Home as Felt: Needle Felting (Beginner)
Saturday, November 28, 2026 | 1-4 PM
FREE
This workshop has been developed exclusively for Immigrant, Refugee, and Newcomer participants, with thanks to Toronto Arts Council Funding via their Newcomer and Refugee Arts Engagement program.
In this workshop participants will learn how a felting needle can be used to repeatedly compress loose fibres, allowing them to build raised surfaces, shapes, lines, textures, and three dimensional forms. The workshop will explore how small additions can change the character of a textile, much like memories accumulate and alter our understanding of a place over time.
The workshop will culminate with a round table discussion of the work and how they have connected with the practice. Participation in discussion is optional and personal disclosure is never required. Immigration and home can be deeply personal subjects. Participants are invited to share only what they are comfortable sharing, while the material itself can hold meaning without needing to be explained.
Participants who attended Workshop One can continue developing their wet-felted panel, adding needle-felted details, raised forms, symbols, textures, or imagery.
Their original panel becomes a starting point that can be revisited, altered, and transformed. Participants will learn how to create simple sculptural forms and details, such as raised shapes, dimensional surfaces, small objects, symbols, lines, and textural elements through needle felting. Participants can then adapt these techniques to their own ideas and abilities.
By the end of the workshop participants will have created a flat needle-felted textile work or sculptural form that they can take home with them.
This is a beginner-friendly workshop with no previous weaving experience required. All materials and step-by step guidance will be provided.
For any accessibility needs, please email Marium Durrani (mdurrani@textilemuseum.ca).
This workshop is part of the Museum’s workshop series: Liminal Threads. In this workshop series, the Museum aims to create space for newcomers, refugees, and immigrants, where they can bridge the divide of settling in Canada. Taught by local Immigrant, Refugee, and/or Newcomer artists, participants learn new modes of sustainable thinking, textile making techniques, and creating new community. We would like to thank the Toronto Arts Council Strategic Funding: Newcomer and Refugee Arts Engagement, for funding this program.
Facilitator Bio:
Camilla Leonelli Calzado is a multidisciplinary artist and researcher whose practice explores diasporic memory, transculturation, and the material languages of home. Born in Santiago de Cuba and raised in Canada, her work navigates the space between cultural inheritance and geographic distance. By treating treating textiles as both method and archive, Camilla reimagines how everyday materials can carry personal and collective histories. Her work is committed to accessibility, community engagement, and expanding the role of craft within contemporary art discourse.
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