Lindsay, Ann and Alison joined me here at Clasheen for a full days workshop on Saturday.  Even without bearing in mind that everyone had only felted once before the work produced was truly amazing!

A flock of sheep waiting to be felted!

I am going to let the pictures speak for themselves today, check out more images from the workshop on Flickr. 

Tomorrow I will post about the rug I made following Ria’s instructions in Dutch Felt, a lot of hard work but an interesting result.  Till then ……..

I am still tidying the studio in preparation for today’s workshop, just taking a quick break (aka escaping from the clutter) to write this quick post.  Three ladies who attended one of the recent starter sessions have booked for the day to make large wall hangings or framed flat felt.  We will be calculating how much wool we need in relation to their finished size and experimenting with different types of fibre for embellishment.  One participant is bringing along her retrievers hair and I also have horse hair, more dogs hair, raw fleece and some raw alpaca in my stash. 

It is great to finally start to see some light around my long work table in the studio!  Following on from my mentoring sessions on Wednesday I am really making an effort to put my paperwork in order and start 2010 with a clean slate.  One piece of advice that has stuck in my mind from the Business mentor was to pay myself a wage every week without feeling guilty.  In this way he explained it is easier to set work related targets and stick to them, if I have a poor week financially I am still to take the payment and just organise a bit more work for the following week!  Let’s see how this goes, I like the sound of it and have decided to get someone in to help me clean the house and studio two or three times a month.  That will be a big incentive!!

Following on from yesterday’s post about Carmen’s great new book ‘Dutch Felt’, I did an internet search this morning and discovered that it is available directly from the publishars Zijdar.  When I get a few spare hours (whenever that is!) I am planning on trying out Ria’s ‘Heart rug’ project incorporating raw sheep’s wool, silk fabric and merino fibres amongst others.  This looks like the perfect time to try once more some of the gorgeous Jacobs fleece kindly given to me by some neighbours this summer, I will keep you posted!

Orange and grey punched felt necklace

Carmen came over yesterday afternoon and her visit provided an excellent excuse to stop tidying the studio in preparation for the weekend workshop and sit down together and string some felt jewellery.  I pulled some of the colourful felt beads that I have made over the last while out of hiding and then spent some time selecting seed beads that would most do the felt justice.  I always find it difficult to finish projects like these and definitely it is the little things that make the difference, it was SO much easier to have a drink and a chat while putting some of these items to bed once and for all! 

The pictured orange, grey, black, white and hot pink necklace put some of my punched beads to really good use.  Normally I would not seperate these type of felt beads with anything, just string them together in a line but for some reason these screamed out to me to use cheery orange seed beads as dividers.  I like the effect and went on to make some earrings with the other punched beads that I had in my stash, you can check them out on Flickr and some are already up in my Etsy shop.

Speaking of Etsy, how do you price your work???  I am totally aware of the current financial situation globally and while I don’t want to undervalue what I am making I also definitely don’t want to overprice pieces and make them unaffordable to buy.  With this in mind I am constantly comparing dollar prices with euros, hopefully you will agree that $45 (E30.33 at todays exchange rate) is not too expensive for the necklace above, it does have 22 layers of merino in every bead and the felt pad which I punched them from took a full day to make! 

Turquoise and coral felt and bead necklace

The other style of necklace that I uploaded today is retailing at $40 (E26.93), I am trying to reflect the time and skill that went into each various piece as well as the artistic merit and uniqueness or sameness of each design.  These prices are an online special and only available through my Etsy store.  If I am attending a craft fair or other event the prices are a little higher to reflect the extra costs accosiated with participating and travelling to shows.

And finally for today ….. partners are at last assigned for the Clasheen Winter Swap.  Many apologies for the week long delay, things are just hectic here and I think that we will extend the posting deadline to accomodate everyone and allay frustrations!  There is still plenty of time to get your packages prepared, after all we are trying to destash as well as make a personal gift so hopefully there will not be too much shopping to do.

Yesterday was an extremely busy ‘paper’ day, a visit to my accountant followed by financial mentoring followed in turn by a session of business mentoring, little wonder that I didn’t actually get to create any felt!  On my way back from Wexford however I called in to Carmen and borrowed her new book ‘Dutch Felt’ (Vilt in Beeld) by Ria van Els-Dubelaar.  Anyway, I did enjoy relaxing and reading this last night and particularly loved ‘Wrinkles’, a stunning fireside rug which looks like a hot orange and natural brown sheepskin.  The text is in both English and Dutch which is helpful and there is a nice gallery of work by various well known Dutch felters including some gorgeous urns by Lyda Rump, roll on February!

Off now to do some more tidying up in preparation for the Saturday felting workshop, this day is fully booked but if you are interested in attending on Saturday 28th please check out the workshop page for full details.  I am flexible with what we make so if you prefer any of the other titles from the Winter series please just email me asap and we will see what we can do!

