Felt vessels and great swap package

I have now uploaded some images of the felt vessels that I made for the Blueprint exhibition to my Flickr account.  With the exception of one bowl I decided to use all undyed fibres and keep the theme simple and stylish.  Probably the vessel that I am most satisfied with is a grey and white bowl with three oval pebbles stitched on as embellishment. 

Natural wool, stone and linen vessel

Natural wool, stone and linen vessel

Carmen gave me some raw linen thread to use for the stitching and I must say it does lend to the overall effect.  It really reinforces the thought that I have to get a bit more comfortable with a needle, judicious stitching can really enhance the style and feel of an item particularly when the thread has been chosen with care to complement or contrast.

The Clasheen Crafty Swap for Summer is well underway now, currently we have 98 members in our group and the numbers are growing weekly!  Swapping is a brilliant way to make friends and swap goodies with partners from all around the world, my most recent and wonderful swap package arrived on Monday afternoon from krobin in the Ravelry Cowl Swap.  In this secret swap we had to knit or crochet a cowl for our partner, send yarn and another cowl pattern and also include a few little extras taking into account the likes and dislikes of our swap buddy. 

Fantastic swap package
Fantastic swap package

My brilliant package included the hand knitted cowl, 3 crochet hooks, chocolate, yarn, pattern, pretzels, incense, my favourite ginger and orange bath lotion, ginger soap and some tasty chai tea!!!  Need I say more, EVERYTHING is me to a tee!

For my secret partner I crocheted a cowl in a silk/merino mix and finished it off with three buttons from my stash, hopefully my buddy will like it as it is in her favourite autumn colours!  I have bought some locally produced yarn from Cushendale Wollen Mill and yesterday got some chocolate and little extra goodies when I was in Carlow to complete my package.  Hopefully I will get it all together this afternoon (in between some dreaded cleaning in prep for Alan’s arrival home!) and it will be winging it’s way to the States tomorrow morning. 
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Felt vessels and images of felt ring

Margaret's natural felt vessel

Margaret's natural felt vessel

Here are the images as promised of the beautiful felt vessels that Margaret and Bridann made with me at the beginners felt workshop on Saturday.  Because they had learned how to make a piece of flat felt in the morning it was a simple step forwards to try out three dimensional work in the afternoon.  If you are new to felting and working by yourself or learning from a book I definitely would recommend practicing the flat felt for a couple more times but as I was there to help keep an eye on the edges of the vessels and any other likely trouble spots we just progressed naturally into this type of work.  Margaret decided to work in natural coloured wool, a soft white for the inside and a gray on the outside.  The outside was embellished with white mulberry silk and although this blended in very well with the grey wool it would show up much more clearly if the finished piece was shaved with an electric razor. 

Bridann's striking felt vessel

Bridann's striking felt vessel

Bridann decided to use a round resist to creat a bowl shaped vessel.  She worked in shades of blue and teal highlighting the outside layer with yellow merino and light blue mulberry silk.  This was a very good colour composition and I am sure you will agree that both ladies created amazing work for their first day felting!

Blue felt rings

Blue felt rings

Also as promised here is an image of my new design felt ring, more images in my Flickr images.  I am also going to be uploading these rings (and hopefully) a lot more pieces to my Etsy shop over the next day or so.  I have a mountain of work just waiting to go up online but it seems to take forever to get it sorted out and I have to say that I have been procrastinating a bit!  Now that I am felting full time I really need to get a regular income so have just decided that I REALLY need to my online sales sorted out as soon as possible.