IFA AGM 2024

The TALKS presented at the AGM:

Rachel Frost (UK)
From her yurt workshop, historian, feltmaker and hatter Rachel Frost will talk about her research into a lost and forgotten felting tradition. This will be a prerecorded film with an opportunity for questions at the end.
Rachel is an authority on early felt making in Britain and has conducted extensive research of extant examples in British collections, especially felt hat making before industrialisation. By combining both her knowledge as a historic researcher and as a practitioner she is working to revive this ancient and forgotten heritage craft.
http://www.thecraftybeggars.org/

Fay Hodson (Canada)
From Under My Hat
As a feltmaker who aspires to make unique and creative work, Fay has learned so much from other artists: not just their techniques and designs, but what gets their creative juices flowing. Creativity, like many other skills, takes practice and time to build ability and confidence.
In this talk, Fay will share how “Sustainability on My Mind,” a series of headgear, came to be. It consists of eight pieces so far, each with at least one different technique. They demonstrate how feltmaking can communicate something that is important to the artist. There are three aims to the talk: to encourage those who aren’t confident in their own creativity to give it a go; to stimulate discussion about creative processes; and to celebrate creativity as another dimension of technique.
https://fayhodson.com/

The VIDEOS:

Annemie Koenen (Netherlands)
Make a felt hat using Millinery Skills
Unlike milliners, felt makers make their own hoods, adding a wide variety of decorative materials. Using millinery skills to finish your hat will add a more polished and professional finish. Hats have almost completely disappeared from the streets. Hopefully, this video will inspire you to contribute to making the street scene more colourful and interesting.
https://annemiekoenen.com/en/

Saar Snoek (Netherlands)
Award winning feltmaker and milliner Saar Snoek will talk about the endless possibilities of wetfelting technique to make felt hats from scratch. In her work she merges experimental weltfelting techniques with traditional millinery, exploring ways to renew within tradition. The video will cover the differences between handmade and industrial hat bodies, choosing materials, showing examples of different blocks, the process of drawing a template for a specific block. She will share lots of tips and tricks to get a seamless, smooth or textured, light and strong hat body. She will explain how and why she uses steam, stiffeners and wire to create a unique professional finished hat.
https://www.saarsnoek.nl/hats.html