Author: Web Team

Prudence Mapstone Review by Sue Espie

Having always admired the beautiful work of Prudence Mapstone, primarily for its texture, colour and “randomness”, I jumped at the chance of attending this workshop. I was buoyed by the description of “previous experience needed” it stated that participants needed only know a couple of basic crochet or knitting stiches – even if they didn’t necessarily know the name of them. That sounded perfect for me! During the week leading up to the workshop I purchased a couple of crochet hooks and googled ‘basic crochet stitches’ I attempted to refresh my memory on what my mother had taught me 40 odd years ago and away I went.  Arriving at the Scout hall, I positioned myself near Christiane Gray (nice lady & I was pretty sure she’d know something about crochet in case I got truly stuck). Thanks and sorry Chris!

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The day was hosted by the amiable Anne from WAFTA, thankyou Anne, and Prudence was generous with her knowledge, and very patient as there were more than a couple of us with little prior crochet experience, so her work really was cut out for her!

By the end of the day we had all produced a couple of worthy and interesting pieces and most of us had purchased some lovely yarn. Now … how to incorporate this random crochet into my felting? The mind boggles.

June Toss n Tell by Judith Shaw

Soosie passed on her well researched information on how to felt to a predetermined size.  Many aspects of how the shrink rate is influenced, covered estimates of  minimum and maximum shrinkage rates with good general advice to “make a sample”  using the same materials which will be used in the final piece.  Satisfactory shrink rates for well finished felt range from a minimum of 1.7 to 2+.

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Toss ‘N Tell began with colourful collars from Virginia Campbell, Karen Woods and Teresa O’Malley. Inspiration from Karen’s creations came at the recent Retreat weekend.  Swirls of silk flowers merged with wool to magic effect. When Virginia needed help to have her collar lay smoothly, she was glad to have the useful hint of making a tuck in the curved edge.

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Alison Gomes fine layout technique inspired the red scarf from  Fily Geschichten who also showed a  reworked and resized piece in Alpaca. Soosie Jobson showed two of the pieces from her forthcoming book “Structural and Complete 3D” these works involved multiple resists and the use of negative space.  Her workshop is in October.

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Vianne Sleypen produced necklets using wool, silk and cotton, each piece unique.   Marie Marshall also made a collar with silk and wool in blue tones and showed her post-retreat pieces of scarves, red toned, lattice style in purple and blues and a large wrap from a selection of silks and colours. Marie brought along welcome visitors Lynn and Margie. Patricia Kendall showed a two piece machine knit she had created in silver grey with frontispiece and a cardigan covered in matching lace. Always good to see creative artists work. Gudrun made an amazing tunic in warm reds, fine wool embellishments on silk. The layout size required four trestle tables for this one piece garment. When Gudrun told us she was thinking of cutting off the excess fabric at the bottom, the comment was unanimous, leave this perfect piece as it is.

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Alison Gomes showed her amazing long scarf made from many pieces of cut silk, butted together and joined with fine wool. Beautiful colours and effects for special occasion wear.  Both Alison and Mary-Ann Dawson used  time at the Retreat to try the resist technique which creates a geometric design by cutting into the top layer of felt, up to the resist, to expose  part of the contrasting colour in a middle layer. Alison used 12 fine layers of wool. She suggests that the top and bottom layers should be equal in thickness.

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Vera spoke about teaching craft from stories and visits to inspiring  places such as Underwater World produced work based on contributions from 2 to 3 year olds . Children enjoyed the water play and throwing involved. The1 by 2 metre wool and silk based artwork featured  colourful sea life . Potentially, toddlers work can aid creativity of the teachers. It was noted that the final felting had been stopped to retain the full effect of the silk  features and the backing of fine black silk enhanced the effect.  Next work using felt, perhaps masks.  Sue Harrington showed her hand woven/knitted and dyed textile purchases from her recent trip to Peru. Beautiful colours showed how skillful they are at their craft.

