Happy New Year!

                                          Shrek The Sheep!
Happy New Year everyone! I just thought I would share this lovely story of Shrek the Sheep with you. The photo is of Shrek the sheep after he was discovered hiding in a cave, he had hidden for seven years to avoid being shorn! He is a native merino sheep from New Zealand, who after being discovered became a national treasure! He was shorn live on television and his wool weighed 60lbs a normal fleece when shorn yearly weighs about 9lbs! His 60 lbs fleece was more than enough wool to make 20 men suits! After his live performance he went on to promote New Zealand wool and raise money for Charity, he even met New Zealands Prime Minister!

                                           Before his televised Shearing.

        After the Shearing! He needed the coat to keep him warm as it was quite a change once his wool was shorn.
The sheep had an amazing character and loved children and old people, he raised over £75,000 for charity. Sadly in 2011 at the age of 16years he had to be put to sleep due to age related diseases. His owner is putting a bronze statue of him in his town so all his good work will not be forgotten!

Happy New Year and we look forward to seeing you on January 19th at 10.15 in Hillsborough Village Centre, Dorothy will be showing us how to make swiss roll beads!

Festive Felting!

The felters at Feltmakers North were full of the Christmas spirit this morning, starting off with mulled wine (non alcoholic) and mince pies! Maria was taking the felt in and she showed us some beautiful work that she had made using prefelts, then we all set about planning our pieces.

         Maria had cut out some shapes for us to use as templates for our designs and there were a selection of prefelts to buy.

     Here is Barbara cutting out her prefelts to add to her design, good christmasy colours!  Below is Dorothy who has woven her prefelts together, she said she was hoping to make a ring out of it when it had felted so I hope she brings it next month so we can see the final outcome.

                                      Barbara was having fun creating her design this morning!

    As you can see there was a great range of designs, and everyone was very relaxed.

Feltmakers North committee has organised what we think is a very exciting programme of events for 2013, so keep checking the blog for the latest details. We have another International Tutor organised for a weekend residential in November, plus lots of workshops in between. The exhibition of our work opens in The Island Centre on the 10th April and will run for three weeks. We will also have a stand at the Creative stitch show in Belfast which is also April.
In January Dorothy is showing us how to make swiss roll beads and I have a wee sneak preview for you, they look brilliant and I think we are in for another treat at January's felt in!

     So all that remains for me to say is to wish you all a Happy Christmas and a healthy New Year and we look forward to felting again in 2013!
Fiona Harvey.