HO HO HO!      🎅🎅🎅🎅🤶🤶🤶🤶🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

Merry Christmas Everyone!  

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We had a lovely morning last Saturday with our very first live Felt-in via Zoom where we felted alongside Sandy.  The morning was spent learning how to make a Tarantellic Talisman.  The inspiration came form Katrina Virgona and featured in the Australian magazine 'Felt' a while back.  

 

This shot captures some of Sandy's little talismen or is it talismans?!!  These little objects were designed to be held in the palm of a hand whenever you have an irresistible urge to dance!  They are surrounded by lots of folklore but we just wanted to make little objects for our project with Brooklands school.  

Mandy captured a screen shot of some of us watching as Sandy did a demonstration and we got to ask questions before beginning in our own creations.   This was the closest we were able to get to our special Christmas Felt-ins of the past - Santa hats and glitter but we had fun just the same!

To begin the project you need to select a stone that is smooth, palm size and doesn't have any sharp edges.  This is then wrapped in wadding before we begin to add the wool.  

Some members got stuck in straight away and others were content to watch and learn.

This image captures the moment when Sandy dipped the wrapped stone in water - it definitely takes two hands!

The two hours passed very quickly and we didn't get to complete our own talismans.  But we were inspired and some of us have moved on a couple of steps with adding the tails which we think the children will love!

Below is Ann's little stone which still needs a little more work but showing lots of promise!!

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I have included a couple of images of my own yellow and black stone which definitely needs lots more work!

I made some extra legs but I think I'll keep them for another talisman!

A huge thank you to Sandy for a great morning and for those of you who couldn't make it, don't despair we will be forwarding a video for you to try making your own little pile of special stones!

Maybe these little stockings might inspire us to make our own before the Big Day!  

Wishing you all a very Peaceful and Safe Christmas and looking forward to seeing everyone in 2021.

Best wishes Gail

 

FELTING FINDS!!

Over the last two months members of our guild have been busy felting away and feeding their creative juices.  Despite not being able to meet in person because of Lockdown, members have managed to share ideas, make beautiful pieces and contribute to our Community Outreach Project by making little felted squares and pieces for the children at Brookfield.

Our sharing of ideas and skills was enabled through using Zoom.  Our own Deborah and Sarah made videos demonstrating  particular techniques and incorporating these into small samples to be used as part of our project.

Deborah concentrated her video on adding bumps and holes to the little felt pieces.

Isn't this little octopus simply wonderful?  Deborah shared this as part of Show n Tell at the beginning of her video.  She was making it for her little granddaughter in America. 

No Sarah isn't singing just yet - the camera caught her midflow!

Sarah was showing us all how she made little pockets in felt which hopefully the children will be able to explore.

The videos were then shared with members and at the October and November Felt-ins via Zoom we discussed the techniques and shared some of our work with one another.  While it wasn't as good as the real thing, it has kept us all together and still making felt.

Each video lasted  about thirty minutes and was a great way for us to share things together.  Feltmakers North is very grateful for all the help given to the video making by Deborah's talented son Peter.

These lovely samples were made by an inspired Jane after watching Debbie's video!

And this was made by Cecelia - gorgeous shaped holes for enquiring little fingers. 

Here's a close-up

It's just great that members are beavering away making little pieces.  Soon we'll have enough to begin making up the lap blankets.

I'll just share some photos of other work members have been creating maybe in the hope of providing inspiration for some lovely Christmas gifts!

This image comes from Deirdre who's been experimenting incorporating silk etc into  slashes formed over a sphere. 

  Another of her images.  I love Deirdre's idea of using small scrap pieces of silk to create something very different - well done to her!

The little bags have been created by Deborah and below see her beautiful wrap created with wool threads - simply divine!

This wonderful array of felted pieces comes courtesy of our very own Norma who is becoming a very accomplished feltmaker!

Finally a fabulous collection of little squashes from a very talented Pleasaunce!

Thank you everyone for sharing and looking forward very much to our December Felt-in on the 12th.

Bye for now

Gail