 

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In showing her sari silk collar of red and orange roses, Teresa passed on the advice that this type of work requires slow felting. Jill Jodrill made an elegant backpack in a mix of blues, lined and with leather trim.   Mary–Ann Dawson  produced a range  of works, experimenting with a variety of pieces. Pebbles of rock from the ground outside the Retreat venue were trapped under muslin on white felt. ‘Cracked Earth’ earth was the title for the white over a core of blue/brown, using a resist to achieve the cracked earth effect.  Her ‘circle of rocks’ was cut into to expose the underlining lumps of  coloured felt.

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Toss n Tell March 2015 by Virginia Campbell

Toss n Tell Meeting 21 March 2015 and Demonstration by Sue Eslick

Before the formal part of our meeting commenced we watched a very informative demonstration by Sue Eslick on “How to Make Classy Cords”
Sue started the demonstration by laying out on bubble wrap 2 layers of wool in crosshatch pattern (ie one layer of wool laid on the diagonal then covered by a second layer of wool laid on the opposite diagonal). She suggested laying a minimum of 2 layers – more layers if you want a thicker cord. She then sprayed it with soapy water (but not too soapy). She laid a very thin length of string the length of the laid out wool, with a little bit of the string protruding on each side of the length of the laid wool . She also placed wooden kebab sticks along the length of the laid out wool. These sticks very slightly overlapped where the sticks joined each other to achieve the length of the laid out wool, and protruded slightly at each end of the laid wool. She then pulled the bubble wrap up to cause the wool to roll over, then gently with her fingers rolled it in one direction (not backwards and forwards – just one direction).

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She cautioned against making the roll too tight initially as it makes it very difficult to remove the wooden sticks, which you need to do after a short time if you want to make a solid cord. She pulled the kebab sticks out where they were protruding from the ends of the roll and then made a small cut in the roll at the point the kebab sticks were overlapping in the middle and removed the middle stick(s). After removing the sticks she kept rolling.
Sue noted that if you lean on the cord while you are rolling it, it will stretch and become longer and thinner. So at this point you need to think how long and then you want it! After it had become very firm from the rolling, Sue put it in a shushi mat and rolled it more. She said this helps it to become felted more quickly. She recommended also rolling on a ribbed rubber mat purchased from Clark Rubber as this too can help speed up the felting process. She suggested that if you notice it is becoming hairy as you roll it, you need to add more soap and water.
When she wanted to join the 2 ends of the cord together Sue first tied together the 2 ends of the thin string protruding from each end of the cord, covered the tie with a small amount of wool, then rubbed and rolled the join until it felted together. She noted that if you want to make a very long cord it is easier to make the cord in sections and then join those sections together (in the way described above), rather than trying to roll one very long tube all at once.

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While kebab sticks can be suitable to assist in making thinner cords, different thicknesses of cord can be achieved by using other objects to roll the cord around initially. It depends on how thick you want the cord to be: knitting needles, foam tubes from Bunnings, hollow tubing from Clark Rubber can all be useful! Different effects can be achieved by commencing laying wool and rolling it around a wide tube and then transferring the cord to a narrower tube. Or you can continue to roll the cord on the wide tube, then remove the tube. The hollow cord can then be cut up to make hollow beads. You can create a cord with a concertina texture by commencing to lay the cord around a thick knitting needle, rolling it, then transferring the wool tube to cover a narrower foam tube and in the process, pushing the wool tube together and letting it dry scrunched up on the narrower tube. Sue showed us a number of different effects which can be achieved in using these different resists. The concertina texture cord idea, for example, makes a very interesting necklace.
We were very delighted to learn these special techniques and tricks which will help us when wanting to create a good looking, well felted cord. Many thanks to Sue for sharing her skills and experiences in this interesting demonstration.

