Third AGM!

We got through the business of the AGM as quickly as possible and moved on to the show and tell! Here is Elaine modelling her hat and dress to match!

The show and tell is a great source of inspiration!

Beautiful contemporary vessel by Marguerita!

Kathrina Hughes from Feltmakers Ireland was our tutor for the day! We had such fun and learnt such a lot, we used cap merino which for some of us was a new experience! Above is Kathrina with a selection of her jewellery.

Very useful tools for punching holes in felt!

Deirdre and Jane happily felting away!

Barbara trying out the hole punch!

Nearly finished and looking good!

Hole punch worked well in this piece.

Great fun was had by all, and it was a good turn out for the AGM. Next felt in is 15th June and I (fiona harvey) will be taking it and we will be adding bits and pieces to felt to see what will felt in, an experimental fun morning, hopefuly ending up with a panel for a bag! Please keep checking out the blog over the summer to see what is going on, we have had 18000 hits so we are delighted so many of you keep checking the blog.

Hope to see you soon Fiona.

Exhibition Photos!

I am including some of the very complimentary comments left in the book at The Island Centre, which visitors to the exhibition wrote!

Really enjoyed the exhibition, some fantastic pieces!

Wonderful exhibition, great use of colour, very well done to all involved!

                                         

Absolutely mouthwatering!

                                           Absolutely wonderful exhibition, such a variety of work, takes my idea of felt making to a whole new level!

Amazing work I feel inspired to have a go.

Exciting exhibition- I can feel a new interesting project coming on!

Creative and Inspiring exhibition keep up the great work- I'll be checking out the blog.

Such an amazing display of inspiring work. Who knew such things were possible with felt! Will be signing up for some workshops ASAP!!
I would just like to take this opportunity to thank all our members, the exhibition was a great success and we pulled out all the stops, but wait till they see the next exhibition!!!
Fiona Harvey

A BIG HELLO

Hello to everyone we met at The Creative Stitch Show in Belfast, so pleased to see that lots of you have been checking out our blog! I hope you liked what you saw and that you will continue to follow us! I think I can say that everyone that manned the stand at the show really enjoyed it, and thought this years show was great, with lots of interesting stands! On saturday when the show was going on, we had our felt in at Hillsborough Village Hall, Ann and Barbara instructed us on making felted pens, and everyone had great fun!
                                                                           

All the girls listening carefully to Barbaras instruction!

It was interesting to see the different variations that were produced.

It was definately a great way to spend a morning relaxing and having fun with felt!

Next Month is the AGM which is for members only, all members will be getting an email with the details, which will include details of the FREE workshop, with Kathrina Hughes from Dublin.Then in June we have a felt in and that is last felt in until September.

Keep checking the blog for updates as we will be adding dates as they are confirmed and we have such an exciting year ahead planned, more details after the AGM.

Hope that you are all enjoying your felting.

Fiona Harvey

 

Creative Stitch Show

Liz Nicholls and Barbara Campbell on Feltmakers North stand at The Creative Stitch Show, Belfast. Sorry about the photo its a bit dark, but Im having trouble with my technology, and of course its not just one item that is playing up! The stand looked really well and in the first morning there was great interest. This year for the first time we were running hour long felting workshops, and they were booking up quickly!

I will upload some more photos of the exhibition next week, so keep checking the blog or sign up to get a notification everytime there is a new post!
There is a felt in as usual this Saturday, so hope to see you at Hillsborough Village Hall at 10.15am

Transformation

Feltmakers North's first exhibition opened last night at The Island Arts Centre, Lisburn, the exhibition looked amazing in the ideal setting of the The Arts Centre. Friends and family plus the vice lady mayor of Lisburn came along to see the varied forms that felt can take. As you can imagine an exhibition like this takes a lot of organising so we had \Dorothy Dinsmore head up our Exhibition sub committee. Below are some of the committee helping exhibit the pieces!
                                                             

 We were all delighted with the response of our members they rose to the challenge and produced some amazing pieces from; vessels, wall hangings, dresses, chess set, tea set, teddies and even a penguin! The exhibition is on until the end of the month so please call in and have a look!
                                                                

 

 It was also a good chance for all the members to socialise and catch up with each other!

            

In this photo I am helping Jane try on a beautiful scarf made by Lesley Blackstock, which Jane went on to buy and was absolutely delighted with her purchase!
                                                          

When all the work was done it was time to relax and have a laugh!

 

Feltmakers North will have a stand at The Creative Stitch Show, Belfast starting on Thursday 18th and running till Saturday 20th April. We will still be having our monthly felt in in Hillsborough Village hall, on Saturday 20th at 10,15. Ann and Barbara will be taking the felt in and the topic will be felted pens! We look forward to meeting you soon.

Fiona Harvey 

 

In a Spin!

Sarah Jarden delighted us with her knowledge and skill for our March Felt in. (above some of Sarah's lovely hand spun wool!) Sarah started by showing us various methods of carding wool, including using a small dog brush, she did advice us to have a piece of leather over our knee as getting your leg carded is a very painful process!

                                              
Sarah showed us how to load our carders, and then demonstrated the process of carding old matted wool, and transform it back to lovely soft felting wool.

I think two of Sarah's best tips were; don't over load your carders, and be very gentle as the carders barely touch each other. This was a great help to me as I had always found it quite hard work to hard card and after Sarah instruction it seemed much easier.

This is Sarah carding a fleece that has been dyed, it was in a more natural stage and had curls still visible!

Carding that blends colours together. Now it was our turn to have a go, the room went very quiet(this is unheard of?!)  as everyone was concentrating on placing their carders in the right position!

Fiona (Me) using the drum carder!

Our morning of new knowledge and techniques was not over! Sarah showed us a very clever way that we could all make our own spinners out of kebabs sticks and a few plaiting bands. This was so much fun, quite challenging, but we all enjoyed the craic, as I don't think any of us were naturals, however under Sarah's guidance we got there in the end!
Then the morning of fun, friendship and learning came to an end, the time had flown in.
A Big Thank you to Sarah.

There is a very busy time ahead for Feltmakers North over the next few weeks, First of all our exhibition of members work opens in The Island Arts Centre, Lisburn opening night Wednesday 10th April approx. 7pm then it is open until 30th April, so we hope lots of people will pop in and have a look at the progress we have made in such a short time, as we are going less than 3years.

Feltmakers North will also have a stand at The Creative Stitch Show in the Kings hall Belfast, from 18th -20th April Thursday 10am- 8pm Friday and Saturday 10am -5pm if you check out their web site we are also running workshops daily at 4pm but you need to contact www.sccshows.co.uk

Our April Felt in is on the 20th April as usual in Hillsborough Village Hall, and Ann and Barbara will be showing us how to make felt pens, another fun filled morning to look forward too,

Please leave a comment in the bow below we would love to hear from you.
Hope everyone has a good Easter.
Fiona Harvey