Soosie Jobson will be demonstrating 3D Resists. Take your vessels and sculptures to a new level. Soosie will have several of her vessels, sculptures and cactus to share. Yes we said Cactus!

We have many books in the library about resist work – come and browse before the demo.

3D Resists

Soosie Jobson

Soosie has been obsessed with felting for decades. Starting as a textile artist Soosie fell in love with felting after seeing a demonstration by one of Feltwest’s life members – Judith Shaw, and has been exploring the many facets of felting since. Her 3D journey started with a desire to make a cactus from felt and ended up with an entire cactus garden!

Feltwest is very pleased to announce an Artist Talk by Elizabeth Marruffo

Needle Felting Artist

Elizabeth is going to tell us all about her graphic novel project using needle felted creatures and characters to create the story.

“I am using needle felting to sculpt all the characters in my retelling of the Wind in the Willows story. I am also using recycled materials and polymer clay for other props. I am sculpting around 30 poseable anthropomorphic figures, arranging scenes and then taking photos of them. I then alter these photos digitally on my ipad using a program called Clip Studio. Finally I arrange the photos in a sequential way to create comic pages and add speech bubbles and text . The final book will be around 250-300 pages and I hope to be finished in around 2 years.”

Elizabeth Marruffo is from the small border town of Agua Prieta in Sonora, Mexico. In her painting practice, Marruffo engages with ideas of self-representation along with themes of collective grief, loss and love. Her paintings appear as dreamlike images where the earthly and the otherworldly co-exist. With an increasing interest in folkloric traditions, she uses the techniques of a traditional painting practice and creates works that have a distinctive and contemporary voice.

In her work with children’s community groups she uses poetic and gentle techniques in ways that encourage a child’s ability to develop their own creativity and sense of self.

Elizabeth currently lives and works in Perth, Western Australia. She is also the director of Milktooth Arts Space, where she develops and runs children art classes and adults art workshops. She is a sessional lecturer in painting at Edith Cowan University, has been a finalist in numerous national painting awards including The Portia Geach Memorial Prize and is represented in various collections.

The wonderful Sharn Bruere will be talking all about slippers. Her workshop last year was a huge success and to tempt you into another one Sharn will showing us all kinds of slipper things. Bookings for her workshop will be open – make sure you jump in early as there was a long waiting list last year. Grab some supplies.

Sharn will have a popup shop with Slipper supplies

• Core wool
• Wool kits to make a full pair of slippers
• Shoe soles
• Resist material
• My e-book (printed) on the magical art of slipper making

About Sharn Bruere

Sharn is a town planner by trade and wool felter at heart. She started her wool felting journey making felted wool baby shoes. She now takes custom orders for ladies slippers through her website Woolly Wombat. She has made hundred of pairs of wool felted slippers using the wet felting technique. Through the making of each pair she has perfected the art, streamlined the process and made all of the mistakes (so you don’t have to!). She has written an e-book on how to make felted wool slippers and knows all the tips and tricks to complete a pair of beautiful and magical slippers.

We are very pleased to have June from Bilby Yarns come and share her wealth of knowledge with us. June will be talking all things carding and blending. June will be showing us how to use the hand carder and blending board from our Library. They are available for borrowing every Toss n Tell and Tuesdays. Come along and see how easy it is to blend colours with these great tools. Stay on afterwards to have a go – bring your felting and take advantage of all of our equipment.

June will have a Pop Up shop with her so bring your credit cards and a shopping bag!

June’s Story

I began my textile journey at 16 years of age, sewing my clothes on a Treadle sewing machine and later working with designers in a fashion agency in Perth.  Years later found me living in Nhulunbuy NT on the Gove Peninsula where I learnt to dye wool and weave fleece rugs through a local tutor [Swedish].   Moving to Karratha in the Pilbara I was fortunate to buy a foot loom and was taught multi shaft weaving by an English master weaver.