President Sue Harrington opened the meeting with several announcements of exciting forthcoming FeltWest events including the fact that bookings were open to register for our annual Retreat at Muresk 28 May – 31 May 2015. Members were advised that they need to first log onto our website to enable them to get through to the relevant section of the website to register. The early bird price for the full retreat is $340 and includes all lunches, dinners and 2 trestle tables, as well as lots of felting fun and camaraderie.
Sue expressed our grateful thanks to Jennifer Blair and Liz Odd for their generous and continuing work over many years in creating the raffle prize awarded at each Toss n Tell meeting to a lucky winner. She advised that in future there will be 2 raffles drawn in a year – at the AGM in August and at the Christmas lunch in November. You still need to take a raffle ticket when you pay $2 at the beginning of a Toss n Tell meeting but be sure to legibly write your name on the ticket stubb and keep your ticket because these are the tickets from which the super raffles will be drawn at the August and November meetings.

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Sue also again invited all members interested in teaching beginners’ workshops to apply to do so by sending a short summary of their teaching and felting experience to our workshop co ordinator, Sue Eslick.
FeltWest again has a stall at the Craft and Quilt Fair held at the Perth Convention Centre 20 – 24 May 2015. Mary Ann Dawson, Chris Gray and Alison Gomes are co ordinating the stall. A roster for members to work on the stall on morning or afternoon shifts has been drawn up but there are still a number of spare places which need to be filled and we are looking for more volunteers to add to the roster. Please contact Chris, Mary Ann, or Alison if you are able to help. Working on a morning or afternoon shift on the stall entitles the volunteer to free entry to the Fair for the day!
Sue expressed our great appreciation to Antoinette Boyd for her continuing inspiration, hard work, and dedication of time in the creation of our much enjoyed, wonderful magazine, Retrospective.

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Sue Eslick spoke about the forthcoming felted bag workshop which she will be teaching over 1 ½ days on Saturday 4th and the morning of Sunday 5th July 2015 at Craft House. The cost will be $75. She brought along to the meeting a gorgeous moss green (in texture and colour) felted bag to show us an example of what participants will be able to make at the workshop.
Christiane Gray opened our Library this morning and brought along three beautifully decorated felted necklaces she had made. Unfortunately she had to leave to go to work before the Toss n Tell part of the meeting commenced but we did manage to get some photos of them before she left.
Ai Lin showed us a beautiful red felted flower she had made for Remembrance Day and a very fine wool and silk brown and purple wrap. She said she had pulled the silk lap so finely in the course of laying the piece that she had lost the texture of the silk lap but the silk sheen was still very evident and the wrap draped beautifully.

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Liz Odd had also made a finely felted, beautifully draping wrap, laying a fine layer of grey wool on an attractive animal print silk fabric length.
Helen Climas discussed her initial difficulty when making her crescent shaped thin grey and white nuno felted scarf. She had used a waterproof pen to mark out the crescent shape but found after laying out the piece that the colour of the pen’s ink had transferred onto the fabric. This she resolved by pushing the ink to the edges of the piece, with a very pleasing final result.
Jeanette Humphries showed us her fitted and very fashionable bright pink and orange sleeveless silk lap felted dress. She said she achieved the effect by cross hatching wool strips over a pulled silk lap stretched over a resist. She added silk hankies where the silk lap couldn’t be sufficiently stretched far enough and said she was fortunate to find a light slip in bright pink to wear under the dress!
Sara Quail displayed her very attractive orange felted bag with long cord shoulder strap. She said it was made of Corriedale wool of 4 layers decorated with silk ribbon.

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Juliet Hargreaves had made exquisite large dramatic green and teal felted sculptures and grey and white felted sculptures featuring separate contrasting wool layers opening up at the front of the sculptures, attached to each other at the back, and decorated with small felted beads.
In conclusion, Sue Harrington shared with us her felted beach rock from New Zealand. Alison Gomes won the raffle!

Web News

We now have Gift Certificates!

If you would like to gift a Feltwest workshop or membership to a friend purchase a gift certificate, enter your friend’s email address and a little note and the virtual world takes care of the rest!

Great idea for birthdays and Christmas.

Click here for more info.

Toss and Tell February 2015 by Sue Eslick

Sue welcomed everyone to the first Toss and Tell of the year, especially the six new members.

