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Felt School
In 2008 the felt school Oberrot and the educational program “Fit in Filz” (Fit in Felt) was founded. On this page we are pleased to introduce our advanced training proposals around the subject felt. This innovative further education concept offers the possibility to get an additional qualification as a specialist in felting design.
Next to the further education program, Wollknoll yearly offers a wide range of other courses for many different creative techniques. Please find more information under courses. You can also let yourself be inspired by taking a look at our course program.
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New dates for the further educational program “Fit in Filz” – starting in 2025:
Group 3 E – programme for 3 years 2025-2027 – 2 times a year – 1st week: 2025 –Download document with all dates and register form
Group 2 Y – programme for 2 years 2025–2026 – 3 times a year – 1st week: 2025 – Download document with all dates and register form
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Further educational program “Fit in Filz”
Educational Objective
The program “Fit in Filz” conveys well-founded technical felting knowledge, together with artistic design elements, for a successful felting practice. Theoretical and practical handicraft course modules alternate and lead the participants to an individually conceptualized final project.
Educational Concept
The “Fit in Filz” classes last either two or three years, according to your personal requirements. They are divided into six single week-long units of six days each. After each module the participants are asked to turn their own individual practical skill into homework assignments following a given theme, complete with a documentation. These assignments are presented at the beginning of each following module.
The basic training comprises the course modules 1 to 3, the following professional studies the modules 4 to 6. Module 6 offers the possibility to reflect the content of the single courses, the preparation work for the final exam work and a joint planning of the participants’ individual professional objectives.
Certified Degree
The “Fit in Felt” educational program ends with a final project: “My own way to felting – an individual felting project”. The finished works will be presented to the public in a joint exhibition. The successful participation in all course modules, the completion of home assignments with their respective documentations and the publicly presented final project result in a “felt designer” certificate by the Oberrot felt school.
Were we able to spark your interest?
Your contact persons for all questions regarding the educational program and registration are:
Sonja Fritz und Marion Bader
Tel. +49 (0) 79 77 / 91 02 93
E-Mail: fritz@wollknoll.de
If you click on the image you can download our “Fit in Filz” info brochure. Upon request we gladly send it to you also via mail. Just give us a call or send us an email.
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The “Fit-in-Filz”-Team and Teachers
Sonja Fritz
Wollknoll GmbH is the family-owned business of Sonja and Bernd Fritz in Oberrot-Neuhausen near Schwäbisch-Hall, Germany. Wollknoll has processed wool since 1993 and offers a wide range of various kinds of wool, knitting wool, fabrics, tools and appurtenances. Due to their daily contact with wool and woolen products, a wealth of experience can be shared with interested parties via counseling either by phone or in personal contact. The idea to offer courses as well – focusing mainly on felting, but also about related creative techniques such as spinning or dyeing – became obvious. These notions became the starting point for the educational program “Fit in Felt” which is organized, hosted and supervised by Wollknoll.
Beate Bossert
Already during her special needs education with a focus on art Beate Bossert deepened her knowledge in textile techniques. She first encountered felt as an artistic material in 1990 and she has been dedicated to it in her own studio as well as of 1992. As a lecturer of felt art her expertise is much sought after internationally, and her work has been shown in countless exhibitions. Her main intent is to pass on her enthusiasm for the varied uses and techniques in this area. The same goes for the fascination of a continuous engagememt with an object, fibres, with experiments and her own creativity. Another important commitment is the establishment of a felters’ network in Germany. In 1999 she founded the magazine “verFilzt und zugeNäht – FUN”, whose chief editor she was until 2006. In 2005 she was one of the founding members of “Filznetzwerk e.V.” (Felt Network Association). She has published instructions for needle-felting and self-published her copious book “Felt Challenges – Herausforderung Filz” in 2013.
Gabriele Breuer
A former college-educated pharmacist, Gabriele Breuer has been working and teaching as a career changer in the textile area. It is of utmost importance to her to be able to handle a textile product at each different stage of its processing. Therefore, a focus of her instructions is also dyeing, next to spinning courses, yarn design and weaving. Her experiences in this field have been beautifully set in her book “1000 Farben auf Wolle und Seide” (1000 Colors on Wool and Silk), published at Maro. Within the frame of the felting education she teaches technical skills around the dyeing process of the raw materials. She is also renowned for her recommendations concerning color design which reach far beyond any commercial color range.
Ursula Eichenberger
Ever since her youth Ursula Eichberger has sewn or knitted her own clothes. During a three-year artistic design training she widened her knowledge, experience and skill with regard to design, color and form. She first came into contact with the material felt about 14 years ago. To feel and to work out how hats, a bag or a bowl are made from carded wool or fleeces continues to be a lasting fascination. From 2008 to 2010 she had professional felting training with Messrs. Zürcher and Stalder in Kirchberg. A further enhancement of her skills came from many workshops. In her own studio she processes her many ideas, experiments and has accompanied many people interested in felt in the making of their own works.
Heidi Greb
After a tailor’s apprenticeship, Heidi Greb first encountered felt in 1996 during her studies of fashion design at the Schneeberg Applied Arts Faculty. She learned the craft in Finland during an exchange semester and invented her own felting technique for garments. She was especially interested in making purely hand-felted clothes, “seamless”, so to speak, from beginning to end. This was an important factor for her diploma thesis as well, which was presented in 1998. Since then, she has been a freelancing felt artist in the field of “Felt Clothing Art”, has taken part in exhibitions, worked to order and taught felting courses. She was awarded prices for her exceptional garment collections. After many experiments, she trailed the art back to its source, the sheep, and uses raw wool to make felts.
Lyda Rump
After a thorough textile training and further education objectives in this field with different international felt artists, Lydia Rump found her own expressive style as a textile artist. Inspired by nature and her interest in sheep she researched into the processing qualities of the wool of Dutch sheep, always focusing on its ability to felt well. This basic felt research has been constantly influencing her art. Today the she passes on her considerable skills as a professional lecturer. Lydia Rump’s felted objects often gain on their individual characteristics through the use of additional materials such as silk, rayon, polyester, wood, stone or glass.
Beatriz Schaaf-Giesser
After she graduated in managerial economics, Beatriz Schaaf-Giesser chose to make an apprenticeship as a manual weaver and graduated in textile studies with a diploma. Since 1994, the focus of her artwork has shifted continually away from working on order for the industry to artistic freedom. Exhibits, regular workshops and seminaries in Germany and abroad, various publications and international prizes plainly document her constant development as a designer. She uses materials like wool, fabrics, hair and bound-together newspaper that she combines and interprets anew by felting, dyeing and layering them. Felted sculptures and wall reliefs are also a part of her oeuvre.
Kerstin Scherr
2002 packed with felt-fever, Kerstin Scherr has been working and teaching for many years as a newcomer to the textile industry. She has been self-employes since 2005, participate in exhibitions and markets, is a freelance lecture in the field of felt. Over the time, she has developed her own signature in Nuno clothing felt and aquired etablished expert knownledge, which she shares with pleasure. The emphasis in Nuno clothing felt is often recognizable by patchwork technique with a varity of materials and unusual cuts. But she also has a lot of bags and accessories with special surface in her collection.
In 2013, her works were published in the illustrated book "PassionFilz" and 2016 in the illustrated book "Colors of the World in Felt".