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Lizzie Houghton MSDC

Stitched & Constructed Textiles

About Lizzie
Lizzie has been designing and making clothes from a very young age. She currently makes predominantly felt jackets, hats, scarves and wraps. With this medium, she is able to incorporate her love of sumptuous colours, and luxurious wool, silks and velvets and make amazing textures Her clothes are timeless classic pieces, sometimes with a touch of theatricality, and sculptural chic hats.
Biography Back to top

Trained as a Fashion Designer, Lizzie has always preferred a ‘hands on’ approach and enjoyed the actual construction of clothes. She makes a collection of stunning jackets, scarves , wraps and hats. Since being introduced to felt making and, in particular, the possibilities of very fine nuno felt there has been no holding back.

Traditional felt, believed to be the oldest textile, is strong, durable and water repellent. As it is also mouldable it is perfect for making striking and sculpted hats, which are very much a favourite product for Lizzie.

Nuno felt, a very modern innovation, is a way of laminating fabrics to the wool. The wool fibres are worked through the fabric with soap, water and friction. When the shrinking and felting of the wool takes place the fabric does not shrink, but ruches up forming great texture. It means that the felt can be made with just one thin layer of wool and this means that the resulting fabric can remain fine and drapable. This is what excites Lizzie. She feels it is a culmination of all her textile skills. Prior to Felting the fabrics can be embellished with dyeing, stitching or shibori. Lizzie now hand dyes most of her fibres and fabrics. Colour has always been extremely important in her life and since moving to Cornwall in 2013 Lizzie has found an extension to her palette, with the ever changing colours of the sea, rocks and lichens.

Lizzie has always had a fascination with hats and makes them using a traditional felt method. Rich in colour, usually with added fabrics to make texture, the designs are often slightly theatrical or historical in shape, but always infinitely wearable.

Her nuno felt jackets and coats are classic and timeless. They are made in a seamless way incorporating her luxurious hand dyed merino and silk mix fibres with silks and sumptuous velvets.

She is a member of The Makers Emporium in St Just, near Penzance in Cornwall, and her work may be viewed in the gallery there.

Resumé Back to top

1965-67 Harris School of Art ,Preston Foundation course

1967-1970 Walthamstow School of Art, College Diploma in Fashion Design

1992-1996 Chelsea College of Art , Creative Textiles ,City and Guilds Creative Embroidery

Designer of Children’s wear and Women’s wear ,working in industry.

1980-84 running a stall in Covent Garden selling her children’s wear designs.

Exhibiting at Craft Fairs and running her own Christmas Craft fair.

Selling her designs to Liberty’s

1995- 2005 Adult Education teaching in Waltham Forest and Redbridge, including Fashion and Pattern Cutting, Hat Making, Dressmaking, Machine Embroidery,SilkPainting, Felt making, and Special needs Textile class.

Running workshops from her studio

2003 Exhibition at the Knitting and Stitching Show in London and Harrogate

2004 Exhibition in Budapest, Warm in Winter, Cool in Summer.

2007 Book Creative Felting, Gaia

2009 Felting Fashion, Batsford

Teaching at the Midwest Felting Symposium,Wisconsin.

Teaching in Australia, New Zealand, Denmark

Running a Summer School in France

Running Summer Schools in Penzance

Running workshops for The International Felt Makers association

Regular exhibitor at K&S

Exhibiting with Society of Designer Craftsmen

Exhibiting at Bovey Tracey Craft Fair with CTSW

Selected to Exhibit at Breeze Art and Design Fair

She is a Member of the Society of Designer Craftsmen, The International FeltMakers Association and Creative Textiles SouthWest

Member of the Makers Emporium, St Just, a cooperative Gallery

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