Demonstration
This month’s demonstration was in memory of Judy Calderwood, who sadly passed away in April last year. Judy had previously farmed sheep and was skilled and creative in many crafts, including felting. Judy and some Feltwest friends had put lots of work into preparing a demonstration about the qualities of different types of wool, which Jan kindly presented.

Jan spoke briefly about the history of wool in Australia. Meat sheep were first brought over by the first fleet, wool sheep were brought over later, and most Australian sheep come from Spanish stock.

Jan spoke of the unique properties of wool – it absorbs a lot of moisture and breathes, making it ideal for clothing for outdoor activities, it is warm, fire retardant, it is a renewable resource etc. The properties of wool from different varieties of sheep differ. Merino wool is soft and drapes well making it ideal for clothing. The wool from some other sheep is hard wearing, making it good for carpets, and/or very firm making it good for sculptures.

Under a microscope, scales can be seen on the wool fibre. The fibres become entangled in the felting process, and the scales prevent it from untangling, hence the closer the scales, the easier it is to felt.

Wool can be described by:

Microns – the radius of the fibre. The fines merino can have a micron as low as 11. Whilst coarse wool might have a micron of 28.

Staple length – the length of the individual fibre. Merino staple is usually 7-9cm

Crimp – the distance between the ‘waves’ in the fibre. The closer the crimp the finer the wool

Jan brought along lots of examples of different types of wool, and samples of how it felted.

Thank you to Jan for a very interesting presentation, and to Judy, Jill and others who have helped in the preparation.

Retrospective
All members should have received a copy of the latest Retrospective in January. Thank you very much to Antoinette for producing this for us. It is very much appreciated.
Website
Thanks were also given to Soosie Jobson who has done such a great job on the website, and sends out the monthly enews.

Upcoming events:
7th April – slide show with Marjolein Dallinga (to be confirmed)
7th May – nuno workshop with Alison Gomes
18th May – crochet jewelry workshop with Prudence Mapstone.

Fire at Craft House: – Back in November, there was a small fire outside Craft House. Fortunately it was easily extinguished and no harm was done, however, this alerted us to the need to be better informed about the fire drill should the need arise. We will provide further advice on this, but members should note the notice on the kitchen door with the after-hours number for the City of Stirling to call in case of any urgent building issues.

Felt Magazine: The December issue of the Australian Felt Magazine had a one page article about Feltwest, check it out.

2015 Craft and Quilt Fair 20th – 24th May:
Volunteers are needed to coordinate the Feltwest stall at the Craft and Quilt Fair this year. This involves compiling the roster of volunteers, putting together the Feltwest display at the beginning of the fair, and taking it down at the end of the fair. If 2-3 people volunteer to coordinate it, it’s not very time consuming and lots of fun. No experience needed. Volunteers are also needed to staff the stall for half a day and demonstrate how to make felt (volunteers get free entry to the fair). Contact any Committee member if you think you might be interested.

Craft House Open Day Sunday 3rd May
Craft House holds an open day every second year, for the local community and other interested people to check out the different groups and activities that meet here. Thank you to Judith Shaw, Jill Jodrell and MaryAnn Dawson for volunteering to organise the Feltwest stall at this year’s Open Day. Again, they will be seeking volunteers to look after the stall and demonstrate felt making.

Felting Skills
The Feltwest Committee is planning to develop a ‘framework’ to spell out the range of skills required in making felt. This includes the skills required for basic felt making, and how we can build upon those to gain expertise in different aspects of felting – nuno, sculptural felt, jewelry, pictures, rugs etc. This should help us all in seeking to develop our skills further – whether it’s attending a workshop, on-line training, or seeking advice from more experienced felters.

Arty April in Claremont
As part of Arty April, the Town of Claremont is having a Boutique Design Market on 19th April, 11am – 3pm. Look on the Town of Claremont website for more information.

