Sarah Waters United Kingdom

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Sarah Waters is a contemporary feltmaker, using traditional and innovative techniques, to showcase the beauty and diversity of our British wool. Working with local and sustainable fleeces where possible, she creates large scale wallhangings, installations and artworks. Her work aims to push the boundaries by exploring the use of unconventional materials within her art.

Sarah is a textile artist with a passion for feltmaking that originates from her love of sheep. Living in the New Forest her work reflects her desire to connect with nature and the importance of sustainability.

Sarah has been spinning weaving and dyeing her own fleeces for over thirty years. Having graduated in Agriculture she set up and ran her own company, producing yarn and knitting kits from her own flock of several hundred Rare Breeds of sheep. Feltmaking was a progression after having to disperse the flock when her father sold his smallholding. Sarah now has almost thirty years of experience in teaching feltmaking from school children, adults with learning difficulties to community projects.

She currently runs her own textiles business teaching, exhibiting in the UK and internationally and selling her work though galleries and online.

Sarah is the regional coordinator of the International Feltmakers Association and also a selected member of the Society of Designer Craftsman.

The work she produces is not only functional but has colour, texture and tactile qualities. Using both traditional and innovative techniques she aims to show the diversity and qualities feltmaking can be taken to and pushes the boundaries with her work.

Sarah’s work is usually in relief and very often three-dimensional. She is a very ‘hands on’ person and loves the tactile feel of felting. Each piece she produces is unique and loves that fact it can never be replicated. Felt making is a passion, her life and in her soul.