I have had some really busy days in a row (what’s new) and another five days of madness to follow before I can settle down to a couple of exhibition proposals that I need to get written before the middle of April.  Last week I participated in two different workshops relating to blogging and social media one of which was organised by my friend Cathy, the director of ArtL!nks.  I know that I have mentioned ArtL!nks before but if you live anywhere in counties Carlow, Wexford, Waterford, Wicklow or Kilkenny I urge you yet again to register as a practitioner, the service is brilliant, the support on offer is great and everything is FREE or in the case of workshops heavily subsidised!  The intermediate blogging course was brilliantly facilitated as usual by Ken McGuire and hopefully I now have discovered even more ways to have fun whilst blogging!  Now off my hobbyhorse and on with the felting …..

Working the hat inside out once the resist was removed

Continuing on with my felt hat, once the ‘envelope’ of fibres started to curl up and I could feel everything coming together nicely I cut open the bottom edge of the package and removed the resist.  After this it was just like working and fulling a vessel, sealing the cut edges, working the section where the fibres had encircled the resist, shaping and shrinking.

Clare modelling my hat!

I now need to just full it a little more on my head in order to get a perfect fit.  Probably I am either a week too late or nearly a year too early because it strikes me now that it would have been perfect for our local St. Patrick’s Day parade, ah well, there is always next year! 

Happy felters at the end of Annette Quentin-Stoll's first workshop!