Whether I’m creating something special to wear or a product for your home, I always use the finest fiber for the best result. And because I saved many of my personal favorite alpaca fleeces after I retired from the farm, naturally, I use those.  Although I love all natural fibers, I will occasionally add silk, merino and Suri alpaca. Mohair?  I use that for embellishments when shiny curls are needed.

All of my fibers are hand dyed in my studio.  I absolutely love the dying process.

It’s hard to say which technique is my favorite.  Yes, I do knit and crochet, but my favorites are spinning, weaving and felting.  While I used to knit hats by the dozen, arthritis has made that a more painful rather than pleasure technique.

When spinning, I love the feel of the soft fibers running through my fingertips.  And the result is always pleasing to the eye as well as the hand.

I do several types of weaving, from making scarves, wraps, and fabrics to tapestry weaving.  I love the Zen feeling of the rhythmic pace of weaving back and forth, row after row.  With the woven fabric rolled on the roller bar, it’s always a pleasure when it’s unrolled, and you can see the final piece.  Tapestry weaving is a different type of Zen. You weave sections and see your progress with each row.  It’s nearly mesmerizing to see either the geometric shapes or the picture emerges.

If I had to make a choice, however, it would be felting.  Felting falls into two specific techniques with slight variations within each group. Felting is the “tangling of fibers” to put in non-technical terms.  It creates a non-woven fabric.  This can be done wet or dry.

Dry felting is done with a specific needle that has barbs at the tip that tangles the fibers together.  Using the felting needle, I like to create 3-D sculptures, although it can also be used to create pictures, hats, embellishments and so much more.

Wet felting is my preference.  It’s a difficult technique to master because it involves a bit more science, which I appreciate.  Within the realm of wet felting there are two basic techniques, flat and 3-D, and I love both.  My bowls and vases use the 3-D resist technique.  I fell in love with the pottery bowls my dad had once made in his art school days.  Then when I went out west, I discovered Native American pottery, and I was hooked.  Most of my bowls will have the flavor of the West, in shape, color and or embellishment.

The 2-D felting is a technique that I also use a lot.  I love creating fabric and pictures.  The process is so liberating and totally expressive.  I can create a thicker fabric to cut out shapes to add to my art, or I can make a piece of felt paper thin that can be framed.  Since I love watercolor, most of my felted pictures will have the appearance of watercolor painting.  I also love to sketch, so I will add freehand machine sketching to my pictures.  And because I love bling, many pieces have beads if the pictures scream for it.

2-D felting has many more applications.  I’ve created ginormous wall hangings to small intricate interruptive art adding leather, beads and of course feathers.  And the smallest pieces are my Mini Wearables which are brooches, pins, necklaces and bracelets.

Once I began adding embellishments to many of my art pieces, I created a collection of Mixed Media in 2D and 3D and became a juried artist in those additional categories.  My process didn’t change; the base is still hand felted fibers with hand and/or machine stitching plus the beads, feathers, leather, metals, etc.

From there I’ve begun adding paint into the mix, so to say.  It’s opened up an entire new artform that I’m truly enjoying as the options have become unlimited.

I do custom pieces.

You can contact me at StacyHeydt.Art@gmail.com

By phone, prefer texts 417-838-9575 because most of the time I’m elbow deep into a project.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/HeydtDesignStudio

Member of the following associations:

• ArtCentral – Carthage Missouri
• Best of Missouri Hands
• JRAC – Joplin Regional Artists Collation
• Missouri Fiber Artists
• Spiva Center for the Arts – Joplin
  • • SRAC – Springfield Regional Artists Cooperative