Summer Sensation

On saturday we were treated to a day packed with enjoyment, relaxation and learning! Liz Nicholls took the workshop, instructing us on how to make a light little neck scarf. To enable ths scarf to end up the correct shape the lay of the fibres is very important.

Below this photo illustrates the amount of shrinkage, as the final scarf sits on the original template.

                                                                
  The day went in quickly and we all learnt something new!                                                           

                                                                                 
Look at this beautiful piece of work, and this was Barbara's first workshop, we were delighted to see her as she had heard about us at the Creative stitch show!

Barbara Finlay laying out her layers very carefully using some of the great fibre blends we got from World of Wool, the colour combinations were great!

   Maria getting close to finishing her scarf!

    Some examples Liz brought for us to see, we had a choice of lengths which was a good idea. sorry my photos dont show the great colours in these scarves.
Remember to check out the workshop section as now the  application forms are available for the next few workshops, and the months between september and december we have lots of interesting topics covered,
Our next felt in is on September 15th at 10.15 and we have lots of starter kits for those of you who have not been before so all you need to bring is a towel and your enthusiasm, we will be delighted to see you.
Fiona Harvey                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Exciting Parcel!!

This fabulous parcel arrived on my door step last week, it is full of wool for the next couple of workshops, and this is just one of the parcels of wool we have recieved recently! So we have been getting organised for all the felt ins and workshops coming up from September onwards.So check out our workshop section of the blog to keep up to date with our plans, as you would hate to miss something! 

                                                                            

A Ray of Sunshine

  Close up of a gerbera, what inspirational colours                                                                      

Hello to everyone! Saying the weather is so awful here I thought I would send you a little ray of sunshine and let you know a few things about our up and coming programme of felting events!!

First of all I am delighted to say that the lucky participants for the Charity van der Meer workshop in November, have been notified and we have a waiting list in case someone is unable to attend. We were delighted with the response to the residential week end, which is an amazing bargain due to the generous grant from the Arts Council and the lottery fund!   We are now in the planning stages for another international tutor for next years residentail workshop!

                  One of Charity's fabulous dresses.                                                         
In September we will have a fun day learning to make felt name badges, which we intend for people to wear each month so we can learn everyone's name. We are hoping some new people to felting that we met at The Knit and Stitch show will come along. This is an ideal felt in for beginners and improvers. We will have felting kits available to buy so you dont need to worry about what to bring with you. The felt in will be taken by Dorothy Dinsmore and be at the usual time of 10.15 till 12.30pm, and of course will include coffee.

 Liz Nicholls will be introducing us to cobweb felt during our October felt in on October 20th, this is an extremely fine felt that is nearly transparent but absolutely gorgeous. Freda Magill will also be at our October meeting which will enable you to purchase some of her wensleydale wool and locks, which are terrific. Freda raises the sheep herself and shears them and then dyes the wool, she is a very knowledgeable lady!                                          

  One day old Wensleydale Lamb. 
                                                                  
In October in addition to our felt in, we are having an all day workshop called "Basic and Beyond" we hope a lot of people will come to this, as it is just what it says. It is basic felt making using different types of wool which shrink and felt in different ways, and then taking it that step forward, learning new techniques. Most of the committee has taken a similar workshop at the beginning of their felting and found that it inspired them, also teaching them alternative ways to felt. There will be several tutors so everyone will be in small groups, enabling the tutors to give one to one attention. This workshop will be on 13th October in Hillsborough village centre, applications form will be available at the beginning of August!

                                                                               

The programme will be updated on workshop page and more details of November and December, will follow next month! The weather isnt very good outside but its great weather for felting, so keep felting we look forward to seeing all your creations at the show and tell in September. You can always email us at feltmakersnorth@gmail.com.
Fiona Harvey.

Feltmakers North 2nd AGM

Although we have been going less than two years, the time for our second AGM came round. The Committee of Feltmakers North decided as a thank you to our members, that we would organise a complimentary talk and workshop for when the business had been completed. It was a real treat as the tutor was Elizabeth Bonnar!! This meant that the members who attended were able to learn about the uses of silk in felting, when Elizabeth gave us a very interesting talk. After lunch, the members were able to try out new nuno techniques using a variety of materials.

                                          Elizabeth showing us the different forms of Silk.                                   

                                     Denise and Colette discussing which technique to try!

It was great to see such a variety of colours and techniques, the whole day inspired us all.

One member wrote to me afterwards saying:
What a wonderful follow to our AGM! It is going to be  a hard act to follow. We had the wonderful Elizabeth Bonnar giving us the benefit of her considerable knowledge of silk followed by a workshop on nuno felt. There was no charge for the workshop and a nominal charge for a bag of silk samples and enough merino to make a square silk scarf. Thank you very much to the organisers
Dorothy Dinsmore.

It was great to get this email, and I would like to thank the committee for all their hard work and long hours they put in to make everything run so smoothly and for us to have advanced so far in such a short period of time!!
The details of our forth coming programme were released at the AGM, which include an exciting international felter Charity van der Meer coming for our first residential week end! We are also running a lovely day workshop on the 11th August a light little scarf using a resist, so check out the workshop section for all the details.
Please if you have any comments on our blog leave them in the comment box below!
Fiona Harvey

Successful April for Feltmakers North!