Toss and Tell
Feltwest members brought along some of the lovely work they have been doing over the summer period:

Dawn showed us two beautiful silk scarves she has made from mixing commercially dyed silk with some hand dyed shibori. She finished the edges using the technique shown to us last year by Lyn Blasgund.

Gudren was wearing a white dress that she embellished with red fabric and felt following Heather’s Reuse, remake, refashion workshop. It looked stunning.

Liz Odd brought along two beautiful silk scarves that she has felted for a friend.

Sue Eslick showed the dress and skirt that she has refashioned at Heather’s workshop. Sue also showed two bags which show some of the skills to be leaned at the Feltwest bag making workshop in July.

Chris showed us the beautiful jacket and dress that she is refashioning following Heather’s workshop. Got to get them finished Chris, they look great!

Katrina is running a pendant making workshop in Mundaring on 15th March. She also has some items in the current exhibition on at the Mundaring Arts Centre. See Feltwest website for more information.

Alison brought along a stunning scarf using paj silk circles felted onto a tissue silk background to show what people will be learning at the nuno workshop in May.

Soosie showed us an amazing piece called Betelguese. We’re not sure what it is, but it’s not a cactus! Soosie is writing a new book to demonstrate the skills used in producing Betelguese and her cacti.

Vianne also attended Heather’s reuse, redesign, remake workshop and showed us her skirt with a bold screen printed design.

Judith has been very busy over the summer and brought along a range of new felt, including a cushion cover and felt flowers. Judith also modelled an apron that she has made from remodeling a men’s shirt. It’s a great design Judith, thank you.
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Sarah is an experienced textile artist but new to felting. She has been doing the Fiona Duthie on-line felting course and has made a set of beautifully felted samples showing the use of resists, trapped objects, needle felting, shading wool, craters etc.

Linda showed a beautifully felted sample that she has just made in the beginner’s workshop, showing blending of colours and nuno techniques.

Raffle
The raffle basket this month was won by Debbie. Raffle baskets are put together by Liz Odd using donated items. Donations are requested for nice pieces of fabric, wool, sewing notions – things that you would like to receive yourself…. Bring them along next month to the Tuesday or Saturday groups.

REMAKE, REUSE, REFASHION workshop with Heather Davis by Mary Ann Dawson

I wasn’t sure exactly which direction the day was going to take but I had raided my stash of felted ufo’s and collected my old clothes and bought some “new” ones from the op shop, so I was as prepared as I could be for the unexpected.
Heather had everything set up ready for our arrival. Tables ready for sewing machines, and other tables ready for cutting out the stencils for screen printing….yes, screen printing…. and there was a dye pot out the back. Heather offered us so many options for re modeling/cycling our garments.
After Heather went through the concept of re-making and re-cycling garments, our objective became clearer. She showed us examples of garments she had re-created, keeping existing hems, necklines and button features (all those fiddly bits to do) and adding decorative features with free machining or cutting and splicing fabric together. She showed us ideas for printing, stitch embellishment and dying. The options are endless!
Heather came around to each of us to discuss what we could create with what we had brought. Her advice inspired many and the results were both surprising and varied.
It was a busy and exciting day as we were all trying to fit in all the options available to us. Some things were quick to do and completed on the day and some things we had to take home to finish, all in all a very inspiring day.
Heather, as usual, was very prepared and professional and gave of her skills and ideas readily. Thank you Heather for an interesting workshop. I think we have only just seen the tip of the iceberg!

 

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November Toss n Tell by Chris Gray

Last TnT for the year….what a great year it has been, with the effort of devoted Committee members and dedicated club members making Feltwest the club that it is….

At this last TnT New and Regular members were busy making new creative pieces, while others wire busy chatting, catching up and helping with the setting up for our Xmas party.

XmasLunch1.4963 VirginiaCampbell.Wrap.5124 Vianne.Hat2.5000 Vianne.Hat1.5002 It was so good to have once again the diverse culinary delights, everyone excelled in the preparation of Savory and Sweet treats, making it a very successful Xmas party.

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We started lunch at 1.00pm; we all enjoyed the sharing of this amazing feast. Being able to catch up again and chat gave a real buzz to the day.

