The Person behind PetitFelts
Hi, I’m Jocelyn, the owner and designer of PetitFelts. It’s hard for me to believe, but this year PF turns FIFTEEN YEARS OLD! In observance of this milestone, I decided it’s a great time to share the story behind how it all started.
I went to art school for a degree in Metals and Jewelry at Savannah College of Art and Design. Fairly early on I figured out that what I actually loved was the sculptural side of jewelry making, not the technical side. There was no sculpture degree at the time, so I finished out my time there until I graduated, absorbing everything I could about attention to detail and pushing an idea to its full potential. All of it would resurface later, in a business I didn't yet know would exist.
Shortly after graduating, I noticed a woman felting in a coffee shop. I was intrigued enough to ask what she was doing. She handed me a needle and a little wool. An unexpected gift that would come to shape my future.
For the next several years I did what a lot of people in their twenties do: worked, and tried to figure out what I actually wanted. Eventually I became a recruiter for my alma mater, traveling around giving presentations on why young people should pursue a career in the arts. I believed every word of it. I was also, somewhat inconveniently, not taking my own advice.
Eventually that stopped being something I could ignore. I left, and moved to a small town in New England with no plan and no savings, which in retrospect was fairly naive, but I'd reached one of those points where you know a change has to be made and there's no turning back. I signed up for a local craft fair mostly as an excuse to meet people, and filled my table with felted ornaments. They sold out. One custom request turned into several, and I realized I was onto something.
That was the fall of 2011. Since then I have continued to slowly grow PetitFelts introducing new products and material along the way. As my business has evolved, I’m faced with new questions to ask myself, new challenges to overcome and countless lessons to learn, but it all serves to keep me doing what I love. What hasn't changed in fifteen years is the core of it: I want to make pieces that bring joy, soul, comfort, and humor into the lives of the people who bring them home.