About
Handmade wool felt using UK farmed wool AND some special Welsh wool too!
About the work
Originally, the foundation of my textile work was hand rolled felt. Based in West Wales, I work with wool sourced exclusively from UK flocks, which I use to produce individual and contemporary felted objects: wearables, home textiles, wall hangings and 3-d pieces. In 2014, I was privileged to have the Arts Council of Wales sponsor a solo exhibition of my textiles work. In 2015, I was lucky enough to be able to show my work to HRH Prince Charles as a result of being a contributor to the Cambrian Mountains Wool Challenge.
For the exhibition, I incorporated other sustainable fabrics and a greater use of plant dyes. The fabrics in question: hemp fabric from Romania and organically grown cotton.
The process I follow includes cleaning, combing and dyeing raw fleece, sewing, printing and embellishment. We also purchase ready prepared fibres – scoured and combed – from British suppliers.
I work with wool in its natural undyed state, or prepared and dyed using plants or specialist commercial woollen dyes. For texture and colour, silk and other fibres including homespun yarn and UK alpaca are incorporated into the felt. I marry our handmade felt with leather, driftwood, beads and found objects to produce one-off items.
So: what’s with the name?
greenweeds. There’s ‘green’ for a start, ecological, local, urrrmm, ‘green’. Whilst ‘Weeds’ is an ancient word for clothing. We sometimes use plant dyes, including nettles, rosebay willow herb and ivy out of our very Welsh and weed ridden garden. Which have become green-weeds, now they’re being put to use. And the Welsh Fairy Book by W. Jenkyn Thomas tells the tale of the Man with the Green Weeds, a somewhat eerie tale of a spirit bringing a sticky end to an English man on the Dolgellau to Llanegryn road at Llyn Gwernen. So there is some reasoning to our choice of name, but hey, it’s just a name. Hopefully it will grow on you….