at our testimonials)