Just after I took my Moy MacKay class I taught a felt hat class to 6 enthusiastic students. they wanted different styles but they all wanted folds in the top.
and decorating, I am sure I took more pictures at this point but something went wrong because they are not on my phone.
Then there was rubbing and rolling to do.
Here they are after some shrinking but not there yet.
The did shrink much to everyone’s amazement. I don’t think they really believed they would ever fit.
These brims on these 2 wide brimmed hats are to heavy to hold themselves up while wet. They will be fine once they are dry.
I didn’t get a picture of the last one but it turned out well too. It was a really fun day for everyone.
Last week I had the opportunity to take a 2 day class with Moy MacKay. I went with a couple of friends and we had a great time. We did the wet felting on day one. We had 2 pictures to choose from for the landscape.
I chose the one the left.
Moy demonstrated and explained to us how to work and what to do. We got to ask questions. She told us to take lots of pictures as we went because you see things in the picture that you don’t see in just looking at it. Still I didn’t take enough.
First we laid out the background
Then we added the foreground and details. The house is prefelt and the flowers in the front are chopped up curls
We wet them down and gave them a 2 or 3 min rub and then rolled them for about 3 min one way and then the other for another few min and we were done. They are very lightly felted but that’s ok because they are pictures not hats.
That took the morning. After lunch we did another piece, a still life, flowers. We had a vase of red flowers and babies breath to use for inspiration. We were not to copy it but to use it to see how flowers look. You can see it in the group picture. Moy demonstrated again and explained again and then we only had about an hour to put the picture together and then a short time to get it felted before we had to be out of the room for another group.
We started with the table then the foliage and then the vase and then moves some leaves around. Then we added the flowers. The babies breath is nepps.
I quite like it at this stage. Not as much after it was felted.
On day 2 we started the embellishing. Moy talked about and demonstrated needle felting accents and refining the pictures. Also some machine embroidery and stitching. we could try the machine stitching if we wanted but my picture wasn’t ready for that yet. This is what they are like now. No where near done but works in progress.
This is after I straitened up the house and removed the mangled fence and added a new one.
This is where it is now. I added windows and ivy to the house. I removed the cobwebs from the trees. I added some shading to the trees. I added in some stems for the flowers in front and another fence. I think the field behind the left fence needs to be darker because it’s farther away. It doesn’t show well in the picture but right now it is lighter and more yellow than the front field. It needs a lot more work but I think I know what I want to do to it.
And the flowers. I forgot to take a picture of when it was wet felted but had no embellishments. But here it is so far. I am not as keen on the flowers but they are alright. I may like them better after I work on them some more. The table needs straitening up and lots more texture. And notice the nepps have stuck. We had chopped up some green fibers as part of the foliage and I think the short fibers under them made them stick.
And lastly a picture of everyone’s works at the end of the second day. the flowers we used are beside Moy.
It was a great class. I think it’s given me confidence to try some more. Jan will be doing more posts for us and I hope she will do one about this class too. She will have taken at least a hundred more pictures than me and be able to show you her works in progress too.
Last week I missed doing my blog post because I had no power or internet. My area was hit by 6 tornados. We were not hit we had no damage. Some areas near us were hit very hard, the large power substation near us was hit and some of the cell phone and internet towers too.
Before all that I did manage to work on my piece for the guild exhibition and sale. I do not think I will get it done in time as it is due in a week. The theme was a 100-mile inspiration. I decided to do a scene with the Parlement buildings. I am using 2 prefelt layers with a piece of cotton gauze in the middle for the background.
First I found a simple outline picture I could use for the outline of the building. I cut that out and tried it on the background.
I pinned it to another piece of prefelt and cut it out.
Then it was time to work ou the clouds.
After I took the picture and looked at it I realized I had made the clouds to symmetrical. Its funny how looking at a picture sometimes shows you more than just looking at it. I tacked all the pieces together with a few jabs of a felting needle
Next was adding fireworks as I am thinking it should be Canada Day.
Then I cropped the picture to see better how it will look.
I wet felted the piece and now I need to do some stitching around the building so it will show better.and my daughter said I should add beads around the fireworks like the sparkles you see with fireworks. I thought maybe some sparkly thread and a bead at the end of each firework. What else would you add to this silhouette picture?
