Wonders of Wool – World of Threads Festival

Exciting News: My ‘Wonders of Wool’ is Featured in the World of Threads Festival!

I am so thrilled and honoured to share that my latest fibre artwork has been accepted into the World of Threads Festival! (Oakville, Ontario Canada)

For this exhibit, I wanted to bring together some of my favourite ways of working with wool—combining texture, structure, and organic forms to capture a piece of nature’s quiet magic. My many walks on the beach, happening on rare moths/butterflies and our native leaf species has provided the inspiration!

Three Methods to Transform wool:

The Delicate Needle-Felted Butterfly:

Crafting the butterfly required fine detail and patience, sculpting soft wool fibers into crisp wings and rich, blended colours. If you’ve never discovered water soluble stabilizer, this is a magic product to enable intricate sewing and shaping.

I wanted to capture the wing designs in a way that could be admired from both directions.

My collection of wool roving and water soluble stabilizer makes creating the designs possible. In this case I am ‘Mother Nature’, so I created my own specie of insect. Funny, now that I think about it, I have been inspired by these insects a few times…

Thousands of pokes anchor the fibre into the stabilizer.

Free motion sewing helps lock the fibres into each other as the stabilizer will be washed away. Transparent thread was my choice to be as inconspicuous as possible.

A few pieces of fur become the chubby body and wire legs. Scale is huge and allows the best observation.

What do you think? Look closely, it has a transparent somewhat furry realism to actual butterfly wings.

Tactile Wool Stones:

To anchor the design with a grounded, natural feel, I wet-felted a series of smooth “wool stones.” They look and feel just like river rocks, bringing an organic, earthy-looking weight to the composition but so comfortably soft.

I designed the process with the aid of some laundry machines! I keep being amazed at all the ways that this wool media can be controlled and manipulated, but still keeping it’s ‘grace’!

Large and small these soft stones have quite the charm with their soft tones.

Stones that can fall without a clunk or damage… how novel!

The Massive Maple Leaf & Free-Motion Stitching:

The centrepiece is a sweeping, oversized wool maple leaf. To bring it to life, I used free-motion machine embroidery after wet-felting. Sewing intricate vein patterns across the surface, giving the leaf structure, movement, and a rich, sculpted dimension.

You may already know how much I love our Maples for what they can Eco print for me.

Working with wool allows for such endless versatility—from soft, fine needle felting to dense, structured forms and fluid stitching.

Bringing all three elements together for this exhibition was a wonderful creative journey that I am so blessed to able to share.

If you’re visiting the World of Threads Festival, keep an eye out for it! Thank you all so much for your continued support and encouragement on my artistic journey.

Maybe you will never look at wool or sheep in the same way!

Queen Elizabeth Park Community and Cultural Centre

Address:  2302 Bridge Road, Oakville, Ontario, Canada