Tag Archives: beading

Workshop at Clasheen on Saturday 23rd and Agnieszka’s wonderful felt bag revealed at last!

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You may remember recently, I posted an image of the wonderful ladies who came to Clasheen for a ‘Not so Simple, Not so Complex’ felt bag workshop.  I just love the way how given the same information and shown the same samples workshop participants always manage to end up stamping their own individuality and talent on the felt they create, no two pieces are ever even remotely alike.  This workshop was no exception, four ladies, four bags, four amazing pieces of wearable art!

Glass and bead detail from Agnieszka's bag!

I’ve stolen this beautiful picture from Agnieszka’s blog this morning, check out the gleaming glass she embedded in her felt and the wonderful way the beading adds to the final surface detail.  If you head on over to read her whole post there are some amazing pictures of the completed bag, I know you will all agree it was well worth the wait to see the finished bag in all its glory!!!

I also just wanted to announce a full day felting workshop at Clasheen on Easter Saturday, 23rd April.  Because of my recent computer woes I haven’t had time to write up a workshop description and post it to the relevent page but for anyone interested this is the perfect day for improving felters to come here and learn some new skills!  Possibly a good title would be ‘Expanding your Felting Skills’ but for now it is enough to say that this workshop will help participants expand their felting repoirtoire and skills learnt will depend on the previous experience of each individual felter.  I have two spots left for this workshop, we will work from 10 am until approx 4.30pm (please arrive at about 9.45), the cost for the day is E75 incl. materials, tea, coffee and soft drinks, participants are asked to bring their own packed lunch.  If you are interested in joining us please email me asap to book your spot!

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Beautiful felt ring arrives in the post!

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By the time you read this I will be part way through my two day workshop with Charlotte Buch at the ‘Felt Naturally’ symposium in Denmark! 

Beautifully packaged treasure

Last week I fell totally in love with a little ring created by Kate aka Tastykaeru and I was thrilled that it arrived in the post right on time to wear for my early morning departure to Grima’s exciting felting get together.  Opening the package just confirms my thoughts that judicious beading and stitching can really add another dimension to hand rolled felt.  Kate’s Etsy shop is a pleasure to browse through, jam packed with gorgeous but simple embellished jewellery and at such amazing prices it is difficult to decide where to start!  Green being my FAVOURITE colour to wear for the last few seasons I finally decided to break the bank and buy this little beauty!!! 

Nestling in the black satin

More felt accessories – how to make a stunning felt brooch or pendant

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Carmen and I spent a happy and productive afternoon continuing our experimentation with merino and artificial fabric.  Both of us have stiff backs after all our exertions during the complex bag workshop (just wait until you see the pictures when I post about that!) so we decided to stick with small projects today and have some fun together. 

Midnight I brooch prior to beading

 

If you are interested in creating an experimental brooch or pendant like the one pictured on the left here is the process.

  1. Lay out a rough square of merino approx 6″ X 6″
  2. Wet it lightly, soap and flatten to remove the air
  3. Lay a small wad of dry wool in the centre and then place your stone, glass nugget or other found object on top
  4. Cover the insertion with dry wool
  5. Needle lightly through the dry wool into the wet to secure (don’t worry if you don’t have a needle, just leave this stage out)
  6. Lay another layer of wool over the whole front
  7. Cover this with strips or a larger square of artificial fabric, be inventive and try out anything!
  8. Wet out, soap and felt by rubbing directly on top of the front and back of the bundle, you don’t need to roll your work
  9. When fully felted cut a small cross over the insertion and using your finger nails push out the cut edge to expose your glass, stone or found object
  10. Rinse, shape and bead or embellish as required

HAVE FUN!  More pictures of work I created during and after Lyda’s visit are now uploaded to Flickr.

Invitation, felted vessels, necklaces and beading

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Winter Exhibition at Kozo Gallery

Winter Exhibition at Kozo Gallery

I was very excited to see an image of one of my felt necklaces used on the invitation to the Winter Exhibition that opens at Kozo Studio and Gallery next Saturday.  This will be the second selected exhibition that I am participating in this month and I would love to meet any of you blog followers if you are free to come to the opening.  Please make sure to come and introduce yourselves if you are able to make the journey!

My days never seem long enough at the moment but I have to say that I am really enjoying all the felting!!  Today I made 2 amazing neckpieces using silk jewels (a bit similar to sari loom ends) and merino, the silk really crinkled up beautifully as the wool was felting so tomorrow I need to make a couple of brooches to use with them as closures.  These will be going to Kozo along with a couple of necklaces and some vessels that I made over the last few days.  I decided to use a much bigger resist than usual for these vessels (piece of laminate floor underlay used in the middle of my felt package to stop the fibres felting as a flat piece and create an ‘envelope’ instead) and have made one large bowl which I then beaded and one taller bowl with very organic grooves.  The beading was quite interesting, I love the glint of light on the seed beads and because of the result was not SO adverse as usual to plying the needle!!

Off now to try and put some images on my new Etsy shop and sort out the policy re. P&P etc., will check back in here and post the link if I am successful!!