The first snow of 2009 and a brilliant felt vessel!

It’s really unusual to have snow this early in the year on the ridge opposite the front of my farmhouse.  Sometimes, the larger peak Mount Leinster does have a dusting in mid November but normally we only have it on the whole range in the thick of winter (if at all) so I was delighted to [...]

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Happy Thanksgiving, completed pieces from last Saturday’s workshop, size of my new hearth rug

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  It is brilliant to have readers all around the world and really nice to discover whenever any of you have special days that you like to celebrate, to those of you Stateside I hope that you have a wonderful day. 
I promised you pictures of the completed work from last Saturday’s workshop at Clasheen as [...]

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Tactile felt hearth rug!

I forgot to mention yesterday that I did weigh the Icelandic wool and divided it into two piles.  There was just over 400g per layer and interestingly enough not much shrinkage overall by the time the rug was complete, possibly even less than 20%. 

I should also have said that I used green silk hankies both [...]

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Combining raw fleece with Icelandic wool and last call for winter workshops

As promised yesterday I am going to post about the rug I made on Sunday from raw fleece and Icelandic wool but before I kick things off just a quick reminder.  There is now only one adult and child place left in either the morning or the afternoon workshop here at Clasheen on Saturday 5th [...]

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Fantastic workshop, a picture paints 1000 words …..

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

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Wild weather and today’s workshop

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 [...]

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Felt book, felt jewellery, pricing work and Clasheen Crafty Swap update …..

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 [...]

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Another book for felt fanatics!

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) [...]

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Unblocked felt hat, an experiment with colour, style and texture

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 [...]

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Exciting news, Lyda Rump felting workshops for February!

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 [...]

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