Tag Archives: Mendocino

Stunning Mendocino!

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Merridee and I had a lovely time in Mendocino, staying and socialising with friends Susan and Dale by night and felting with a lovely group of ladies by day! Working with participants who have different experience levels is always good fun and interesting, a stunning array of purses, jewellery and nuno wraps were created over the course of the three days and I also had time to discuss design ideas more extensively with one of the experienced felters, hi Flo! I really enjoyed myself watching as each project progressed and I think you'll see from this photo rich post how everyone seems to be happy with their felt, not to mention laughing and relaxing while spending creative time felting together. Thanks Merridee for all your expert help and thanks Susan and Dale for your fun and generous hospitality!

Merridee, Flo, Patty, Sasha, Zanna and me
Flo, Sasha and Zanna
Patty and Merridee
Flo
Sasha's lovely felt beads work brilliantly brilliantly with this fused glass bead that she made

Zanna's fabulous first nuno felt wrap includes silk from two saris that her father gave as a gift to her mother

Flo

Flo, Patty, Sasha and Zanna

I love this picture of Patty, Sasha and Zanna hamming it up for the camera! One final shot for today, Merridee and I joined Susan and Dale for a walk after class one evening, what better way to end the day thank watching the sun set than with friends, wine, cheese, olives and beer!!!

 

 

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Wonderful participants from Lake Tahoe and last minute accommodation available at Mendocino!

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Merridee, Keith and I have just returned from our action packed felting and natural printing retreat at Lake Tahoe so I'm finally online again after an Internet blackout for the last week. It's going to take me days to recoup and catch up with things but I really wanted to post a picture of our wonderful participants to whet your appetite for more to follow!

From left to right, modelling their first completed nuno felted and printed scarves………. Mariou, Lupe, Julie (kneeling), Leslie, Patty and Tina, great job everyone!!!
There's one room unexpectedly available at the Mendocino Art Center for the three day felting extravaganza this coming weekend (I'm staying with friends of Merridee's therefore the room they had reserved for me is free!) so if anyone is debating considering joining us and felting like crazy, now is the time to shout out loud!

 

Preparing for the future…….

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These days I seem to be doing a lot of preparation, all good! I'm…..

  • felting, naturally printing and gathering samples for my upcoming retreat with Merridee at Lake Tahoe and the felt/printing workshops in Vancouver and Winnipeg
  • prepring for a three day felting extravaganza at the Mendocino Arts Center (I think there may be a couple of spots left in this one, details on the workshop page) and planning an interesting vessel with handles to bring to same
  • wondering how much colder it'll be in Vancouver and Winnipeg than CA and trying to work out what I'll need to pack for my trip!
  • clarifying exactly where I envisage the main sales side of my business to move towards during 2014 and 2015
  • continuing to experiment with natural printing and dyeing to extend my range of skills
  • working on my packaging materials so that I have a really nice range of gift boxes complete with naturally printed gift tags in time for the Glucksman Craft Fair at the beginning of November
  • starting to wash and finish scarves that I've printed over the last month or so, I need to deliver more to the design shop at Duckett's Grove as happily they seem to be a hit with the visitors

All this is in addition to the usual teaching, market and DG so yes, it's busy here at Clasheen! Here's a picture of some new gift tags drying (prior to ironing) followed by a shot of a printed woven wall hanging fresh out of the dye pot today.

 

 

Short note and Autumn workshop at Mendocino Art Center – early notice!

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I'm having a fabulous time here in Portugal, first during the workshop at Dominio Vale do Mondego and now travelling with Alan and having a holiday. Sorry about the total lack of Internet activity, I had no coverage at all in my Quinta during the course of the workshop so I'm grabbing the opportunity now to write a quick note whilst staying at Estela's marvellous old town house in Eixa. Estela and I first met via facebook then at the week residential last year, this year she was a returning participant and now Alan and I are having a brilliant time seeing a little of the real Portugal!!! I'm going to blog properly and post plenty of pictures of both the workshop and the holiday as soon as I get home next week, for now I leave you with a link to an exciting three day workshop that I'm facilitating at the Mendocino Art Centre in California at the end of September. I'll also be posting full details of the felting retreat that Merridee and I are facilitating together at stunning Lake Tahoe during mid September, it's an exciting time to look forward to!

http://www.mendocinoartcenter.org/Fall13/Brown.html

Silk, buttons, bits and bobs …..

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As well as fantastic scenery and lovely people one of the great pleasures of holidaying in another country is picking up little notions along the way.  Moving on along the coast Alan and I had a great time at Elk beach just a little south of Mendocino and I was lucky enough to find some gorgeous pieces of abalone shell which I am going to incorporate into some felt jewellery when I get home.  I have also been on the look out for small interesting pieces of driftwood and these are plentiful to collect at some of the more wind swept beaches all along this stunning stretch of the coast.  Alan bought a picture called ‘Lemons on the Table’ by Peter Suezek from Sunshine at the Mendocino Arts Centre and also another painting on board at the Arcata Artisans Co-Op.  We have been extremely lucky while staying at the Fairwinds Motel, 1674 G Street here in Arcata that the owner Al Lukiman just happens to be a computer guru who used to work for Warner/Chappell Music.  Al very kindly showed Alan exactly how he can connect to wi-fi wherever we go so hopefully now communicating every couple of days won’t be such a problem as it was before!  As a result Alan has been able to concentrate on a bit of paper work that he needed to get out of the way while I was able to trawl some fantastic fabric and fibre shops here and in Eureka.

Buttons, ribbons, yarn and cowls

Buttons, ribbons, yarn and cowls

Talking you through the image on the left some of my booty from Arcata included hemp twine from the natural store on the square  (sorry there is no name on the receipt and I just can’t remember what the store is called), the gorgeous ram’s head and horn buttons on the bottom left from Fabric Temptations while in Eureka I picked up the fabulous large buttons, the heart buttons and some amazing colours of pure silk ribbons from Heather at the North Coast Knittery, email address info@northcoastknittery.com.  The two cowls are part of my travelling crochet project, the cowl on the left is made from some gorgeous soft merino I received in a Ravely swap while the shell pattern cowl on the right is from the Noro Furisode that I blogged about in the last post.