Category: classes

Felted Lantern Cover workshop

This last Sunday I taught the felted lantern cover workshop that should have happened in December but was delayed. I was teaching at the guild I belong to, Ottawa Valley Weravers’ and Spinners’ Guild.

It was a half day class. the biggest challenge with the lantern covers is laying out the wool thin enough to let the light through but with enough wool to hang together. They don’t need to be strong because the lantern will give them structure. For this class, I provided a glass vase so everyone would be working to the same resist size. You can use a large pop bottle with the top cut off but I would add some weight to it to make it more stable.

I had 5 ladies for this class. I showed them two examples of covers I made.

wool felt lantern cover, blue, green, brown wool felt lantern cover lit up, blue, green, brown

Everyone wanted the longer one so they could add wrinkles

laying out wool for a felted lantern cover laying out wool for a felted lantern cover laying out wool for a felted lantern cover laying out wool for a felted lantern cover laying out wool for a felted lantern cover

 

I only just realized we ended up with just 2 colour palettes. the largest part of this class is taken up with layout and decoration. We discussed how you can add things to the inside of the cover that won’t show when it’s not lit up but will show as silhouettes blocking more light.  A couple of people decided to give that a try.

Adding embellishments to felt lantern covers Adding embellishments to felt lantern covers Adding embellishments to felt lantern covers Adding embellishments to felt lantern covers Adding embellishments to felt lantern covers

It is hard to see on the last one but she is adding white and blue silk hanky pieces to the wool. they disappear as soon as they get wet. They will show up again later. You can see them a little in the pictures below. I think everyone had a great afternoon.

 

Group shot of the students with their lantern covers.

finished wool lantern cover finished wool lantern cover finished wool lantern cover finished wool lantern cover finished wool lantern cover

Two of my students sent me pictures of their covers dry and lit.

Christine

lantern cover drylantern cover lit up

Janet

lantern cover dry Lantern cover lit up

I hope the others will send me pictures as well. One was very thin and delicate and I think it will look amazing lit up. If they send them I will add them here.

I did have someone ask why I like to make covers rather than making them with a bottom. There are 4 reasons, first making a nice flat bottom that will allow the vase to stand properly can be tricky. A cover that is self-supporting needs to be felted much more or be thicker to be stiff enough. Having an internal structure gives you something to put the lights in and attach the controller to. And lastly, the container inside allows you to add water if you would like to use it for flowers.

Wedding Shower Hat Workshop

Last weekend I got to teach a workshop for the first time since covid hit. I have really missed teaching. I was contacted to teach a wet felted hat class for a bride-to-be. She wanted to do something different than the traditional bridal shower. Everyone was vaccinated and we all wore our masks. It was a lot of fun.

Everyone picked their colours from The Olive Sparrow (https://www.etsy.com/ca/market/the_olive_sparrow) and I ordered them in. I have to say the wool arrived quickly and nicely packaged with labels. I point this out because I have ordered from other places and received a mixed bag of fibres and I was left to sort out what the colours were and prep it for class. All the embellishment fibres were from my own stash.

Everyone picked the style they wanted from the hat samples I brought. Then they grabbed their wool and we started. I like to do 3 layers for hats. With the most shrinkage being around and with the resist we used it leaves room at the top for shaping.

Once the first side was laid out it was time to embellish. picking out the fibres and seeing how they look is always lots of fun.

Don’t forget to take a picture so you can embellish the other side.

Then the hard work begins rubbing and rolling.

After much rubbing and rolling, it was time to remove the resist.

And now they try them on and wonder how they are ever going to make them fit.

Much more rolling and fulling later the hats are shaped and ready to take home and dry. Sorry I got no pictures of that part.

All in all, it was good to teach again and the ladies were great to work with. I think we all had a lot of fun. I need to thank Sabrina( the gracious hostess) for her pictures of the day or they would be sparse. I think she is happy with her hat. 🙂

 

Nuno Felt Workshop

I had another wonderful group of ladies learning to make Nuno felt. I had 5 in the class.

Here everyone is laying out their base wool on the silk blanks I had dyed for the class

Ruth has been talking about layout effecting shrinkage. Some of these ladies are laying their wool along the scarf to get a shorter but wider scarf and the others are laying the wool across the scarf to get a longer but narrower scarf.

After the base is laid down they get to add the embellishments, more wool, curls or silk fibres, hankies or throwsters waste.

Then after much rubbing and rolling and some scrunching and throwing everyone had a lovely finished scarf. the first 2 below put very thin layers so the silk would show through to the wool side.

Everyone seemed really pleased with what they had done and the magic of making nuno felt. I am always amazed at how different everyone pieces are and the surprise when it really works.

Felted Flower Workshop

Wednesday I taught an evening class in flowers at the Ottawa Valley Weavers’ and Spinners’ Guild. It is a bit rushed for beginners to get both flowers finished but everyone got it done and we all had a good time.

As usual, I kept forgetting to take pictures but I did get some and Jan was in the class and got some but she was busy too.

First, we did a petunia/morning glory shaped flower this is me explaining how you layout the wool for the flower.

Jan remembered to take a picture of her layout. This is part way through.

Here everyone is diligently felting their flowers

Shaping

This is Jan’s flower after scrunching and throwing. People usually look skeptical that this will be a flower at this point.

