Felt bag workshop

I had a lovely day today in the studio at Duckett's Grove catching up with Eliska (on the left) and Zoryana, the temperature may have been cold but their bags are going to be HOT!

We hadn't met since Dawn's great 'Fantastic Felt Hat' workshop in Borris last year so as you can imagine we had a lot of catching up to do. Good friend Tanya, who I don't see very often, also called in for a chat complete with one of her friends and gorgeous puppy as did Christine, a super new felting recruit from Myshall. Liga popped in to say hi too and brought me back my felt from the Creative Carlow shop when it closed, if you don't know Liga's beautiful polymer clay jewellery you can check it out here on Etsy. I guess you could say it was a busy day at the studio!

Here's a picture of Zoryana's bag after the handles and flaps were cut, the turquoise swirls are hand spun banana fibre and there are blue and green silk hankies over both sides of the bag. Zoryana also included one glass marble in the bottom left hand corner but this won't be revealed until the bag is totally felted and fulled.

Eliska's bag has a black inside and a hot red outside. In this picture she's sealing all the cut edges, sometimes I work on this stage of the process for an hour, it might sound like a long time but it makes such a difference to the quality of the edges!

I'm heading to bed now as I've got to have my wits about me in the morning, I'll be starting a series of four workshops with 13 ladies in Carlow so want to be in top form and not tired and bleary eyed. Over the next few days I'll be posting updates about all my US workshops and Portugal, watch this space.

 

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More pics from felting workshops this week

This week has really just flown. I need to finalise a working description today for my upcoming three day felting workshop at the wonderful Tin Thimble, Loomis CA, this takes place from Friday 31st May through to Sunday 2nd June. These classes coincide with the annual Felt Fest organised by The Tin Thimble, I've always wanted to attend this fabulous sounding event so I guess this year I've finally hit the jackpot!!! As a result I've not got much time to write today, instead I'm going to post a few pics here (from the workshops that I've taught this week) and let them do the talking for me.

This first shot is of the beautiful flat felt pictures created by Myshall Art Group on Monday night, for some of the ladies it was their second night felting, for others their first.

Here's a closer shot of some of these pieces…….

another……

and another! The last shot shows Anita with her beautiful first felt bag at Duckett's Grove yesterday. This bag has integrated handles, a flap and an interior pocket, great job Anita!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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It’s another busy weekend

It’s another busy weekend on the felting and teaching front. Yesterday I had the market, Duckett’s Grove and organising stock for the Country Fair at Borris House, today I had an enjoyable felt bag workshop (can’t wait for finished pics Marie!), tomorrow and Monday I’m back at Duckett’s Grove and also on Monday I’m really excited that US friends Merridee and Keith will be arriving to stay!!! Our felting retreat starts on Tuesday but I will have time then to keep you all updated each day as I’ll be near the computer each day too. I’m plotting and planning my own projects for next week, Eco printing and a nuno felt shift/jumper are top of my list!

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Photos from the Lexington workshops!

It was another exciting but calm day in Lexington as larger projects from yesterday came together and new pieces were laid out too. Donna, Lindy and Karen all felted pieces in the tumble dryer last night and worked on new pieces today and until you have tried this out for yourself it is impossible to realise how much time and effort this can save you! Check out ‘Nuno Felting with Chrissie Day and Nicola Brown’ or the downloadable book if you are interested in learning more about how to go about this and to see the proof of the pudding here is a group picture from this evening; Donna is modelling her wonderful vest, Karen her highly textured scarf and Lindy’s large piece of yardage is photographed to the left of the group.

Lindy’s yardage, Tonya, Donna, Jan, Nancy, Karen and Sandy (left to right)

A lot of interesting techniques were incorporated into the various pieces, resists laid out inside three dimensional pieces to reveal hidden details later (Tonya in an wonderful large vessel and Jan in a gorgeous bag which also includes glass nuggets), Karen incorporated beads at the lay out stage of her first resist project, Nancy felted a wonderful large purse with integrated handles and Sandy felted an incredible large wall hanging using alpaca and a selection of fabulous locks from a variety of different sheep and other animals! Check out the album I’ve created on facebook to see more of the work, congratulations everyone, you are amazing!!! I’ll leave you with a picture of Sandy’s beautiful landscape, isn’t it an amazing piece for her second ever time felting?

Sandy’s felt landscape using all cleaned but uncarded alpaca and other fibres

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I’ve just had a great couple of days felting!

Now that I’ve made the descision to stick with felting my favourite nuno accessories and home accents all the pressure is off for my section of the new book.

Heart cuffs and brooches, a few of the many!

Yesterday was good fun, in the morning I did a little stitching on some cuffs and brooches for the market tomorrow and in the afternoon Kate Ramsey arrived and we felted and chatted together at the kitchen table. I was experimenting with some beautiful Portugese rare breed wool (more in another post) and Kate worked on some of her gorgeous flowers and scarves.