I loved the two felt hats that I made recently with Icelandic wool but I really wanted to wear them myself and unfortunately my head is just too small for hats shaped on my hat block!  At the brilliant ’Pick up your Needles’ workshop on Saturday Irene had a simple but fun crochet hat that I thought could translate very well into felt.  It was really comfortable to wear and I asked her if she would mind me using the design as a starting point for creating a new felt hat, this time not blocked and small enough for me to wear as well! 

Silk and cotton mix fabric felted with Icelandic wool

One of the most exciting colours of Icelandic wool that I am stocking in my Etsy shop is a great red (I have always found to date that a decent red is one of the most difficult colours to order batts or roving in) and for the hat I teamed this red with a nice rich deep violet (or purple if you prefer).  I also wanted to play around a bit more incorporating different fabric and fibre into the wool, this time I used silk twists (kind of like hand dyed throwsters waste) and some deep purple crinkly fabric with a surface print in gold.  This silk and cotton mix fabric was actually from an expensive skirt that I bought a couple of years ago and only wore once, now that I have no spare cash for buying clothes I am recycling everything I can to incorporate into my felt where appropriate!  The template for the hat was a simple rectangle and I prepared a few felted cords to jazz up the corners at the top.  One of the design features of this model is it’s simplicity, working a rectangle shape around a resist means that even inexperienced felters could make a successful hat at their first attempt, I feel another workshop in the making!  After weighing the wool I divided the total amount (60g) by four and laid out the first layer on each side.  At this stage I positioned the cords at opposite corners and added a little more soap in these areas to help keep them in place.  After laying the second layer I then added my silk twists and crinkly fabric, checked that I was happy with the design and continued to felt as usual.  Surprisingly enough, I actually found that this hat took longer to make that the ‘Raspberry Ripple’.  The big advantage however is in the easy of process, the fun design and the fact that I just continued to full until I was happy with the overall size in relation to my head. 

The finished felt hat!

I definitely think that this design has possibilities and will now try and make it in a different colour combination with possibly some minor alterations to the shape.  The fact that a hat block is not necessary to shape the hat is also an advantage and I like the way that it sits jauntily on my head!  Unfortunately the sun was very strong today and not the best for taking pictures (although great for everything else!) so I hope to take some more of the hat on Thursday and also get some better images of the wool to put up on Etsy.

I am delighted to announce that Lyda Rump will be facilitating two seperate felting workshops here at Clasheen next February!  Lyda is a fantastic textile artist who is gifted at passing on her experience.  You may remember that I attended a brilliant workshop of hers at Felt in Focus last July where I learnt a lot about creating complex felt bags and ended up making a funky felt backpack.  

Lyda with one of her large felt bags

During the two day workshop Lyda shared many of her interesting bag designs with us utilising multiple resists and we also learnt simple techniques for incorporating and positioning inclusions such as glass beads accurately within out felt.  Lyda loves including items from a treasure trove of silk, fibre, fabric and artificial glittery mesh into her bags and recently has been experimenting with new designs incorporating knitted or crocheted sections into the shoulder area.  These newly designed bags remove a lot of the weight from the straps making them extremely well balanced and comfortable for anyone unable to carry heavy weights.  When I tried on one of them in Denmark I was absolutely amazed at how light the bag felt, it was almost like wearing an item of clothing and not like carrying a heavy bag at all!  Lyda has also recently designed a ’scarf/sling’ as a stylish and wearable accessory for anyone recovering from various surgeries or needing a little extra support for their arm/upper body area, a totally neat idea.  I also fell in love with different pieces of felt jewellery that Lyda had with her, especially a silk and felt necklace that Suzanne, one of the Irish contingent snapped up as soon as she saw it!

Our first workshop  ‘Felt Accessories’ will take place on Friday 5th February and the second, ”Complex Felt Bags or Backpacks’ will take place over two days, Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th February.  These workshops are a brilliant opportunity to learn and have fun with a truly gifted tutor.  To provisionally reserve your place please email me as soon as possible with your preference (full details will go up online over the next week or two), I guarantee you won’t be disappointed with the experience!

This morning I had put time aside to take photos of my new felting kits and put them up on Etsy.  I am SOOOO frustrated as I write because now that I have found my camera I can’t find it’s charging station so uploading them will have to wait until Sunday or Monday when I can borrow Alan’s camera again.  As a result I have spent the latter half of the morning making a selection of felt flowers which are now drying on the Rayburn (range).  After lunch I am going to settle down and add beads, buttons and brooch backs, whatever grabs my fancy for each individual flower.  You know how difficult I find it to do the small sewing projects that finish a piece, wish me luck because I know it will be very easy to get distracted by another more ‘urgent’ felting piece and I really do want to get these flowers finished and ready to go!

