October Toss ‘n Tell

This morning ‘s meeting commenced with a short  talk by Soosie Jobson on  “Presenting and Tagging Your Work for Sale”. As  a number of members intend selling their felted pieces  on the Feltwest stall at the Rotary Fair at UWA next Sunday and our stall at the Fremantle Arts Centre Bazaar in early December, it was a helpful and timely reminder of  the importance of attractively displaying and safely storing work intended for sale,  creating appropriately sized  tags to provide sufficient seller contact details and any special  garment-care  information if necessary and included practical information about  where to purchase  cellophane bags and    ordering  tags and business cards on line.

We were delighted  at this meeting to again welcome FeltWest  member and textile artist, Sue Clay,  from  West Yorkshire, UK. Sue spoke to us about a wonderful felt  project she had conceived and worked on earlier this year  which became the focus of  the Yorkshire Yurt festival held in  Holmfirth from 1 July to 5 July 2014  up to the eve of the Tour de France commencing in Yorkshire. As part of this project Sue had earlier worked  with children of different age groups in 11 local schools and with different artists making 3 D  felted animals, very large colourful  birds, cushions to lounge on and felt pictures. These were all used to decorate a 25 foot yurt, the large felted birds being suspended from the apex of the yurt. Five exquisite 5X1 metre hand felted panels  were draped to line part of the ceiling and walls of the yurt. The pre felted panels were  decorated by Sue with pre felted flowers, sheep, cows, bicycles, hills, streams, brilliant sunsets, rocks and other   landmarks of the Yorkshire landscape. Sue  hand rolled each panel and  each took approximately 1 month  to create. She brought 2 of the panels to show us as well as a short video about the yurt during the festival. You can view the video on U Tube ( easily found if you google “ Yorkshire Yurt Festival”). She also kindly brought a gift for FeltWest – a signed print depicting her five beautiful felted panels. Activities in the yurt  were scheduled daily 10 am – 10 pm for  5 days and  included music, poetry reading and story telling for all ages. The decorated yurt was obviously a great success and  a marvellous introduction for many to the art of felting. Sue also said how much she enjoys coming to our TNT meetings whenever she is visiting Perth and loves the colour and variety of our work, and the generous sharing of skills and ideas and warm friendliness of members at our meetings.

TWO OF THE PANELS FROM THE YORKSHIRE YURT  by Sue Clay

IMG_4216     IMG_4243

There was an interesting range of  felted work brought along by members to our October meeting. Alison Gomes showed us a beautiful blue, green and brown cobweb scarf she had made at Vicki Hearne’s workshop last month. It was of  fine, even thickness and draped beautifully. She said she had laid it out in a bit of a lattice pattern  and in her next attempt using this technique she would try  for a more organic effect.

IMG_4194
Alison Gomes Cobweb felt from Vicki Hearne’s workshop

 

Jeanette showed us a very pretty teal and blue shoulder bag she had made  with a special interior pouch designed for her mobile phone. She noted she was pleased with the colour separation  she had achieved in the bag’s design. (sorry no photo)

New member Jen Thomson said she was very happy to have received lots of feedback from members at the meeting when she brought along her delicate nuno felted paj silk in Chili & Pepper colourway with ruffled edges and decorative buttons.

IMG_4174

Sue Eslick modelled her latest very fetching hat featuring 2 horns, and decorated with  round prefelt shapes of various colours on a navy background. She also showed us a felted round , domed shaped clasp. She said she had achieved the dome shape by laying a thicker amount of wool around  the clasp’s inner circle and thinner layer of wool around the outer circle. The clasp is finished with a metal pin pushed through its middle.

IMG_3922

 

Sue Swain showed us her finished fabulous ¾ length nuno felted jacket which she had made at Jan Manning’s workshop using natural coloured wool laid in a diagonal pattern on beige muslin.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Chris Gray wore a funky necklace she had made at Nancy Ballesteros’ workshop on Meditation Beads.She had felted different coloured embellished large wool beads and strung them together to make a very distinctive necklace.

IMG_4254     IMG_4257

Soosie Jobson brought along a green  cactus which she made in one piece using 8 resists. So life- like are her cacti and succulent sculptures that when she puts them about the rocks in her front garden visitors think they are growing there! She says she has plans for an on line exhibition and is writing a booklet on how to make these 3 D felted marvels. She also showed us a beautiful 3D wall hanging she had made depicting a forest floor with  layers of  leaves of different colours and sizes made from nuno felt.