Before leaving the Pilbara, I joined the HWSDG WA and shortly after arriving in Perth became their Yarn Room coordinator and newsletter editor. It wasn’t long before I met the members of the Melanian Sheep Breeders Society and in 1994 became their City Wool Depot Rep. My ties to the country are strong through my father who grew up at Piawanning [north of new Norcia].

With an available abundance of fabulous natural coloured wool/fleece & using my superannuation as finance, I accepted the challenge of selecting/collecting/buying WA fleece, organising scouring, carding, combing & processing tops and a range of yarns as chemically free as possible. I travelled to monthly spin-ins throughout the country, attended Geelong Wool Fest and Bothwell Highland Spin In.  Many years ago I bought the Ashford Agency for W.A. from Joy & Albert Rosher.  I then found premises in Myaree to house and sell my ever-growing stash! There was one more premises shift before finding the lovely store in Willagee in which I am currently. We love to welcome visitors on Tuesday Wednesday & Friday 11-3 and the first Saturday each month 11-1.

Our last meeting for 2022 is our annual Christmas Party this Saturday 9:30am

We would love to see you all to celebrate the year we have had and to give you a sneak preview of what’s to come in 2023. We have been canvassing the membership to see what you would like for Feltwest, and we are making some changes to several aspects of how Feltwest will operate.  Come along for a sampler of the exciting things to come in 2023.  Of course we will be detailing all of these innovations via the eNews over the summer months.

Bring along:

• A plate to share
• Some flowers for the table
• Your favourite piece of Christmas felt or just your favourite piece of felt to show
• And your lovely selves!

This Toss n Tell will be a mini exhibition of the unsold works from Marks Over Time.  It will be a chance for you to come see the beautiful pieces and hear direct from the makers, their story and intent.  Please invite your family and friends as this will be an open door day to show our wonderful craft.  The Mini Exhibition will be 10am – 12pm – we would love to see you all.

Toss n Tell will also be the first delivery day for the markets.  Receival will be before 10am or after 12pm.  Links to the full instructions and payment are on the Members Area page under Members in the menu.

Please note the different schedule below.

As soon as we know – we will let you know! Check back later

It’s that time of the year our AGM is around the corner.  As we are being told that a new COVID wave is about to hit us this winter we understand if you are hesitant to attend the AGM, but if this is the case, please complete the proxy vote form so we can form a quorum and hold the meeting. Or we will have to hold it again later in the year.

All details are below and on the website under the Members section and include:

• Previous meeting minutes
• Agenda
• Both online and downloadable forms for nomination and proxies
• Trash & Treasure Table booking

Registration for our Marks Over Time exhibition is now open – please register as soon as possible.  This doesn’t mean your pieces need to be finished now – it is for administrative purposes for TAFE, as is the deadline for your Artists Statements.  Both of these dates are before the AGM – not our choice – so please don’t wait until the AGM to renew your membership and submit for the exhibition.

Even if there is another huge wave of COVID the exhibition will go ahead as we have plans in place to mitigate contact.  The opening night may be sacrificed if necessary. Fingers crossed it won’t.

But on a brighter note we will still be having our annual Trash & Treasure, and importantly a morning tea to honour our Life members and welcome a new Life Member.  We ask that you book your free table for Trash & Treasure, and please ensure that your goods are moth free as we had several complaints from last years event.  If moths are found in your items we would expect that you would refund any money paid to the purchaser and remove the items from the hall immediately.

Make sure your login and are a financial member to book a table.

We are very pleased to have June from Bilby Yarns come and share her wealth of knowledge with us. June will be talking all things carding and blending. June will be showing us how to use hand carders and a blending board, along with talking about drum carders their use and importantly maintenance.

June will also have a Pop Up shop with her so bring your credit cards and a shopping bag!

