Felting, the oldest known textile technique, has been getting some new attention lately. Raleigh artist Sharron Parker, for one, appreciates that her craft is in the spotlight. "I've been felting for 27 years and most of that time people ask me, 'what is this?' Now a few people actually already know. Suddenly it's the next new thing."

Said to be about 6,000 years old, felting occurs when unspun wool is moistened and agitated by hand or machine. The fibers meld and create a durable surface. Felting is most often fashioned into clothing and works of art, with swirls of color being a constant. Parker makes a few gift items -- geodes and boxes -- but her mainstay is wall hangings.

In her nature: Parker, 60, grew up on the west coast of Florida, "when it was still very wild. I chased streams and scrambled over rocks," she said. The natural world is still a large part of her life and inspiration, from the view of the Neuse River out her home studio window to the hiking trips she takes with her husband. "We travel whenever possible," she said. This summer she'll visit Lake Como and hike in northern Italy, and visions of that trip already are making their way into her art.

Fabric of life: Parker went to undergraduate school at Duke University and graduate school at UNC-Greensboro. "In graduate school I liked the weaving the best and became interested in textiles. It's a little more unexplored. I loved to study what you can do with unspun fibers."

Blame the weather: By 1975, Parker was married, teaching in Greensboro and weaving. "One day we went to the mountains to ski but the weather turned and we were just driving around and someone mentioned Penland," she said of the Penland School of Crafts. "I got there and just loved it. ... So I started going to Penland in the summers through 1980 taking everything in textiles."

Heartfelt change: A Penland friend showed Parker how to do felting in 1980. "It just seemed to me the most exciting technique because it was so open-ended. Texture could be a large part of the piece, or color or shape. With weaving you're so locked in." That same year the American Craft Museum in New York (now called the Museum of Arts & Design) held what was probably the first large-scale felting show in the country. "I did a one-day up-and-back trip to see the show and it was amazing, particularly the old pieces, from an archaeological dig in Siberia." That year, Parker decided to become a full-time felter.

New inspiration: Parker worked at home and opened a studio at the downtown art cooperative Artspace when it opened in 1986. Her home studio changed radically when she and her husband moved to River Mill, a condominium complex in a renovated mill building. They have views of the Neuse and a wooded path leads to Falls Lake. Over the years, nature has helped chart Parker's course from a more linear approach to more organic forms. "A lot of my pieces now refer back to natural forms, rocks in particular, crystals, cliff faces, fossils in rocks, butterfly wings, shells. And color. I love color."

Rub-a-dub-dub: In the felting process, Parker first combs together a few basic dyed wools. "That's my palette," she said. She layers the wool and includes "pattern pieces," felting she's done in advance that contain slices of color. She'll end up with five or six layers of wool, which she then puts into a tub of hot, soapy water. She presses and rolls the work as it shrinks, locking the fibers together. "It can be very labor intensive," she said.

Sharing her knowledge: Parker regularly teaches daylong felting workshops from her home studio and elsewhere. (Her next home studio workshop is May 26.) The lesson that has attracted the most students, however, is the one shown on HGTV. "They filmed here for four hours for a five-minute segment," she said. "I think they did an OK job. The only thing is that I can spend a month working on a piece and they made it look like I spent 20 minutes."

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