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!
Nicola Brown Fine Art Textiles 
How I’d love to have a workshop with her. ALthough she is dutch, she seems to be giving workshops everywhere but the NL, and when she does, Im not around….
Good luck in the workshop!
I am interested–what are the details??? Where in Ireland are you, anyway? Her bags look fabulous. The bags look great, but it might be hard for me to get two days away since I am a single mum. What accessories is she covering on the Friday?
Hi Marian and Sharon, Lyda’s work is gorgeous and she is such a brilliant teacher so I am really looking forward to the workshops here at Clasheen. I am based under the Blackstairs mountains just outside Borris, Co. Carlow near both the Carlow, Kilkenny and Wexford borders, it would be great if you could make it up here for a night or two Sharon! Using her own unique designs for a bit of inspiration Lyda will help participants create their own individual accessories, jewellery, scarves etc., there will be no creative limits! I will put full details on the workshop page over the next week or so but I am so busy catching up still after the flu that It is realistically going to be towards the end of this week at the earliest.