Making felt jewellery is really fun, doesn’t take a lot of materials and is a great way to experiment with colour combinations that you otherwise mightn’t use.  Tomorrow I am teaching the felting section of the ‘Pick up your Kneedles’ series of workshops, this is in Tinahely, Co. Wicklow, a gorgeous rural part of the country.  Possibly we will make jewellery at the workshop or maybe participants will want to make some flat felt or a small vessel.  To date several of the participants have attended each workshop and their skills have been progressing very well, each time is a mixed bag of experience but whatever we make we will definitely have fun!

Tomorrow evening I have to show my face at the Golf Club Captain’s Dinner.  Being on a budget I was wracking my brain deciding what to wear (it is informal this year which is unusual) when to my absolute delight I found my ‘lost’ black velvet trousers!  I managed to pick up an inexpensive plain turquoise top that compliments them perfectly so today I set myself the task of creating some eye-catching accessories to glam up the outfit.

Turquoise and black nuno felt brooch with Victorian button

My mother is lending me a gorgeous diamante bracelet of my grandmother’s and I wanted to make a matching nuno felt brooch using this fantastic Victorian button for the centrepiece.   I was lucky enough to pick up the button in a charity shop while in the States and the nuno felt seemed the perfect setting to really show it off!  I cut out a rough circle of pongee silk, laid one layer of short fibred merino on top and within a very short space of time the brooch was made.  Not being too fussy about the evenness of the circle makes for a simple organic shape and I like this brooch so much that I think I will make some more of them tomorrow morning and put them up for sale!

My next project was a small black evening bag and for this I used an old resist that I already had and made it a little bit smaller.  I wanted a clutch (purse for those of you over the water) which was easy to carry and not too big, something just to keep a little bit of money, car keys and the obligatory lip balm that I always manage to mislay!  To jazz it up and tie the whole outfit together I have just finished another nuno flower to stitch onto the flap, this time using turquoise silk felted with a deeper turquoise merino.

I had great fun yesterday finishing the raspberry ripple felt hat and then was inspired to adjust the template slightly and make another, this time with a fresh green and white colour scheme.  I also wanted to try incorporating silk chiffon and silk hankies into the Icelandic wool to see how they would felt together, I was very happy with the result!  I have now posted pictures of the second hat to Flickr and if you click here you can see some notes which I have added to the close up shot.  Move your mouse over the image and the notes highlight areas that clearly define the chiffon, the hankies and how the wool migrates through both.

Now to answer some questions ….. the wool doesn’t seem at all scratchy to me although it does have a very tactile texture, the raspberry/red highlights on the green and white hat are from the printed silk chiffon, scrim is a natural open weave fabric softer than jute but coarser than muslin, my Etsy shop is called Clasheen like the blog and the actual url for those of you who are technologically minded is http://www.clasheen.etsy.com and no, I am not going to shave either of the hats!

Yesterday afternoon I was just able to grab an hour and a half to try out a felt hat as an experiment with the Icelandic wool.  Some of you have been asking how coarse the wool is and is it suitable for wearables, in her book ‘Uniquely Felt’ American fibre artist Christine White classifies Icelandic wool in the medium and long wool section with a Bradford Count of 46-52s and a micron count of 32-28.  To my mind this makes it perfect for creating sculptural felt hats ideally suited to a colder climate.  For my experiment yesterday (still to be rinsed and shaped again this morning) I decided not to use any merino on the inside, this would probably make the lining softer but to be honest when I tried the hat on yesterday evening it felt great, not a bit scratchy!

Raspberry ripple felt hat!

I slightly altered a bag resist that I already had to use as a template and then spent some time studying books by Chad Alice Hagen, Christine White and Lizzie Houghton to determine exactly how much wool to use.  Because I really am a beginner when it comes to hats (unlike my friend Dawn Edwards!) it did amaze me how little wool I needed to use to create a beautifully strong but flexible hat, just 80g in total for this model.  The raspberry coloured Icelandic is a very rich colour and I was lucky to find a matching piece of scrim in my stash that I had made in a week long batik course with Alex Meldrum at the Grennan Mill Craft School in Thomastown.  I didn’t want to embellish the wool too much but did want to see how a little bit of fabric would add or detract from the final look of the hat.  The whole project was really quick and simple to get to this stage although I am going to alter the template slightly this morning and have another go with some different colours. 

Raspberry ripple

I love the way the wool is still soft and flexible but appears to hold the structure well.  This is the first time that I have used my hat block (it has been sitting gathering dust in my studio) and it did make the shaping into these rings pretty easy, I am not sure however how well I would be able to create other shapes, time will tell! 

Close up of felt hat showing hand dyed scrim

I also like the surface texture of the hat as shown in the detailed picture, the scrim felted in to the wool very well and there is a very nice tactile feel to the whole thing.  I may shave inside the band where the wool will come in contact with my head although the jury is still out on this but otherwise I think I will leave the outside surface ‘au natural’!  If any of you are interested in trying out some Icelandic wool it is now available from my new Etsy shop.  I hope to prepare some felting kits before the weekend and will let you know as soon as these come on stream.  Off now to rinse and finish the hat, more tomorrow!