April - Nuno Felting Scarves at the Parish Room

The beginning of Sian's tree inspired scarf

Freya's delicate Spring scarf

I had a crack at using soft pastel colours...delicates (like what I'm not used to!!)

Sian's after plenty of rubbing and rolling



Patricia's lovely Tabard incorporating rose fabric



Freya's finished project

Spring into Felting!!

Advent Felting at the Parish Room

A lovely day again at the Parish Room in Shipley, making all sorts of Advent inspired feltness's....I appear to have been talking far too much today and lost the ability to find the appropriate word at the appropriate time!

The beginning of Freya's wall hanging

June's VERY FIRST felting piece, a colourful wall hanging

Sarah's stocking starting to take shape

Right at the top is a picture of Ornela's beautiful tree. Several of the pieces today contained little secret pockets to pop little advent treats inside - including this tree. By adding little pieces of resist, today we used cut up squares of polythene and an old Ikea bag - little pockets were formed in the felt.

Freya's beautiful Kiwi and swallow inspired piece

Sian's festive ivy design

Nearly ready to find the pockets!

Sarah's stocking drying

Becky's poinsettia inspired mat

Sian's ivy - it felted beautifully

Here's June, opening the pockets...

We had a full day, punctuated as always by tea, coffee and delicious homemade cakes. Not to mention a lovely lunch to help us recharge the old batteries and give us the strength to give some welly to the felting process in the afternoon. Everyone was really chuffed with what they made, thats the beauty of this wonderful method.. there's a real sense of achievement when all is done and a beautiful piece completed. Thanks , to all those who came and made it a lovely day. It was a privilege to be part of it.

Forthcoming Felt Workshop in Shipley, Derbyshire

I am planning an all-day felting workshop on the 26th November 2011, locally at the Parish Room in Shipley, near Heanor Derbyshire. The day will have an seasonal advent theme - making Christmas stockings using the resist method of wet felting, or a wall hanging that may include a secret pocket or two for the run up to Christmas (advent calender style), or not, if a wall hanging or a piece of felt to use for a later project is all you require.
The cost of the day is £15 which includes all materials neccessary - lunch will be in the form of a bring and share table- please bring along one plate full of either sweet or savoury to share.
Please e-mail me to reserve yourself a place.

Nuno Day at the Parish Room

Yesterday, I held a Nuno Felting Workshop locally here in Shipley where we made some beautiful scarves...boy was it hard work and there was even ....a bit of a failure...but on the whole it was SO worth the blood, sweat and tears!!

BEFORE!!  look at the little pile of ingredients!!

A close up of the muslins and the stripey silk chiffon

Starting with a six foot long or more pice of cotton open weave muslin or a silk chiffon, we first created and played with colour and texture and density...and then for at least an hour we rolled, rubbed, soaked, more rubbing and rolling, threw and rubbed some more...until the most beautiful scarves started to shape up, felt up...and we all cheered!!

There is something very euphoric about creating something really beautiful..your own design..your own energy.

Check out the shrinkage on this one! the green line represents the original cloth size!

The cotton gauzy muslin produced lovely results somewhat easier than the silk chiffon. Two people chose the silk. It took an age to felt and one piece especially appeared to reject all fibres - so much so that afer a long time we called it a day as every fibre looked like it was coming away. The other took what seemed like hours.. and hours and in the end 3 people at once were rubbing and willing and praying for these fibres to work their magic...and eventually a combination of many hands, brute force, hard work and determination payed off and a beautiful nuno silk scarf was born. PHEW!!!!

I don't unfortunately have a picture of the completed silk scarf but I will try and get one of it in its finished state and preferably modelled!!  (If you are reading this Patricia....any chance??!!)

May Felting at Weleda

A sprinkling of May rain freshened the morning and paved the way for a glorious few hours immersed in colour and the beautiful softness that merino wool brings - so many inspiring ideas were put into action and out of a pile of colourful wool - these masterpieces were created

As each layer was applied, the pictures and forms started to unfold.

Everyone took their inspirations from completely different places, apart from two, whose inspiration came from a tiny lion-hearted fellow...

As the soap suds began to work into a lather and the hard work of rubbing and rolling began, the fibres began to form wonderful toughened pieces still retaining that gorgeous soft quality.... here are some of the finished ones

Big thank you to all that came, unleashed their creativity within this very warm and welcoming group. As usual, it was a pleasure and privilege be part of the process.

Beautiful Bunting!

 Saturday saw the first felting group of the year at the Parish Room in Shipley, Derbyshire. Inspired by joyous shades in colourful bunting, the group began choosing their colours and deciding what to create..

Freya took the spring flowers as her starting point for her double sided piece..

Sam took her inpriration from the citrus family!

Ella and Trisha making the embellishments for the reverse of their fabric - all complicated stuff!! This was brain training indeed!

Becky making a start on her final layer with embellishments

Zoe was capturing one of the 4 temprements with only

                                          2 colours, green and blue... she pulled it off marvellously!

Christina 's beautiful spring colours in the round...

Sally's georgeous purples and lilacs

Nina's front of her felting

Bec's final touches

The front of Ella's work

Harriet pulled it off! Intricate patterns both in reverse and right way round too... Fabulous!



Zoe's finished piece has the dramatic energy of a Van Gogh! (I reckon!)



Freya's glorious crocuses ready to be turned into spring bunting!

Trisha's piece ready to divide into flags and have the gingham ribbon sewn on

Nina's bright pink reverse side of her felt