June’s Story

I began my textile journey at 16 years of age, sewing my clothes on a Treadle sewing machine and later working with designers in a fashion agency in Perth.  Years later found me living in Nhulunbuy NT on the Gove Peninsula where I learnt to dye wool and weave fleece rugs through a local tutor [Swedish].   Moving to Karratha in the Pilbara I was fortunate to buy a foot loom and was taught multi shaft weaving by an English master weaver.

Before leaving the Pilbara, I joined the HWSDG WA and shortly after arriving in Perth became their Yarn Room coordinator and newsletter editor. It wasn’t long before I met the members of the Melanian Sheep Breeders Society and in 1994 became their City Wool Depot Rep. My ties to the country are strong through my father who grew up at Piawanning [north of new Norcia].

With an available abundance of fabulous natural coloured wool/fleece & using my superannuation as finance, I accepted the challenge of selecting/collecting/buying WA fleece, organising scouring, carding, combing & processing tops and a range of yarns as chemically free as possible. I travelled to monthly spin-ins throughout the country, attended Geelong Wool Fest and Bothwell Highland Spin In.  Many years ago I bought the Ashford Agency for W.A. from Joy & Albert Rosher.  I then found premises in Myaree to house and sell my ever-growing stash! There was one more premises shift before finding the lovely store in Willagee in which I am currently. We love to welcome visitors on Tuesday Wednesday & Friday 11-3 and the first Saturday each month 11-1.

Do you have a favourite way to wear a scarf? What influences how we wear a scarf? Why do we wear scarves? Just a few of the questions we will cover plus all things relating to felting scarves. Topics like:

• Shape
• Size
• Shrinkage rates
• Resists for scarves
• Felt layers
• Nuno
• Embellishments

Bring your favourite scarf – Show us your favourite way

Feltwest is very pleased to have Nancy Ballesteros from Treetops Colour Harmonies this month with her very informative 9 Ways to Lay Wool.

Did you know there are 9 different ways to lay-up wool tops for felting?  Come along to the Feltwest demo/activity and learn how and why there are so many methods?  Nancy will demonstrate each method and explain its use.  Would you like to create felt with more stretch? Interested in creating a particular colour pattern with your multi-coloured wool tops? All will be revealed… You are welcome to stay and have-a-go at laying out some of the methods after the demonstration.

Nancy Ballesteros has passionately worked with textiles and colour all her life. She was introduced to spinning, felting and dyeing while at university studying Veterinary science; however, her artistic endeavors quickly took over her life.  In 1987 she hatched a fibre business called Treetops Colour Harmonies where she designs colours which she dyes on wool and silk textiles. She has been creating felt for over 30 years now. Nancy has taught across Australia, Europe and the USA. She was instrumental in developing the technique of Silk ‘Paper’.  She has written about felting in numerous publications and participated in workshops and master classes.

  Any queries, please contact Nancy:

• nancy@treetopscolours.com.au
• Ph 9387 3007
• www.treetopscolours.com.au
• www.facebook.com/treetopscolours.

The scarf is one of the humblest pieces of clothing but it is also one of the longest serving, it has been documented since the Ancient Egyptian times.  The scarf has kept us warm, aided our modesty, and mopped our sweat. But besides these functional aspects it has also marked the wearer in some way. The scarf has indicated rank, position, allegiance, and class. It is used in ceremony, ritual and rites.  The scarf is timeless.

A focal point of our 2022 Exhibition Marks Over Time will be the collaborative work in the Timeless installation.  Timeless is an exhibition within an exhibition with a contribution from every exhibition participant.  It will be an installation of hanging scarves all made in greyscale, black to white, and of a similar size 1500mm x 200mm.  They can made with any felting technique and embellished using any textile technique but the only colours are black through to white and any grey in between.  The scarves will be hung so that viewers can walk through them like a forest.

All proceeds from the sale of the Timeless scarves will be our fund raising event for 2022.

This Toss n Tell is an opportunity to make your scarf together with our Membership in a truly collaborative project. Bring your felting gear and lets do it.