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!
A flock of sheep waiting to be felted!
I am going to let the pictures speak for themselves today, check out more images from the workshop on Flickr.
Tomorrow I will post about the rug I made following Ria’s instructions in Dutch Felt, a lot of hard work but an interesting result. Till then ……..
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 amongst others. This looks like the perfect time to try once more some of the gorgeous Jacobs fleece kindly given to me by some neighbours this summer, I will keep you posted!
Orange and grey punched felt necklace
Carmen came over yesterday afternoon and her visit provided an excellent excuse to stop tidying the studio in preparation for the weekend workshop and sit down together and string some felt jewellery. I pulled some of the colourful felt beads that I have made over the last while out of hiding and then spent some time selecting seed beads that would most do the felt justice. I always find it difficult to finish projects like these and definitely it is the little things that make the difference, it was SO much easier to have a drink and a chat while putting some of these items to bed once and for all!
The pictured orange, grey, black, white and hot pink necklace put some of my punched beads to really good use. Normally I would not seperate these type of felt beads with anything, just string them together in a line but for some reason these screamed out to me to use cheery orange seed beads as dividers. I like the effect and went on to make some earrings with the other punched beads that I had in my stash, you can check them out on Flickr and some are already up in my Etsy shop.
Speaking of Etsy, how do you price your work??? I am totally aware of the current financial situation globally and while I don’t want to undervalue what I am making I also definitely don’t want to overprice pieces and make them unaffordable to buy. With this in mind I am constantly comparing dollar prices with euros, hopefully you will agree that $45 (E30.33 at todays exchange rate) is not too expensive for the necklace above, it does have 22 layers of merino in every bead and the felt pad which I punched them from took a full day to make!
Turquoise and coral felt and bead necklace
The other style of necklace that I uploaded today is retailing at $40 (E26.93), I am trying to reflect the time and skill that went into each various piece as well as the artistic merit and uniqueness or sameness of each design. These prices are an online special and only available through my Etsy store. If I am attending a craft fair or other event the prices are a little higher to reflect the extra costs accosiated with participating and travelling to shows.
And finally for today ….. partners are at last assigned for the Clasheen Winter Swap. Many apologies for the week long delay, things are just hectic here and I think that we will extend the posting deadline to accomodate everyone and allay frustrations! There is still plenty of time to get your packages prepared, after all we are trying to destash as well as make a personal gift so hopefully there will not be too much shopping to do.
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) by Ria van Els-Dubelaar. Anyway, I did enjoy relaxing and reading this last night and particularly loved ‘Wrinkles’, a stunning fireside rug which looks like a hot orange and natural brown sheepskin. The text is in both English and Dutch which is helpful and there is a nice gallery of work by various well known Dutch felters including some gorgeous urns by Lyda Rump, roll on February!
Off now to do some more tidying up in preparation for the Saturday felting workshop, this day is fully booked but if you are interested in attending on Saturday 28th please check out the workshop page for full details. I am flexible with what we make so if you prefer any of the other titles from the Winter series please just email me asap and we will see what we can do!
Nicola Brown Fine Art Textiles 