But then Ta Da!

Then there was no time to waist and we were on to Flower 2. Stems and stamens and silk hankies.

There was rubbing and rolling and gentle fulling and no throwing for these.

And lastly Jan to a good picture of her 2 blue flowers.

I think I may make this into a full-length class with a few more flowers. and maybe add some leaves to the stems.

Wet Felted Slipper Class

This last Saturday I taught a slipper class to 6 lovely ladies. I gave them a choice of templates, so there were different types of slippers being made at the same time. We used the one that looks like bunny ears, the one with little pointy the ears on the sides, boots and some pointy ones. They used Corriedale wool for the slippers. I prefer something like Fin wool but it is hard to get it in colours and everyone wants colours. So Corriedale is a good compromise. After everyone made templates it was onto laying out the wool.

Then on to rubbing rolling Once everything was hanging together well, it was time to take the resists out. You might remember Christine made one of the pixie hats in the hat workshop a few weeks ago. Hat Class. Hat Class She is planning for curly toes. And on to fulling. There is scrunching and throwing of course and we had a washboard and a car mat to help with the shrinking. Sorry I have no pictures of that.
You can custom fit your slipper right on your foot of course. You can really see how much it has changed compared to the one that hasn’t been fulled yet.
This one was almost done.
Judy’s are the only ones managed to get a picture of at the end of class. She put a little of all the embellishment fibers on them to see how they felted. She still wants to a just the top at the opening.
She is going to make insoles and add a leather sole.
I am adding this in. Judy had some felt insoles and she needled some special supports for her feet onto it and fit them into her new slippers.
And Christine’s curly toes
       

 

A class with Moy MacKay

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.

Don’t forget to sign up for the holiday card exchange on the forum. Read all about it here: https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2018/10/10/time-for-the-holiday-card-exchange-again/

Ruffled Neck Scarf Workshop

Last week I taught a Ruffle Neck Scarf workshop. This was the first time teaching it and it went very well. I was worried about the timing but it all worked out. I thought the class at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum. They have a nice big classroom with lots of light. and water.

As usual, I forgot to take pictures early but here are two of them being laid out

You can see the template they used to get the layout right and keep it even from one end to the other. I drew it with the outline to follow and a line on them to let them know when they had shrunk enough.

Here they are using the plastic under their scarves to make nice edges.

And a shot of the class working.

Here are the results. I really like the ones where you can see the wool that migrated through the silk.

The Class was a lot of fun. I made the written instructions more detailed than normal because I want to make it a kit. If I ever figure out video iI would like to make an online workshop.  If you were to buy a kit for a ruffled scarf would you want it to be a short neck scarf or a long scarf? the only difference really would be the amount of wool included and the length of silk. I was thinking a short scarf but include the sizing to make a longer template too. I am wondering about the template I usually use thick plastic to draw it on. but it is too bulky to fold flat and too big to ship cheaply rolled up. Should I include a template on thinner plastic or just the instructions on how to draw it up on whatever you want to use?

Nuno Felt Scarf Class Dec 2017

I had another delightful day teaching some ladies to make nuno felt scarves. I made a slide show of the scarves. For some reason I only got one shot of the last one.

 

 

 

And finally a group shot of the ladies and their scarves all finished.

It was a fun day I love seeing how different they all turn out.

Felt Vessel Class

Posted on December 2, 2017 by

I taught an enthusiastic group of ladies how to make felted vessels last Sunday. They were a great group and without Carleen’s reminders to take pictures I would have nothing to show you today.

Three ladies chose to make pots that were a different colour inside.  and two made theirs a solid colour.

Then of course there was the wetting, rubbing and rolling and shapping

   

Blowing up a balloon inside  helps get a nice shape. In the back ground you can see Carlene rolling on a car mat.

For some reason I did not get a picture of all the finished pieces. This is the only one I have of this white and gold pot. It was very elegant and I think it would make a great light cover. She said she was rewetting it and reshaping it. I hope she remembers to send me a picture of it when it’s done.

There was also some very determined rolling on the glass wash board.

I do have some finished pictures.

 

The blue one is Carlene’s. She wants to add to it. Here are 3 thoughts. The second and third pictures are the same yarn but different ends,  one has more blue in it.

Her husband thinks the yarn covers up to much of the pot. I like the spiral but think maybe make the lines farther apart. What do you think? It may have been better to felt it right in. It would still be texture but flatter, more integral to the pot. Hey Carlene, maybe you just need to make another pot.

 

Mittens

I am teaching mittens next year at my guild. I haven’t made any in a long time so I have been working on some mittens for my grandson.  Here you can see where I was enlarging the pattern.  They look huge. I did add extra in the middle because it is easer to cut off some at the wrist then not have enough and try to add. Do you like my sheep duct tape?

I used a small piece of plastic to keep the thumb wool separate. They can so easily get all tangled with the wool from the finger part.

Here is it flipped over and ready for the second side.

And here they are on my grandson. He was a moving target.

 

I had planed on adding some trim to thread an elastic and tightener thingy but they seem to fit him well and don’t fall off. I will add some more detail to the car. I know he likes them because we couldn’t get him to stand still. He was dancing all over with them.

Have you made anything for winter Yet?

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