IMG_4134   IMG_4138   IMG_4156

 

 

Judi Barkla brought along some gorgeous felted embroidered stones to show us and which she says are  meditative to make.

IMG_4153   IMG_4150

Judy Barkla designed this nuno dress awhile back but we always enjoy seeing it!

IMG_4290 IMG_4287 IMG_4281

 

Sue Espie has been making Christmas  angel decorations to sell at the Fremantle Arts Centre Chrismas Bazaar  and the Rotary Fair at UWA next week. Needlefelted with dresses, hair, and wings of roving, the meeting thought they should sell like hot cakes.

Juliet Hargreaves said how much she enjoyed Mary Ann Dawson’s  recent baby bunting workshop Although the jacket she made there has already been given to a baby, a photo of the jacket appears in the review she wrote about the workshop. Juliet currently has some work displayed in the Biennale Exhibition 2014 of Designing Women (“Seams and Layers”)  on show at Nyisztor Studio, 391 Canning Highway Melville  22 October – 5 November 2014.

Jill Jodrell said she had been given a white batt of indeterminate fibre but which was very cobwebby and so she put some merino wool on the batt and felted it. The textured result she showed us she said was a lovely surprise and  she thinks now it will be ideal as a baby’s rug.

Finally, our guest speaker Sue Clay won the raffle this month!

Review of Baby Bunting by Juliet Hargreaves

It was a wet and grey morning when we gathered at Craft house on the 6th of September, but the sight of Mary Ann’s creative baby jackets rapidly lifted our spirits. We felt fortunate to have such a high tutor: student ratio which meant our questions were rapidly dealt with as well as providing an environment to easily get to know each other.  I chose to do this workshop as it provided an excellent opportunity to learn more about making jackets in a very manageable way i.e. a baby jacket might be just that, or it could be a sample for a bigger one. Either way, I thought a baby size jacket would be achievable in a one day workshop and being largely self taught, I was eager to learn from someone with Mary Ann’s experience.

Our first surprise was the size of the template Mary Ann had kindly prepared for us. It seemed enormous and only just fitted on one table! However after a closer inspection of her samples and a demonstration of laying out the jacket we were on the way to being persuaded that this was the size we needed to start with.

One of the tips I found really useful was the way in which Mary Ann prepared pre-felt using a dry felting method. This is such an easy way to build a collection of pre-felts and can be done while you are watching TV at night with no mess.    Mary Anne guided us through the process of building in an overlapped front, and extending the sleeve for a roll back cuff for those that desired it. We all got down to some serious laying out of wool tops on the jacket template for an hour or so, at which point Mary Ann demonstrated a number of different ways to embellish the jacket. Of course we were all dying to get on to this part but some of us needed to finish the background first! By lunch- time we were all felting madly and trying to stave off hunger pangs so we could start to see some shrinkage. The rolling, and massaging continued until we were able to remove the template and cut the front open. At this stage we all still had fairly large jackets that would have fitted two baby Buntings, but there was a general air of satisfaction at the results so far. The embellishments were recognizable and even produced a few surprises such as three-dimensional flowers as the felt and lace shrunk!

We headed home eager to complete the task and delighted with the comprehensive notes and sizing charts Mary Ann had provided. For my part further felting was accomplished by hand, the washing machine and the dryer (I had a deadline). Finally the best measure of a workshop, even if it is after the event, is a completed article. My jacket departed for Melbourne the following Thursday for the grand daughter of a close friend. It’s hard to imagine it could shrink any more so might even survive a washing machine! I’ll have to make another one now to keep as a sample.

The professional presentation of this workshop and generous sharing of her highly developed knowledge of felting made it hard to believe this was Mary Ann’s first workshop. It was great value and if she runs it again I would highly recommend it.

