(Silke Sordyl)

Gnomish Needle Magic

by Pam North

Silke Sordyl was the oldest of six children born in North Rhine-Westphalia, a state in Western Germany. ”I grew up in a little village, and I had a wonderful childhood,” she related. “My grandmother taught me textile skills, everything from knitting to crocheting lace on napkins, and as a little girl I liked to sew dresses directly on my Barbie dolls. I loved to sew my own clothes, and I did it later for my kids as well. After high school I learned to be a baker and cake maker. I’ve loved to craft my whole life. I’m not the only artist in our family; my youngest brother is a pretty well-known make-up artist at the Opernhaus Düsseldorf.”
Sordyl married and started her own family, and in 2012 her husband was offered a job in the United States so they they moved to Illinois. They live on a small former horse farm, close to the Wisconsin border.
Needle felting, the process of transforming wool into sculptural, dimensional shapes using a barbed needle, is a skill Sordyl began to learn when her children went to the Waldorfschool in Germany. In 2014 she created the first of her very special needle felted dolls, the Gieblinge,for which she has become best known. “It was a gnome, but very different looking. In my imagination there is a special happy nation of gnomes living in the Earth’s interior. I named them Gieblinge, a German fantasy word that just came up in my mind, and it means to me little people who live in the forest under a big tree with many chambers and hallways inside. Their underground empire is surrounded by passageways and caves, and their chambers are beautiful and sparkling like gemstones. The Gieblinge are very friendly, and they like to share everything around them. In my fantasy world they are just perfect, with nothing mean or bad in their minds.”
Silke was inspired by the book Tatatuck, about a small root-pulling gnome who dreams of working in the crystal caves, but he is told by the head crystal gnome that he must journey over seven mountains to bring back a crystal to qualify to be a crystal gnome.
Sordyl taught herself how to needle felt her characters. “I love fiddling with the wool fibers, and thinking about how I can do something; for that I have endless patience,” she said.
Felting relaxes her, and stimulates her imagination. “When I start a figure, I have no idea what or who it will be. I just leave that to my feeling of whether the nose is big enough, the mouth is grinning properly, the laugh lines are accented well. It’s all decided during the felting process, done gradually with many very thin layers of wool, and finally the face that I like emerges. I start with an oval, not too tightly felted ball; then the nose follows, which I only roughly felt and then form on the face in the shape I like. I prefer to use glass eyes. The most important and most beautiful thing is to portray good emotions in the faces. The stories that I think up for my Gieblinge help me form them. I often get the inspiration for my characters from the people around me, like when my parents or friends tell about their travels, and then I build something into the stories.”
Since 2015 Sordyl has owned sheep, and she uses their wool for her winsome characters. “It takes time to process my own wool, I have a shearer who does the hard work, and I wash the wool and bring it to the fiber mill. When I get the carded bats back, I dye it. It took a lot of experimental dyeing until I found the right skin tone for my Gieblinge. I use mainly the wool from my Icelandic sheep; it’s pretty coarse and it felts well. I have Shetland sheep, Teeswater sheep, sixteen cashmere goats, and their fibers are fantastic but way too soft for needle felting. I also have 2 Pygora goats , 2 alpacas and one llama. All my animals are pets; they know their names, and they have a happy, lazy life here with me. With my online classes and the sales from my dolls, I pay for their hay and vet bills. It is particularly nice to work with the wool of my own animals.”
Needle-felting is not a skill that is learned very quickly. “It takes time to do it right,” Sordyl said, “but if you are patient enough you will get the hang of it. It’s so much fun to poke the wool until it comes to life.”
Sordyl never had a game plan of  being where she is with her craft right now, but she enjoys doing what she loves and sharing it with other people. “I have achieved my skills gradually by learning from my mistakes and taking my time to get things right. I don’t think it helps to try to achieve something under pressure. It won’t work, and if you just let it flow, it will go the way that it should.”
Silke has a small studio in her house, where she sits doing her needle felting and listening to audiobooks. “I've given courses in my studio, but in the last years I've switched to online courses and zoom meetings, which work really well,” she explained. She loves to see what her students do. “It’s very nice to watch them poking for weeks, and observe how they fell in love with a little piece of wool; that’s just fantastic! My online classes are more like meeting with friends who want to learn what I enjoy teaching most.”
“It's a lot of fun to show other interested people what is possible with wool. Before the corona pandemic, I sold my characters directly on Facebook or at various shows. I also have an Etsy shop, where I have a few regular customers who collect quite a few of my characters. I still have a lot of fun felting faces and making up stories, but a few months ago I discovered 3D printing for myself. I find ball-jointed dolls particularly fascinating, and my last felted Giebling is a string puppet with a printed body. Who knows what's coming?”

Contact Information:
Name: Silke Sordyl
Email: Silkesordyl@yahoo.com
Phone: (815) 900-6663
Address: 4209 S Ridgeway Rd. - Ringwood, Illinois  60072
Website: