Chasing Felt

I'm thinking this could be the theme for this year. Well, this and another more crass term from the previous post. I just came back from a 4 day felting workshop at New England Felting Supply in Easthampton, Massachusetts. If you had told me a month and a half ago that I'd be on a plane to Massachusetts, I would've called you crazy. I'm thinking some of the women in my class thought this when they first met me ("You came from where??") but when you see a class being offered by someone with mad skills like Lisa Klakulak, you go a-running. And I did!

Lisa's one of the few artists out there (ok, in my opinion) doing things with wool and felting that are truly amazing. She's been studying felting for the past 13 years and has come up with techniques and designs that are so unique. They're just not done by anyone else. So the chance to take her class in Realism in Felted Imagery was something I couldn't pass up. The class alone made for an amazing week, but traveling alone, meeting the coolest people (one gal had a flock of sheep, another rode a huge motorcycle), hanging out in Northampton and exploring a part of the U.S. I'd never been to.... all of this made for one hell of a good time! The class had waaayyyyy more math than I thought was possible, and even she jokingly said that she was glad that she didn't put this in the class description because people may not have signed up! I'm grateful for her crazy formulaic mind, otherwise I wouldn't have a good foundation in which to start my own work. Thanks Lisa!

New England Felting Supply where I took the workshop. A fiber artist's dreamland!

More views of the shop.

 

This was my second time using hand carders and it took me a WHILE to get the hang of it. I butchered the pretty shades of blue that I made.

My little spool of thread!  

Carding wool to create the colors I need for my projects. I didn't finish the image on the left, but I did card all the wool and brought it home, so I'm hoping to finish it. It's me and my shadow on the beach in Gualala, Ca. 

  All of our felted spools before we did any free motion stitching.

Lisa giving us a free motion stitching demo. It was so much harder than it looked! Something I'll need to practice for sure.

Me and Lisa.  Check out more photos here on my facebook page!

My goal this year is to work more on my felting technique, honing my craft and spending more time on creating, discovering and seeing where I want to take my felt. I'm the worse at decision making.....I can hem and haw until even I'm so annoyed with myself, but after taking this class, I've decided (saying it out loud helps, right??) I'm going to take a leap this year, curtail my wholesaling and online sales and devote my time to exploration. This is where chasing felt comes in. You may recall, if you read this blog, that I took a felting workshop with Claudy Jongstra in 2010 (in Italy! Oh take me back!) and a 2 day class with Jorie Johnson, both women creating such beautiful work. I'm thinking this is going to have to be the way I get my felting education since there isn't a school or extended workshops that specialize in felt. So I'll be in search of classes this year! And possibly residencies too. I'm pretty excited :)

Felting Class! (class is FULL)

I'll be teaching an intro class to wet felting at Peace Industry Rugs in San Francisco!

Ever wondered how a bunch of cotton-candy looking wool turned into a solid and beautiful fabric using water, soap and agitation? Then you'll need to sign up to find out :)

Space is limited.....e-mail me to join the class - papaververt@gmail.com  CLASS IS FULL(yay!)

Check out some pics of my last class - we had so much fun!

UpCycled Coasters...Gotta Love Goodwill

I'm in the latest issue of Diablo Magazine with 5 other fine East Bay Crafters:

photo by Melissa Kaseman
I had a fun time being interviewed by LeeAnne Jones and I liked her idea of each artist coming up with a tutorial. I've always liked felting wool sweaters for a variety of projects  - mainly pillows but some other ideas would be to make quilting squares, scarves that are pieced together, tea cozies, book covers...the possibilities are endless. I went with making some felted wool coasters. The tutorial is online, but I thought I would post it here with all the pics! (*side note here* - The term is acutally "fulling" and not felting, but it's easier to say "felting")


What you'll need:

• 2 x 100% wool sweaters - each a different color - making sure that they're only 100% wool....no blends such as cotton, acrylic or anything that says superwash.
• Washing machine
• Dishwashing soap - I use Dawn's Original
• Old pair of jeans
• 2 x pillowcase
• Scissors
• Paper to draw a round 4" template - mark a line 2 1/2" up
• Yarn
• Needle
• Hot iron

Washing Machine Settings:

• Lowest water level
• Hottest temperature with cold rinse
• Longest agitation cycle

First put your wool sweaters into their own pillowcases and tie a knot so the sweaters won’t come out. Then start the washing machine and throw in your pillow cases, pair of jeans and about 4 small squirts of soap -  you don’t need a lot. You’ll want to let your machine go through the longest cycle, stop the machine and start the cycle again. Depending on how long your machine cycles, you’ll want to agitate your sweaters for about 30 minutes or so. You can check the progress of the sweaters in between to see how much they have felted. 

Once they have shrunk enough (the blue sweater started at 25”long and shrunk to 15”long) you can let the machine go through the rest of the cycles, so all the soap is rinsed away.

*NOTE* Make sure to scoop out any loose wool in the water that comes off the sweater before you start the rinse cycle. Line dry or tumble dry. 

Coaster Instructions:

The felted sweaters can now be cut with scissors without unraveling!

Using your round template, cut out 3 circles from each sweater. Use a hot iron to felt the fabric a little more on each side. 

Then, cut the template at the marked line and use the smaller template piece to cut off the tops of each circle.  Pair opposite colors together to create a 2-color circle and pin them together. 

Thread your yarn onto the needle, make a small knot at one end and start to join the 2 circle halves using a fell stitch:

"Put in needle from the back top corner and pull in from the front. Bring needle down into the second half about 3/8” making a vertical stitch. Pull taut.  Starting from the back again, put your needle in ¼” away from your first stitch and repeat the process. Your stitches will be at an angle on the back and vertical on the front."

Tie a knot at the end when you are finished. Press each coaster with the hot iron for a final, polished look. 

First Local Social Event

With me! Patty Benson! Felting extraordinaire! Well...not quite, but the gals of Local Social did give me a very lovely intro before the class. If you haven't heard me mention Local Social yet here's the low down on this very cool new venture:

"Local Social is a burgeoning events-based collaborative where we will be hosting intimate events about once a month.
Our focus is on the Bay Area and our mission is to merge elements of design, art and craft through community collaboration."

The next event is called "Plant. Shake. Enjoy." where guests will be learning from a talented cocktail expert how to make specialty drinks using fresh herbs from your garden. You'll also have the chance to pot your own herbs to take home. Oh and did I mention that it will be held at the Margarido House? Yes please! (rsvp by April 23rd)

Back to the felting class now.....Catherine and Gretchen of Local Social laid out the most beautiful and tasty spread based on all things tea: hot and cold mint and jasmine tea, tea infused vodkas, (now THIS is my kind of class) home baked goods, fresh fruits, agave nectar and more.

Each person got to go home with their own hand felted wool trivet/pot holder/ decorative piece.




See more pics here.

Sharing the Love of Felted Wool

I got together with some of my lovely co-workers recently to teach them how to wet felt wool.



See more pics here.