Karen Lane – textile artist and inspiring felt maker
My F-Plan Diet – Fabric, Fibre and Felting
It is always fascinating to hear how people developed their interests and on Monday we were lucky to have a talk on Zoom by Karen Lane. It was great opportunity to make online contact with Karen up in Lincolnshire and our members in Wiltshire. My dear friend, Pascale also joined us from Luxembourg.
Karen started her talk by explaining that to begin with she had only a basic knowledge of sewing and no background in textile art. It was not until 2014 that she discovered textile art and Feltmaking, joined her first textile group, attended workshops and began taking part in challenges.
One of the first Karen mentioned was a challenge set by Lincolnshire Quilters to create a work inspired by David Hockney. Another challenge with LINQS was to create a quilt inspired by the life or work of Sir Isaac Newton. Karen chose to represent his research related to alchemy. Her design was based on an alchemy poster with night & day, heaven & earth and symbols relating to Newtons discoveries including the apple tree as the tree of life.
Karen was invited to join another group and she took part in a challenge based on poetry and created a colourful felted piece with a web and the wording “Oh what a tangled web we weave”
Karen was very generous in sharing the materials she has used over the years and showed us a design in which she used vilene to cut out tree trunks and a number of beautifully created leaves using lutradur and tyvek. Cobweb scarves using viscose fibre and light weight silk to make beautiful nuno scarves.
As time went by felting became an important part of Karen’s life and she attended workshops with International tutors to develop her skills. She showed us wonderful neck pieces, bags and scarves which were inspired by the seashore and a fantastic head she created after attending a mask making course with Gladys Paulus. We were shown examples of felt creations using different techniques. Differential and directional shrinkage and rolled edge collars used to create neck pieces.
Karen now offers a wonderful variety of workshops in her studio in Lincolnshire and can also discuss visits to interested groups around the country. Details can be found on her website (link below)
Thank you so much for your inspiring talk Karen and we hope that one day we can arrange for you to visit us to pass on some of your exciting felting skills.
Report by Ros
Photos from screen by Ros and also thanks to Karen
Karen’s website: https://lincsinstitches.com/
Lincolnshire Quilters: https://linqsblog.wordpress.com/
Gladys Paulus: https://www.gladyspaulus.com/