This morning it was back to nuno felting and just before Carmen arrived I had a brainwave about a new design for a bag!!! It was great to have someone with an objective eye to bounce ideas off so after about half and hour of discussion and drawing I set to and started laying out the first section. Thanks to a swap I did with Carole Dysart just before Christmas I have a lovely big bag of silk off cuts; some hand dyed, some textured, some heavy, some shiny and some with sparkly threads running through the weave. I selected a large pile of pieces ranging in colour from pinky blues through to lovely apple green and chose a turquoise Kap merino from Wollknoll to use as the base. This bag is felted in two pieces, one nuno and one regular felt, it’s not quite finished yet but when Carmen was leaving she did say that it was her favourite ever of any bag I have made to date! No more info now because the design will definitely be in the book. For those of you who are asking, Chrissie and I hope to have all our writing and projects for the book completed and edited by the middle of March, it will then be published and available as a hard copy and eBook before the end of the month.

I’m heading off now to catch up with some paperwork, grab a bit to eat and pack the car for tomorrow morning.

 

As a result I had an idea for a new bag design this morning, totally out of the blue but I am really thrilled with how it is turning out!!! Carmen was here felting with me and I was able to bounce ideas off

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WOW, thanks!!!

Wow, thanks so much to all of you who took the time to respond via comment, email and on FB to the question I posed about closures for my little felt pouches!  I’ve been totally tied up writing my final assignment for ‘ Train the Trainer’ but that’s been put to bed this afternoon (all be it 36 hours later than I had hoped for), printed, bound and driven to Carlow, whew.  I’m just back now and going to have another read through all the messages, assemble my thoughts and write a proper and hopefully more constructive blog post tomorrow!

Abstract leaves on the back of the starburst pouch

I’ll decide when I have a clearer head exactly which option I’m going to use for my little starburst pouch and then I’ll sew up the sides too, whatever it is I don’t want to spoil the stitching on the back either.  I also want to blog this week about selling online and update you all with really exciting news about Dawn’s visit to Ireland and my own proposed visit in May to U.S., that trip is finally in the planning!!!  Until then I’m switching my brain off, my phone off and I just ‘might’ do a little tumbling or pinning later for fun, not before I’ve relaxed by the stove and poured a glass of wine though!

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I’m addled after adding buttons, lables and a handle to some raw fleece and merino bags!

I’m totally addled now having spent the last number of hours adding finishing touches to some raw fleece and merino bags in preparation for the farmer’s market in Borris tomorrow morning.

Raw wool and merino bag with adjustable shoulder strap

If it wasn’t for the fact that I really like the bag I was trying to attach the handle to I probably would have taken my sissors to it and cut it up into shreds!  How anybody enjoys sewing is beyond me!!!  Apologies to all of you who find it relaxing but honestly, at this stage you might think that I would be getting a little more proficient, scrap that thought totally.  My only consolation is that I have decided to contact Ken Foley after Christmas and see if he would be interested in making and attaching handles to my designs, this way I can concentrate on the felting and leave the leather work to the master!  The relief I feel after taking this descision is amazing, it may make the bags a little bit more expensive to buy but thinking of the time I’ll be saving I feel that it is going to be worth it in the long run.  I also got to use some of my stash buttons; the bag pictured has a stunning horn button that I picked up in the United States two years ago and I also found the perfect vintage closure for a handy purse that has a loop at the back to wear around your waist with a belt.  Head over to visit Clasheen on Facebook if you would like to see pictures of all the finished bags!

Gorgeous horn button nestling amongst the raw wool locks!

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Felting production underway as I really want to wow everyone in Carlow on 4th December!

I finally took the plunge and have booked a stand for the ‘Taste of Carlow’ event happening in Carlow town on Sunday 4th December.  This artisan craft fair will be restricted so that ALL the artists and producers present are guaranteed to come from Carlow town or the surrounding county.  If you would like to support local small businesses, me included, please do come along and say hi on the day!  It would be wonderful to see everyone buying their presents and festive food locally, we really need your support to boost our Carlow and Irish economy!!!

From now on I have a plan of action in place and will be felting like crazy to have enough good quality items for my stand and from my studio here at Clasheen.  Last night I felted some flower brooches with stamens, this morning I am working on a merino and local Jacob’s wool shopping bag with inside pocket and am planning to release a pattern for this bag if it works out the way I am hoping.  Last night I designed and printed gift vouchers for felting felting workshops and over the next few days I will be writing up a tutorial for some simple beginners items and packaging them with the necessary raw materials to make up little diy kits for pressies!  Thanks Chrissie for your helpful advice re. time and house managment, hopefully I have started as I mean to go on!!!

If you click on the link below it will bring you thorough to a pdf file listing all many events in the county over the next 6 weeks as well as links to accomodation if you are travelling from outside the area.

‘Taste of Carlow’ and other seasonal events happening to celebrate Christmas in Carlow!

