By the time I had finished my proposal for Cashel Arts Fest, had a chat and some lunch with Carmen, Mariate and Alan it was four o’clock and we (with the exception of Alan!) were all ready to get down to a bit of felting (or sewing in the case of Mariate) for the rest of the afternoon.  Carmen laid out a gorgeous scarf and I started to decide exactly how I was going to make a ring using merino and a well worn piece of driftwood collected on a recent trip to the beach.

Felt and driftwood ring

It took ages deciding which piece of driftwood to use as when you are a confirmed hoarder like me it is difficult to use anything from your stash in case you mess it up and end up wasting the piece!  I had a couple of minutes trying to work out how to attach the bit to Alan’s small drill but eventually decided just to run with my own Makita and not worry about the concequences in the event of any misadventure!  Choosing the colours for the felt was easy, the dark patina of the wood lent itself to orange, yellow, wine and green Autumnal colours, no surprises there.  Overall I was very happy with the end result and plan on wearing the ring tomorrow when I go to a podcasting course organised by ArtL!nks.  I also felted another ring using bone and merino and then made an experimental cuff using merino and some very sequined jersey fabric that Carmen got as waste from an Irish dress designer.  Unfortunately it will be Tuesday or Wednesday before I get to felt again but now that I have got started combining felt and found objects I will be planning some more pieces of jewellery and then hopefully some bigger three dimensional projects which are floating around in my head at the moment.