 

After this lovely lunch, we were all delighted to exchange gifts, which each of us had brought in.

We were so eager to see what surprise was in the beautifully wrapped gifts that we had chosen.

 

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Show and Tell was next on the agenda, most of us showing the work that they had accomplished with pride, while others talked about the gifts that they had chosen.

May I say there is some amazing talent among us.

 

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Next we were addressed by Sue, the President, thanking everyone for attending this last meeting and providing the lovely lunch.

Sue also talked about the Subiaco Fair and the upcoming Felting Frenzy being held at the weekend, wishing everyone a good time.

Sue also reminded everyone of the Fremantle Art Centre Bazaar in December, which is always so successful.

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The meeting being held this Saturday 22nd Nov to plan the  workshops for the year ahead and to discuss the events taking place was mentioned and the members were asked if there was any idea they would like to have incorporated in next year’s workshops.

 

We ended this great day by wishing each other a Safe and Happy Holiday.

 

Until Next Year….Merry Xmas & Happy New Year

Hanky Panky Review by Joan Romick

In this 1 & ½ day workshop, Nancy provided us with a number of techniques and engaging ideas for how to use silk hankies to create a scarf.

 

Friday night, complete with witch’s hat, champagne punch and treats (that we didn’t even have to trick for!), Nancy showed us several different shapes to make from silk hankies:  squares, oblongs, spirals, doughnuts and stripes, as well as several examples of the effects from her own work.  Then we learned how to wet the hankies after you’d formed them, how to sandwich them with wool and then apply the silk georgette.  The rest of the evening we spent deciding what shapes we wanted to use, preparing the hankies, laying out our design, drinking punch and gobbling chocolate.

 

Because we’d set up the night before, all of us got started straight away on Saturday morning.  Throughout the day, Nancy demonstrated proper rolling and fulling steps to achieve the best results for getting the silk hankies to adhere to the fabric and be properly, fully felted.  We stopped to sing an enthusiastic Happy Birthday to Nancy, with a delicious cake provided by Lindy Frayne.

 

Throughout the day, Nancy circled the tables, giving advice and contributing reassurance.  It was fascinating to see so many different designs from a few different techniques.  The last technique Nancy demonstrated was how to use a narrow piece of silk as a ‘thread’ to hem the rough edges of your scarf.  At the end of the day, whether we finished or not, we all learned what an inspiring variety of effects those little flat squares of silk can create.  Thank you, Nancy!Andrea Andreas AntBoyd HalloweenNancy IMG_0139 IMG_0149 IMG_0167 IMG_0168 IMG_0176 IMG_0183 IMG_0195 Jo Pringle JulietHargreaves JulietHargreaves2 JulietHargreaves3 JulietHargreavesNancy Katalin Katalins KatalinVianne LenoreFairfield MarieJacquier NancyEdgeBinding NancyJoanRomick Nancys NatashaChvalova SueDonovan SueHarrington Viannes

Gossamer Felt Workshop Review by Gudren

Vicki, the tutor presented the cobweb felting in a beautiful manner.   Some people had come from the country far and wide to attend – from inland Wheatbelt and as far South as Albany.

Vicki presented lots of samples of her work and different types of cobweb work were shown in varying thicknesses.  Some were whisper thin and quite lacy and could be worn as is,  or they could be used as a pre-felt, placed onto wool that had been laid out to form the lacy design on top of a layer of felt.

There was finely laid lacy felt with embellishments of tussah silk, hankies or fine wool yarn.  In another example, wool was laid more thickly and with deliberate holes which was effective for a different look.

Vicki was a great teacher and provided super support to each and every person.  Her good demonstration of the process meant that all could apply these new techniques to make their own unique piece using colour, different thicknesses and a variety of embellishments like locks, tussah silk or fine wool for effect.

We were all hugely delighted with our finished piece. The day was a big success and a lot of fun. Thank you Vicki.

Alison Marie and Vicki Marie's scarf