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Thanks and a few pictures of completed felt from this week

Thanks Dawn, Nancy, Elizabeth, Lois, Annie and Lyn for responding to my last post!  I like the idea of making my own lables so I am going to look into designing one clearly giving the message I want to portray but in the interim I have ordered some iron/sew on lables just printed with my name and blog address.  They are already on their way from local business MyStuff (great service, posted on the day I ordered them!), a company which I had never heard of before but Carmen discovered the other day.  The only problem I had on the website was that while I wanted to order the large lables with 3 lines of print (name, blog address and tag line) and this should have been possible there was no form to do so.  Obviously I could have rung the company but to be honest I am so short of time I just opted for the 2 lines of text and I can send them an email or ring another time if I haven’t got it together at that stage to make some myself.

Beautiful texture in the felted silk velvet

The weather improved yesterday and it is also dry at Clasheen today although for how long I ask myself considering the rain and wind we have been having for the last few days.  I managed to take a couple of bad pictures of some framed pieces this morning so many apologies about the quality.  The light is difficult to shoot accurate colours in and as I don’t have a light box or any professional equipment please bear with me.  This piece is an abstract landscape, I absolutely adore the highly textured effect of the felted silk velvet!  Interestingly Kim Winter posted about felting with silk velvet the other day on her great blog Flextiles and I read the post in the evening after I had spent the day finishing and framing my pieces.  Great minds think alike???  I won’t say fools seldom differ!  Anyway, like Kim I had previous experience or rather lack of successful experience when I experimented with felting velvet before.  I know that it is possible to trap it by laying fibres over the top but wanting a clean surface I decided to try once more using silk velvet, I thought that this was what I used the last time but maybe it wasn’t, I had got the fabric as a present so didn’t know the exact fibre content.  Initially I felted a few landscapes with only selected pieces of fabric but for this one used two larger pieces of velvet in a lighter and darker shade of hand dyed green.

Green Fields

I love the simplicity of the design and now am looking forward to stocking up on more fabric, probably from Jean Oliver of Oliver Twists when she brings her luscious supplies to the Dublin Knit and Stitch Show in November.

I also finished one more raw wool bag yesterday and felted another, busy huh?  Below is a picture of the second bag (more in a little album on Facebook), this time with inside pocket, fabulous large vintage button closure and felt handle stitched in.  The third bag that I felted this week used the same resist as the second.  The finished size is a little smaller however because when I removed the resist I cut into the felt in such a way as to include an integrated handle, pictures of this bag when it is dry and has a closure fitted.

Jacob's sheep bag with flap and large vintage button closure

Today I have been procrastinating but unfortunately I can’t for much longer, I’m supposed to be doing my accounts for the year up to December 2010 but I HATE paperwork!  I also need to go and vote in our Presidential election, we have 2 referenda to vote on too so I better get my finger out and log off this computer pdq!!!

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Saturday’s fun and productive workshop, raw wool bag, nuno felt tutorial, vessel for sale …..

On Saturday Mairead and Sharon really knuckled down to create beautiful pieces of flat felt in the morning and both felted wonderful vessels in the afternoon.  It’s always interesting sharing techniques with other artists because once I demonstrate the basic skills I love watching how participants use the creative process to get stuck in and bring their own experience to the felting table!  Sharon had never felted before and although Mairead’s art practice is often textile based wet felting is not a technique that she has had much prior experience in either.  I’ve posted images of their work to my mobile uploads on Facebook, have a look and I am sure you will agree they both did a wonderful job!

Jacob's sheep bag

I certainly enjoyed the day and I think that they both did too, in fact I was really fired up after they left and started a raw wool bag which I then had time to finish this morning.  The locks that I used were local Jacob’s and the inside is a rich raspberry coloured wool which I bought at Felt in Focus 3 years ago, it just seemed to be a perfect marriage with the rich chocolate and creamy white Jacob’s fleece!  I added a leather strap (an upcycled belt) for the handle and a cool vintage leather button for the closure.  In fact, I think that the button graced a sheepskin jacket yonks ago (isn’t yonks a great word???) so how much more appropriate could the button be than that?

Large autumn coloured felt bowl

The weather has been dreadful here for the last 48 hours.  It is so wet that I haven’t a hope of getting outside to photograph my new framed landscapes, I wanted to get them uploaded to my Big Cartel shop but the light is so poor inside (because it is LASHING outside!) that I am going to have to wait another little while.  I did however decide to upload the large autumn coloured stitched vessel that I felted for the rare breeds show at Gosford.  It’s available for $120 at the moment and if you put the code OCTATCLASHEEN in at the checkout stage you get a 15% discount until the end of this month.  This is a BIG felt vessel!!!

Finally I had a query about a video record/nuno felt scarf tutorial which I uploaded to YouTube a long time ago, here’s the link again for those of you new to this blog and who just might be interested in the info it contains!

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