 

Photo 13-09-2014 4 45 01 am Photo 13-09-2014 4 43 01 am Photo 13-09-2014 4 37 18 am Photo 10-09-2014 3 02 44 pm Photo 6-09-2014 4 04 44 pm Photo 6-09-2014 4 04 27 pm Photo 6-09-2014 4 04 19 pm Photo 6-09-2014 4 04 08 pm Photo 6-09-2014 4 03 57 pm Photo 4-08-2014 10 24 29 pm

August Toss n Tell by Vicki Hearne

Soosie : showed us a large framed piece of work she created for her friends as a house warming present. It has an Australian Aboriginal theme depicting the Wandjinas people at Chamberlain Gorge. Using wool and the “Nuno” felting technique Soosie has hand dyed and stitched this wall hanging.

photo 1 IMG_2451

IMG_2456  IMG_2457

Juliette: created four small felted decorative items using techniques learned at Donna’s tutorial.

photo 5     Photo 20-09-2014 12 41 06 pm Photo 20-09-2014 12 41 00 pm

Pat: passed around a finely knitted white blanket she’d made for Goodram’s  grandchild to be, using her knitting machine.

 

Beth : using India Flint’s method of making a silk and wool fabric, Beth made this multicoloured and embellished skirt.

Vianne + BethKlokeid skirt

Vianne : following Janice Manning’s jacket making class Vianne showed her multicoloured  jacket.

Dawn: attended Janice Manning’s class and made this light coloured jacket.

photo 1a Photo 20-09-2014 12 55 56 pm

Nancy : showed us her scarf of black tissue silk embellished with silk hankies of various colours.

Nancy scarf

Jeanette : Nuno silk dress in Fuscia and mottled green. The wool has been used in such a way as to create shape, contour and colour change.

Jeanette Humphries top

Photos from the AGM, our wonderful speaker Richard and Trash n Treasure:

AGM election of office bearers photo 3a photo 3 photo 2c photo 2 photo 1d photo 1b

September Toss n Tell by Vicki Hearne

Sue Swain: attended the “Jacket Making” workshop and showed us her three quarter length coat in natural coloured wool. The wool was laid onto cotton muslin in a diagonal fashion.

Lyn: also completed the jacket making course and completed a jacket and a hat too.

Soosie: showed a couple of large 3D felted cacti she created from felt. One was embellished with tiny beads and was “in flower” too! She used a sausage technique to make the stem.
Soosie experimented using shellac on her 3D fish.

Photo 20-09-2014 2 22 57 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 2 24 10 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 2 24 00 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 12 55 56 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 2 37 59 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 12 39 02 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 12 38 38 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 12 50 06 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 12 44 26 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 12 40 28 pm

New member Laura: presented her very first felt creation, a purple scarf incorporating swirls of wool.

Judith Shaw:  pointed out her felt covered coat hanger which has multiple features. The “non slip” hanger has plenty of room to pin things to it and has a pouch to hold items.

Judith also had tips on how to use up scraps, and examples of this was a felted spectacle case decorated by freestyle stitching, plus, a tea cosie.

Vianne: explained her love of texture and showed this in her piece of blue crocheted yarn sandwiched between two layers of wool.

Photo 20-09-2014 2 28 43 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 12 43 44 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 12 41 44 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 2 32 33 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 2 31 11 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 12 41 59 pm

Sue Eslick: following Nancy’s work shop, showed a string of blue felted balls on cord, embellished with red beads. She also made a felted rabbit, baby bottle holder and denim bag.

Kim and Katrina: used the skills they’d learned following Nancy’s workshop and produced strings of woolen beads.
(Kim’s, rust coloured).

Jill: after gathering materials from the “trash n treasure” bag Jill created this turquoise bag which is fully lined then embroidered.

Photo 20-09-2014 12 38 21 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 2 34 56 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 12 47 29 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 2 40 03 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 2 37 05 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 2 48 33 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 12 54 30 pm

Jeanette: used a cross weaving technique on the yolk of her pastel coloured felted dress. She explained that it gave additional strength to the garment. She experimented with other techniques too in order to prevent the blending of colours and also the joining of her seams.

Vera: needle felted picture.

Nancy: described how her reversible felted jacket is able to be buttoned up using a single set of buttons. She achieved this by attaching the buttons very close to the edge of the garment and passing them through loops on the other side as opposed to button holes.

Photo 20-09-2014 2 41 49 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 12 51 54 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 2 49 43 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 12 52 26 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 2 51 55 pm
Photo 20-09-2014 2 50 43 pm