P L E N T Y SUMMER 2019 Plenty Summer 2019-joomag copy | Page 30

Bev’s felting studio,
a reimaginged horse
barn, is cradled in a
nurturing landscape
of rolling pastures
and big skies. Impres-
sions from the colors
and textures of the
land naturally find
their way into Bev’s
earthy designs.
seemed to make sense: they had plenty of
pastureland, and sheep would be less of an
undertaking than cattle. They chose to breed
sheep for their meat. Unfortunately, their
flock was picked off one by one over time.
The culprit: a large neighborhood dog. And
even after his surreptitious forays on the
farm were uncovered and his owners moved
away, Bev found raising sheep for meat too
difficult to go on. So, they rethought farm
reality once again and began instead to raise
sheep for their wool. And with that, came
Bev’s opportunity to make things.
“I was self taught. In the
beginning I learned to spin. I
had yarn from the wool, so I
bought a loom and stared
to weave, ” says Bev.
Looking around for pos-
sible classes to expand
her education in the
woolly arts was the
next step. Most classes
involved long drives
away from the farm,
but one sounded inter-
esting and was relatively
close by in Poolesville.
“A study group there was
exploring the art and process
of felting, which I knew noth-
ing about,“ recalls Bev. “After
joining the group, I was smitten.” Her
creative fire ignited, Bev became almost
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PLENTY I SUMMER GROWING 2019
solely focused on
nuno felting. It was
a wonderfully prag-
matic and exciting
new medium that
allowed her to freely
express and experi-
ment to her heart’s
desire. She had all
the elements and
operational know-
how to take on the
artistic enterprise
with gusto: the land,
her sheep, and her former horse barn turned
felting studio, all set up in stations for dyeing
wool, painting silk, and creating large fabric
constructions.
The Design Process
Different sheep produce distinct shades of
wool, from white to black and all the natu-
ral colors between. Bev’s sheep are sheared
once a year. The fleece then goes to a mill
in Baltimore where they are processed and
come back as roving, or the result of card-
ing (separating the wool into parallel strands)
that, when wet, agitated and rolled, can
be worked into flat sheets of wool felt. “In
normal wet felting you use soap and water
to change the pH, which causes little barbs
on the fibers to splay out,” explains Bev. “In
nuno felting you lay the wool out onto a
natural fabric, like silk. Then you soap, water
and agitate it causing the wool to migrate
through the open weave of the silk where
it locks everything in.”
Selecting fabric to merge with the wool
is an important part of the design process.
Bev upcycles pieces of silk from vintage
clothing and buys other pieces that in-
trigue her. She often dyes or paints beauti-
ful designs on the silk, creates patchworks
of brilliant color and textures with the wool
and silk, moving and stretching the designs.
The process is dynamic, physical and highly
intuitive. “Rarely do I lay out a design ahead