Lena is a feltmaker, artist & teacher

 

Welcome to a world of luxurious fiber, wet felt, vibrant colors, and endless amazing possibilities created with lots of love, wool, and silk. I am Lena Archbold, a feltmaker and textile artist who loves to create bespoke, one-off ‘wearable art’ garments. I was born in Ukraine, live, and create in the North East of England.

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A thirst to create something unique took me on a textile-draped journey of designing and stitching clothes to freeform knitting and crochet, and finally landed me in the magical world of felt-making, taking needle-felting and then wet felting classes with multimedia artist Jane Frazer.

Feltmaking became a cancer survival and after-cancer recovery strategy first in 2011. The felting process allows me to paint with wool, becoming a real meditation for me. I am surrounded in my studio by vibrant colors of the softest merino wool, luxurious silk, viscose, bamboo fiber, cotton, starchy linen, baby alpaca, and many other interesting fibers and fabrics. Playing with these fibers and fabric allows me to create unusual and exciting textures. Using hand-dyeing techniques allows me to indulge my art, blending and mixing a wide range of beautiful colors.

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I am inspired by Mother Nature, vibrant fabrics, magnificent architecture, and pictures painted by great artists. I carry a camera and a sketchbook to gather ideas for my next project whenever the muse strikes!

I specialize in the design and creation of garments and other accessories using different felting techniques. Nuno Felting is one of my favorites, which uses pure silk or cotton combined with the finest merino wool and other fibers. This creates a bright gossamer of colors and shading that is a delight to wear.

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I have been teaching the art of felt since 2012 and have been running a feltmaking online school, Felt With Lena since 2018. I am passionate about community, learning together, and set up the Felt with Lena Club , where we meet online, discuss, inspire each other, and learn feltmaking, fibre dye, upcycling and other types of textile craft. The club is designed for different levels of experience, and the outcome is to enjoy and master felt.

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Sharing my love, passion, and skills with others empowers me to push boundaries in feltmaking, upcycling, and other textile techniques further while enjoying the company of similarly minded people around the world.