Tag Archives: Gaelscoil

Beading and adding the flowers to the wall hanging

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Today was my final day at the Gaelscoil, the wall hanging in now finished, hallelujah! I did run into a bit of a problem with the method we were going to use to hang it but after a bit of brainstorming have a solution, thanks Mona for your input, all is now well!!!

Eight sixth class pupils did a sterling job beading the flowers, at the beginning we weren't exactly sure how many we would attach but once we were underway they decided that less would be more. Stitching and sewing is definitely not my forte, these boys and girls however enjoyed the day so thanks guys for a job well done! The felt still needs to hang outside for another couple of days to dry fully (thanks Tony) and Mona is going to supervise the stitching on of more hooks for hanging. I'll call in to the school on Monday morning when I'm in Carlow, after that the next time I'll see the piece is when it's hanging in its permanent position beside Bridget Flannery's beautiful abstract landscapes depicting the four seasons! Here's a close up of some of the flowers, next post, the completed wall hanging.

 

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Drying the large wall hanging is taking some time

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I'm amazed how long the large wall hanging is taking to complete. I called in to the Gaelscoil after I'd finished felting with the Goleir group yesterday morning to discover the art room was a bit smelly and humid because of the drying felt. Now that it's not so wet and heavy I decided to bring the piece home with me and try to get it dry outside, at least this way I can move and turn it regularly.

At the moment it's draped over one of my felting tables at the front of the house. I'm a little nervous that Rex might lift his leg on a corner of it but unless the wind and possibly the sun gets to the felt (hopefully not rain, look at that sky!) I'm not sure how on earth I'll get it ready to iron and attach the flowers. The school have put a picture of the wall hanging in progress online, once we're finished I'll collate all the picture and videos I've taken myself and post the best images here on the blog.

I'll leave you today with a picture of the beautiful flowers felted by the Goleir group yesterday, next week we'll take pictures of all the work created during this fun and creative four week series of workshops!

 

 

Just to prove it!

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Two pictures from the Gaelscoil from yesterday and this morning, just to prove that I am working with actual, real, enthusiastic pupils!!!

 

Once we were happy that the felt was starting to shrink nicely we began rolling it up on itself…….

and this morning we were able to roll it in the opposite direction…..
….. and some teams even sang while they worked! Great work everyone, we're going to do some more rolling now then in the morning start rinsing and removing the soap.

 

 

 

Upcoming MI and KY workshops plus a couple of pictures from the Gaelscoil

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I love teaching!!! Although I would like to have time to felt samples to bring on my upcoming US trip currently I have to concentrate on finishing the wall hanging at the Gaelscoil, help my mother prepare for moving house this Friday and facilitate my ongoing four session felting course with the Goleir group in Carlow. Once the wall hanging is finished I can really knuckle down and get some more pieces felted to bring with me on my travels, in fact I find it hard to believe I’ll be heading off for the first leg of my journey on 7th May. Plainwell MI, Lexington KY and Loomis CA, you’ve been warned!!!!! More about my MI and KY workshops further down this post, to start with I’ll share some news and pics from last week and this morning.

The wall hanging is starting to shrink at last!

The wall hanging is starting to shrink at last!

Firstly, it’s been so rewarding to work with the pupils at the Gaelscoil, their faces were a picture last week as they all returned into the art room to have another felting session with me, this time everyone was really working hard to start the fulling process and get this large baby shrinking! No matter how clear their understanding of the process we are engaged in is, seeing the fully laid out and partially felted wall hanging for the first time was amazing for them. Faces lit up as they could identify their own prefelt pieces in the overall landscape, the younger junior and senior infants (4 to 6 year olds approx) did wonder where their pink, red and purple felt had disappeared to but were soon delighted to discover that they would be adding silk and shaping it into three dimensional flowers!

Beautifully decorated flowers ready to wet out and felt

Beautifully decorated flowers ready to wet out and felt

These will be stitched on to the bottom portion of the piece later this week, I really hope to be able to show you completed pictures before too long, tomorrow we start to roll in a widthways direction. I also want to check with the principal tomorrow to see if I can put some pictures of the children online, I have some great action shots of them all working together as a team.

Now on to my US trip, it’s a hard life for a busy Irish felter!!! I’ll be delivering my new workshop ‘Wrapped in Nature’ in Plainwell MI on Friday 10th and Saturday 11th May and Lexington KY on Friday 24th and Saturday 25th May. I’ll follow this on with three individual days teaching at the Felt Fest in Loomis CA on Friday 31st May and Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd June, it’s all SO EXCITING!!!!! In the middle of all this I’ll be facilitating a nuno felt workshop and a felt flower workshop at the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival on Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th May respectively, full details of all these events and links to book your place are over on the workshop page. I’m going to post the shortened version of the MI and KY workshop info here again for you to look over in case you haven’t already seen it, I hope to see you soon at one of these fabulous venues!!!

‘Wrapped in Nature’ – beautiful felt inspired by the natural landscape

During this two day workshop participants will design and create their own unique and beautiful wearable, functional or decorative piece of felt using the natural landscape as a starting point. Some participants may choose to felt a purely decorative art piece such as a large vessel, sculpture or wall hanging while others may take the opportunity to work on a nuno felt wrap, vest, complex bag or jewellery. Over the course of the two days there will be time to explore and discover techniques or materials that you may have never considered using in your felting before and we will also have the facilities to make some small experiments naturally printing/dyeing on silk and felt.

First pics from Gaelscoil and help, my Internet connection has broken!!!

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A very brief post today…… I'm busy working on my project with the Gaelscoil and unfortunately an essential connection to my modem has broken, NO Internet at home for a few days. Thanks Dawn for putting a message on Facebook saying I was out of cover, I've just logged in for a minute to upload this picture via a hotel's connection, cheeky! This gives a good idea of the scale of the wall hanging I and the pupils are working on, it's huge!!!

 

Sample felt landscape

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After I finished my new inventory list for Duckett's Grove this morning I felted a sample landscape prior to laying out the big wall hanging with the pupils in the Gaelscoil this week. I was a big concerned in case we had worked our prefelt too much, in fact everything came together nicely so I'm confident now that things will work out very well for the children.

This first collage shows both the front and back of my sample prior to felting. The design is very simple (I wanted to work out the shrinkage rate), drawing is definitely not my strong point but I think that the linen, silk and milk protein fibres I embellished it with help to bring the whole piece together. Because the prefelt has already started the fulling (shrinking) process we won't need to lay out the wall hanging much larger than we want the finished piece, it's going to be big enough anyway to roll and turn so any little help is gratefully accepted.

The second collage shows both sides during the felting process.

The final picture shows the front of the landscape after felting. Please keep your fingers crossed for me and the children this week that the big picture will come together as easily!