Review of 3D workshop – using complex resists taught by Soosie Jobson written by Chris Gray

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REVIEW of Soosie Jobson’s 3D WORKSHOP by Chris Gray.

What a fantastic workshop it was.  Soosie started the workshop with the showing of her wonderful and interesting 3D objects….Cactus, Fish, other creatures…

 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThese made us eager to know all about how to construct our projects that we had mentally prepared. We were so keen to get started.

Soosie showed us the different techniques and templates to be used, giving different shapes and sizes. Sounded daunting, but after a few questions here and there, it came we got it!

Soosie explained clearly and effectively the method we need to use for our projects. I straight away had light bulb moments.

As usual Soosie was very generous with sharing her knowledge and time with all of us, she made herself available at all times, through the weekend of the Retreat.

Many projects were worked on by those who attended the workshop.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI have to say, the sky is the limit in what can be created.

I was very impressed how effective and easy it is to use the techniques to make 3D objects. I am sure that everyone feels the same way.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERASoosie has given me the taste to be creative again. I started my projects for the Exhibition and I do not want to stop, thanks to Soosie.

Thank you Soosie for a great insight in the 3D workshop.

 

Review of Heather Davis’s dyepot workshop by Judi Barkla

REVIEW Heather Davis’s DYEPOT WORKSHOP by Judi Barkla: The day started with an enthusiastic group of women arriving, loaded up with a variety of different fabrics, keen to learn all they could and enjoy a day of communal learning.

The pots were set up and coming to the boil when another group turned up to claim the back verandah area for a children’s event and we were required to move all gas bottles, burners and pots into the internal courtyard area. Ever the optimist, Heather did so with her usual good grace and the day moved along.

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With excellent preparation, samples and comprehensive notes for everyone, Heather shared a variety of design, resist and dying possibilities for all to try, including overdying after retying some pieces. A mixture of strong colours brightened the blustery drizzly day and resulted in a range of different fabrics being transformed into colourful pieces …

Heather’s extensive knowledge and experience enabled her to clearly explain each method, show samples of her work for each technique presented and answer questions as quickly as they were fired at her.

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Heather’s dying skills are matched by her baking skills and we were treated to delicious morning tea treats

Participants left at the end of the day with bundles of damp treasures, some yet to be untied, with comments like …

 

“I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to explore dying using a wide range of techniques to transform various items after being given expert advice and help from Heather.”

“Great day thanks Heather, I was excited to see colours emerge and learn how the different techniques allowed dye to be taken up or not.”

“Thank you Heather you demonstrated the endless design possibilities. It was fun to experiment with the help and expertise of yourself and the other participants.”

“It was a very good introduction to dyepots, I have learned a lot and will go away a lot wiser than when I started. Thanks Heather.”

An enjoyable day thank you Heather.

 

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MACRO|micro getting near the pointy end!

Our registration date is coming to a close: 19th June this Sunday!  This Saturday we will have a mini workshop on writing your Artist Statements – which of course we can work on over the next few weeks. There appears to be some confusion about our exhibition so here’s the main points: It is a […]

To access this you must purchase Feltwest Membership or Membership Renewal.

Needle Felting Workshop

I had the pleasure of teaching/working with 12 lovely ladies today.

We looked at different types & gauges of felting needles available & their uses, along with other tools such as multi needle holders, both mine & the students, including a home-made champagne cork version!

We first tried our needles out on making a simple needled doll/fairy/angel/mermaid.

In the course of the day, once sufficiently fuelled by Tim Tam’s many projects were worked on including successful repairs to Kelly’s beautiful textural rug (Used as backdrop in the photos), Kerry Berttucci added needled details to her previously wet felted dog to bring his little face to life. Some made tiny tightly needled creatures, others inspired by Bonte’s charming  Danish troll made a larger more soft/ loosely  felted creature. Several also experimented with adding needled detail to previously flat wet felted pieces. Between us we used a variety of different sheep wools, alpaca & llama.

Thankyou ladies, I hope you all continue to experiment with needle felting, I feel I have learnt something valuable of each of you.

Sue Espie

Christmas Party 2015

A wonderful time had by all!

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MACRO|micro Big to small or small to big? by Soosie Jobson

Since our announcement of MACRO|micro Explorations in Felt excitement has been building through out Feltwest.  At first the idea of macro and micro seemed a little puzzling or even challenging but it didn’t take long for the light globe moments to begin.  So what does macro and micro mean?  The ancient Greeks used this juxtaposition as […]

To access this you must purchase Feltwest Membership or Membership Renewal.

All Wrapped Up – Encased Objects workshop review

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All wrapped up – Encased objects workshop with Judi Barkla

We sat around in a congenial half-circle, ate biscuits, drank tea, exchanged stories … oh yeah, and we also had the most amazingly creative and productive day encasing objects in felt.

Encasing object in felt is clearly addictive – many of the workshop participants had some experience with this concept – everything from the more predictable rocks, to delicate blown eggs! And yet, we came along for more…

And more we got. Judi brought along an impressive array of samples, from milk bottles, wee pebbles to small boulders, all encased in felt. Some were embellished with intricate stitching, others with nuno-ed fabrics, tussah silk fibres and others yet with layers of delicate beading. The treasure beneath the wool was sometimes revealed through slits and holes in their felt casings.

We were inspired… and pushed the boundaries of what could be encased. We worked on encasing small pieces of pottery (felt casing slit to reveal inner glazes), flat glass beads, mirror disks, ornate buttons and rocks, of course. We experimented with cutting through the wool, lacing/weaving the wool and using resists.

Loose, fluffy balls of wool were gently sprayed with water, massaged and coaxed into tightly wrapped objets d’art, over the course of the day.

We all thought it was one of the most relaxing, contemplative and enjoyable workshops we had ever done. It was a pleasure to be able to sit together in companionable endeavour, as we worked on our small items.

We finished the day, our heads reeling with ideas as to what else we could encase … so don’t stand still for too long or we’ll get you!

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.