Toad and Co were originally made for a friend of a friend of a friend who does a display for the church Flower Festival in Ashford on the Water in Derbyshire and was looking for someone to create figures on the theme of children’s literature, for which she had chosen Wind in the Willows. She was given my name. It was quite a challenge, as the figures are quite big, and she also wanted Ratty, Mole and Badger as well as Toad! I even added some felt bullrushes. The display was beautiful. As reward for my efforts she gave me a case of nice wine!! The animals have since appeared at Masham Sheep Fair, where they won all the prizes in the Craft Show there, and they are now featuring for a whole year in the IFA Region 10 “Entangled” Exhibition at Leeds Industrial Museum. There they are enjoying a riverside picnic, also made of felt, illustrating the fact that as the industrial environment there regenerates you may well see the local fauna out enjoying themselves!! I am thinking of offering them to the Story Museum in Oxford next!!
The figures are needle felted. I started off making them with a core of waste bits of felt, adding a mixture of natural Herdwick from the Lake District, some sheepskin waste bits from the shop in Clapham, N Yorks, which I clipped and carded, together with some batts and merino for the finer features. They don’t have armatures, but I did give them doll stands so they wouldn’t fall over, pushing the uprights into channels I made on their backs. I have made and dressed stuffed animals before so I was able to hand make all their outfits from bits of cloth and old jewellery I happened to have in my stash, and added some charity shop finds, like Rat’s straw boater and tiny yellow mac, Toad’s shirt and tie and Badger’s glasses. They all have little coats or a dressing gown, Ratty has some boots, Mole has some galoshes, some have weskits with watch chains, and I even knitted Ratty an Aran jumper. I even made Toad some driving goggles to go with his Yorkshire flat cap. Everyone laughs at him because of his idiotic expression!!
This year’s Flower Festival theme was a musical, for which I made Jan a Dulux dog and some chickens for her display of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I wonder what next year’s theme will be!
The Entangled Exhibition by Region 10 is still on until 31st May – learn more here https://www.feltmakers.com/event/entangled/
Article by Jill Lauriston, Region 10