Lets start from the begining….
FELT n. A fabric of matted, compressed animal fibers, such as wool or fur, sometimes mixed with vegetable or synthetic fibers. (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition.) Just to make sure we are all talking the same language…
felt (n.)
O.E. felt, from W.Gmc. *feltaz (cf. M.Du. vilt, O.H.G. filz, Da. filt), from P.Gmc. *peltaz “something beaten,” from PIE *peldos- (cf. O.C.S. plusti), with a sense of “beating.”
So, it turns out that even though the author/originator of the wrap kit has refuted the idea that it is felt in any form or description, the distributor of the kit insists that it is??
I quote from the Feltmakers List…
“The owner of Hanz On Creativity referred your email to us, Yarnmarket, since we are distributing & selling her products in the U.S., and I wrote the product description for the Whimsical Wrap Kit. Thank you for your feedback & here is some background information for you and your organization. Actually, the process used for the wrap is called “laminate felting” here in the U.S. (anything that uses the dissolvable plastic as far as I’ve seen). I’ve seen ads for classes in laminate felting & numerous references to it on the web the past year or so. I also saw a demonstration at a recent yarn show in San Diego of an additional/similar process with dissolvable paper & it was compared to laminate felting by the demonstrator. Perhaps it’s just a difference in terminology, and since our customers are mostly Americans, we choose to describe products using Americanisms much like we refer to sweaters instead of jumpers & vests rather than waistcoats. I have tweaked the product description slightly to refer to felting in all its varieties at the very beginning & to remove the adjective “cold” because the plastic will dissolve in other temps too; however, we will be keeping the rest of the description geared to our main customers. Thank you again for your feedback.
Sincerely,
Jan Gratz”
So this is for you Jan… What do you feel your responsibility (if any) is to the felting community worldwide? Your “terminology” issue, to use the beloved American idiom, is unadulterated hogwash… So this leaves me with the feeling that this is a purely profit motivated issue exploiting the rise in popularity of feltmaking in the United States.
Has it ever occurred to you that there are people trying to make their living by making and selling felt?
That it is through the efforts of these people that there is a market for things “felt”.
That this sort of thing is working contrary to the reputation of feltmaking as a whole…
Please read… Aspects; Feltmakers and Felting I know it’s a bit long but I think there are a few important issues for you to take note of…