Stephanie Cowburn creates original handmade wet felt and needle felted animals, which she sells online, in addition to accepting commissions. Stephanie describes herself an author, illustrator, teacher, parent and wife.
“…Inspiration comes from being open minded and following what makes me happy. If you follow your heart, take calculated risks and enjoy what you do to develop and improve, this will show through in your work…”
From an early age I enjoyed making things, whether purely drawing a picture or fashioning clothes for my dolls, so once my children began school and I discovered I had some ‘free time’ I decided to teach myself a new skill.
Ignored the instructions
Textiles have always interested me and after searching for a while I came across a rather rudimentary felt making kit which I ordered consisting of a laminated instruction card, some wool tops and a car mat. Honestly that wasn’t a misprint – I did say a car mat! I instantly fell in love with the process of wet felting and over time ignored the laminated instructions to develop my own method.
In time and with practice you learn how far to ‘felt’ the fibres together. I worked hard to perfect a strong felt that was still soft and cuddly to touch for the animals I was making. It takes practice to learn when to stop the fulling and shrinking process in order to achieve this or to recognise the need to shrink further for items that need to hold their shape without stuffing or support such as vessels and bowls.
The majority of my work is created by wet felting but this is often embellished by needle felted details as is the case with my pictures. I also make needle felted models of people’s pets, usually their dogs which I simply adore since I’m a dog owner myself. I try and capture the character as well as the likeness and encourage my clients to tell me about their dog so that I can think about them whilst I’m making them.
Love creating something from virtually nothing
Needle felting consists of repetitively stabbing at the wool fibres thousands of times with a single barbed needle to shape and add detail to the model. These take several hours even days for some pieces I have no preferred way of making felt, both methods are exciting as I love creating something desirable from virtually nothing. The average time it takes to wet felt an animal varies between 3-5 hours from the laying down of fibres to the completed character.
Recently I was asked to make a life size replica of a client’s Jack Russell. My usual models are between 5-7 inches depending upon their pose. The client and I compromised and agreed on a 10-12 inch model (as seen in the photograph, my version being the top two images with the real dog below). This still took me outside my comfort zone, building the thin layers of fibres took more than twice the time I had expected but often when we challenge ourselves we produce some of our best work.
Keeping up with the demand for my work whilst working part time as a teacher is often challenging but I’m realistic about predicting a time scale for clients and naturally the more requests I get the longer hours I work.
Inspiration from children who are open to new experiences and challenge themselves continuously
Children are inspirational and often feed my creativity because they are always open to new experiences and challenge themselves continuously. My felted characters appeal to adults, many of them have a retro feel evoking childhood memories of a beloved toy. Whilst being soft and fluffy all the animals have their own personal profiles, many have a naughty edge or a darker side but hopefully always with humour which also appeals to and delights children.
Fortunately I have a very supportive family who actively encourage me in my work. They’re used to finding a new litter of kittens drying on the radiators and kindly step over my numerous bags of merino wool tops that follow me from house to studio and back again!
Follow your heart, take calculated risks and enjoy what you do
Inspiration comes from being open minded and following what makes me happy. If you follow your heart, take calculated risks and enjoy what you do to develop and improve, this will show through in your work.
A while ago I spent a couple of months making and writing profiles for 18 mad and neurotic cats to support an idea that came to me which can be found on my website called ‘Moggy Match’ (a dating agency for cats), the positive feedback I’ve received has amazed me.
Where do I go from here?
So, where do I go from here? Well, as long as the demand for my wet and needle felted characters continues to grow I intend to keep making them. I also have a range of quirky taxidermy style exhibition pieces that I would like to exhibit in different galleries along with my range of felted pictures which are based on my interpretation of iconic characters from children’s literature.
I intend to further my skills as a children’s author and seek a publisher interested in taking my felt characters to print. Several people have suggested animating my characters which ultimately would be a delight to achieve. Somewhere and at some point I will find the time to sleep between projects but for the time being I intend to live the dream. I can always sleep later!
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