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.                                                                                                                                                                            

February's Frolic with Felt.

Some examples of lattice work Gail Cooke brought along to show us, which were very inspiring! This was a great morning packed with instruction and handy tips, plus terrific fun as Lesley Blacklock will now tell you.
The session was taken By Gail Cooke and she inspired and instructed us on how to create lattice work with felt to make a sample of a scarf. We discovered that natural wool is good to use to learn the technique as dyes can change the  characteristic of the wool making it harder to work with.
                                                                            

 We started by marking a template with a permanent marker on our bubble wrap to aid us laying out the wool design. Our wool tops were then split into three lenghts, two were set  aside and the first lot was then split into three lengths. The wool was teased out to lengthen it and we laid three horizontal lines on the bubble wrap, the second of the three pieces was split into three and laid vertically making sure the squares were equal sizes.

                                                                          
The third piece of wool was split and used to finish the lattice design. Some people laid silk or other colours onto the lay, for added interest. The wool was wetted and a piece of polythene was placed over the lay and it was carefully felted in only one direction to ensure the fibres did not move.
 We waited with eager anticipation to see our end results and were all very pleased and cant wait to make a full length scarf we can wear!!
Thank you Gail it was a very enjoyable morning.
Lesley Blackstock                                                   

 Gail modelling one of her own designs a lovely lattice scarf suitable for summer.

Mary Nugent also wrote another great Saturday was spent with Feltmakers North learning lattice work technique under the professional guidance of Gail who showered us with an abundance of knowledge and patience. I learned several new and handy tips and am delighted with my finished piece. I intend to experiment at home and look forward to showing off my new creations at next months felt in.


The draw will take place soon for the Elizabeth Bonnar Nuno workshop, and the lucky people will be notified. The great thing about these workshops all the materials are supplied all the patiscipants have to bring is their felting kit and a packed lunch. We have another surprise for the lucky felters but that will be revealed at the workshop and I will tell you in the post about the workshop!!
I would love people to send me some photos of their felting which I can add to the gallery, its very inspirational seeing other felters work, so dont be shy and send me a photo to feltmakersnorth@gmail.com
Fiona Harvey
                                                                                                   

The Mad Hatters!

Saturday 4th February Feltmakers North held a hat workshop, the tutors were Gail Cooke and Fiona Harvey (me) Gail had ordered lots of lovely wool tops in a great variety of colours also some silk fibres! We started with a wee cup of coffee to make sure everyone was awake and raring to go.

                                   Gail discussing the variety of hats we had brought with us. 
Everyone selected a pattern, and set to create their hat. The workshop was full so there was plenty of chat, but everyone worked hard to produce their hat reflecting their own style.

                                          There was great concentration and attention to detail.

                                                                                           
Like most times when a crowd of ladies get together there were lots of laughs, especially when Denise first tried on her hat! (below)

The day passed very quickly and Gail and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of being with a group of very creative and keen feltmakers. Everyone went home with a finished hat and the variety of hats was tremendous. I am putting more photos in the gallery for you to look at!

 This is what Cherri Conlon wrote about the day; Have just finished my first hat workshop. it was a great day and coming home with a completed hat was a thrill and a wonderful sense of achievement. Many thanks to Gail and Fiona who obviously had put in a lot of preparation.

                                                The Mad Hatters
Dorothy Dinsmore wrote; thank you both for a great day. I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop, it was very much a hands on day.
Don't forget to check out the gallery for close ups of some of the hats! Looking forward to seeing you at the felt in in February, I know its going to be great fun learning how to make lattice felting!   
Fiona Harvey                     

Flying start to 2012

Our first meeting of the year got off to a flying start, with a tremendous turnout of familar faces and also some new faces, which was great to see. Denise Phipps was kindly taking the felt in and showed us how to make a flower using a polystyrene egg! Unfortunately I was unable to stay for the felt in so here is an overview from Maria, who joined in the fun!

Our intention was to make a flower. previously we had made a flower with a flat piece of felt, on this occasion we used a polystyrene egg along with our basic felting kit, wool tops and silk fibres. The importance of planning for the finished item was brought home to us during the felt in, we had to think which colour for the outside and which colour for the inside of the flower.
We began by laying down the fibre;
Tip; a fine lay is best.
The fibre was laid extending over the ends of the egg, this would create the stems.

We rolled the egg and wetted the wool inside the bubble wrap. then we were off in our individual directions- squeezing and rolling the flower stem between our hands and gently rubbing the fibres over the egg to shrink the wool.
Tip: when rolling the stems, work from the outside inwards to prevent the egg from moving.
An odd hole appeared as we rubbed the egg. our choice was to add some fibres or not and far from a felting disaster, the holes produced some lovely filigree type work in the felt.

                                                   Happy Felters having fun!
After shrinking the wool, we snipped and cut around the middle of our egg- whether in half or two thirds and one third- to give two flowers. As we reflected on the technique we had just used, the possibilities for future work began to flow. we could cut petal shapes, create passion flowers, seed pods, colombian cup fungi-even!! We could embroider, bead, add spikes- soo many ideas, so little time.... the felting devils were unleashed. We're making our plans. Thanks Denise.
Maria Geoghegan-White

That certainly sounds like a very inspiring felt in and tremendous fun!
Gail Cooke and myself are looking forward to taking the hat workshop on the 4th February, Gail has ordered in fabulous colour combinations of wool and looking out the window now I think its the definitely the weather for a hat!!
Fiona Harvey