Barbara Finlay and Lesley Blackstock at The Creative Stitch Show.

Feltmakers North really enjoyed having a stand at the Creative Stitch show in Belfast. It was a great opportunity for us to meet new people interested in feltmaking, and by the reaction we got we are going to have some new people attending our felt ins, which is great news! Most days the girls gave demonstrations of making felt, but on Saturday they were too busy talking to people to do any demonstrations such was the response to our stand.

On the same Saturday as the show we had our April Felt in with Dorothy Dinsmore showing us how to make bumps in our felt! This was great fun and we used marbles or small glass pebbles to create our designs.

Dorothy brought lots of examples to inspire us all with, it was great to see the finished technique before we started.

Tatjana laying out her fibres.

The felt in seemed to fly in, as it always does when you are enjoying yourself, one of our members is also a spinner and weaver so she gave us an impromtu demonstarion of hand carding, which was very interesting. (see below)

By the end of the session we all had completed our bumps and we went home with our felt in hand, we kept the marbles or pebbles in place until the felt had dried.

The finished sample from a very interesting and fun felt in!!

In my next post I will be able to tell you full details of our up and coming workshops for the remainder of the year and I hope you will agree there will be something for everybody, so keep checking the blog or even better subscribe and the  you wont miss any of our news.

Have fun with your felting!!

Fiona Harvey.

Wonderful Workshop!

 The twelve lucky members of Feltmakers North that got their names pulled out of the hat for Elizabeth Bonnar Nuno workshop, had the most fantastic day! Before I tell you all about the workshop, I would like to thank Liz Nicholls Dorothy Dinsmore and Barbara Finlay, for the help they gave everyone throughout the day.

   Elizabeth started the day by demonstrating laying fibres in different directions so we would learn the direction the fabric would shrink in, we then all set about making our own samples.
                                                                             

                                                    Lesley making her sample.
Feltmakers North had sourced the Wool tops Silk fabric and silk fibre from Nancy at Treetops in Australia, the colours and quality of the wool and silk was tremendous and made for a very colourful and varied workshop! www.treetopscolours.com.au
The website is well worth a visit and if you can resist sending for something you have better will power then me!!

                                          Eating our lunch outside in the warm sunshine!!!!!        
Elizabeth inspired us with her great array of sample pieces and techniques, then we had the hard decision to make as to which technique to try out! Below she is showing how to build up the pattern on the silk using different wool, small pieces of silk fabric, silk ribbon and knitting wool.

   There was a great buzz in the room, everyone was very energised and keen to start.                                                                       

                                                  Ann's beautiful lattice nuno!

                                                                           
I thought this was a very interesting photo, its the same colour combination of wool used with three different colours of silk fabric, one pink, one purple and one blue!

                            Elizabeth Bonnar and six of the happy partiscipants modelling their scarves!

                                           Six more fabulous scarves!
I am including some of the comments from the evaluation sheets so you can hear exactly what the girls thought of the workshop!!

"Wonderful, excellent workshop, learned so much about the nuno technique!"

"Loved every minute!"

"Fabulous course, very enjoyable day, well organised, plenty of samples and help given"

  " Please Please bring Elizabeth back"

"Teaching was outstanding, learning was in depth, wonderful workshop"

So for those of you who are members we are bringing Elizabeth back for the AGM when we will have a very short AGM then Elizabeth is giving a talk on silk and in the afternoon we have a surprise lined up, more details to follow soon. This day will be free for members so pencil the date in your diaries  19th May!! Later in the week I will put more photos up in the gallery but now I am away out to enjoy the sun while its here!!  
                           
 **** Feltmakers North will be at the Creative Stitch Show in the Kings Hall in April, we hope to see you there so come along and say Hello.****
                                                                                                              

Felting on St Patrick's Day!

Liz really got into the spirit of the day and started our felt in with a great example of a pre felt, in the shape of a Shamrock! The enthusiasm was terrific, with everyone producing a variety of prefelts to experiment with.

                                            Fibres being laid out for a prefelt.

Liz showed us examples of prefelts and variety of ways they could be used, even weaving them together. We were all very inspired and kept our heads down working to create our own pieces using this technique.

                         Therese dressed in green for St Patricks day, cutting out pattern.   

                                           Prefelts have been cut up and added to final piece.

                                                      Some of the finished designs.

  
The range of colours used was diverse, and above is an example of the weaving technique!
                                                                               

Prefelts made using the wool from Tree Tops colour harmonies! www.treetopscolours.com.au

If you have never visited this web site or purchased wool from them, you dont know what you are missing! We are lucky enough to have ordered a tremendous amount of wool from Tree tops for our workshop next saturday, and the colour combinations are amazing! So watch this space for photos of the nuno wraps we will be making! The lucky partiscipants have been notified that they got a place as we were over subscribed, for the nuno workshop with Elizabeth Bonnar.