Recently in Classes Category

As I'm sure it has for most of you it has certainly been a busy summer, both professionally and personally. Professionally it was all about the shows and classes. In July and August I had two big shows back to back - the first the Bellevue Arts Council show the last weekend in July at the Bellevue Arts Museum in Seattle, the second the American Crafts Council show at the Festival Pavilion in San Francisco the first weekend in August. The below photo shows me at my booth at the Seattle show.

It is still bitter cold here in Boston. I know what you are thinking it is winter, get over it, but the harsh winter days just keeping coming on, with spring a distant memory. By now, If you are like me, you are bored, Bored, BORED with your winter clothes. The quickest way to change a look is to accessorize. A new warm bright scarf is just what I needed to banish the gray all around me.

I have made many scarves, Nuno and felt, but I wanted to try something a little different. When I am selling my scarves, I am frequently asked, " How do I wear it?" The question always throws me off kilter, I thought it was intuitive, I couldn't have been more wrong. That was my challenge, to come up with a scarf, that didn't need directions.

Here are the things that people found challenging about wearing a scarf; "what do I do with the excess?", How do I keep the ends from trailing on the ground?", How do I tie it around my neck to stay?" All the questions are design problems and I added my own problem, the scarf would have to be, feminine, light and block the wind around my ears and be versatile.

The three scarves in the video are the result of this challenge. They are all 36" - 40" in length, no more dragging on the ground, and no more excess.  They all have a slit near one end of the scarf through which you pull the tails from the other end ,Voila, no more wondering how to tie the scarf. 

I created the scarves by using the resist method and by exploiting the felting process. Each felt scarf is double ruffled, the ruffles were created by placing a resist ( a piece of thin plastic) between the layers of each ruffle. Then, because of  nature of felt is to contract more (shrink) when it is thicker than when it is thinner, I laid out the center of the scarf with three layers of woo roving, but the ruffles are only two layers of wool roving. This is what causes the ruffles, the center line, three layers thick, contracts,  more than the ruffles, the outer edges. I also made each side of the scarf in contrasting colors, making them reversible and because of the sculptural quality of the felt, the ruffles can be made to stand up around my ears, keeping them nice and toasty. I am planning on retailing these fun flirty, felt scarves in my boutique.

Here is one of my favorite fashion quotes that inspires me in my creative process.

"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary"   Cecil Beaton, English Photograph and Fashion Designer 1904-1980
 

I taught a great felting workshop this weekend with two wonderful felting students. We learned a felting technique called "felting over a ball" to make 3-D sculptural wool vessels. On the first day of the workshop we laid out the wool on our Gertie balls, put the ball and the wool in the pantyhose to hold the wool on the ball, and began to wet the wool with warm soapy water.  On the second day , we  continued to agitate the wool by rolling the balls on bubble wrap, then we deflated the Gertie ball removed it from inside the vessel and started to shape wool vessel into a form we liked.  The vessel is rubbed vigorously on a wash board to harden all the edges and stretched into shape as the wool felts.

	Here is what our felting project looks like inside the pantyhose when we start the second day.
The vessel is removed from the pantyhose that held it together. It has begun to felt! Now the wool has enough integrity that we can begin to add hot water and soap to shape and harden up the wool.
	The vessel is rubbed on a washboard to agitate the wool,
pulled,
	and stretched into shape.
and voila!

Beautiful Felted Vessels!  Felting is magic when it happens!

TThis weekend I am teaching an exciting felt making workshop on making 3-D sculptural felt vessels using the "felting over a ball" technique developed by Beth Beede, a very creative Massachusetts felt maker.  There is a good description of the technique at: http://www.spinsterstreadle.com/norwegian_wool_vessel.pdf.  Also Carol Cypher describes the technique in her book" how we felt".  Pat Sparks has another good post on her site at "Experiments with Hat on a Ball".

New year, new felting classes. I teach felting at three different locations and I am forever packing and unpacking my car. I am always in fear of having forgotten something, and inevitably I do. Yesterday I taught at a felt hat class  Bead + Fiber,   to two delightful sisters. Maureen and Martha.  So what did I forget? My glass washboard. I love my glass washboard for making 3-d objects. After you have rolled and "fulled" the wool to a certain point, the washboard makes the "fulling" process go so quickly. Lucky for me, these two women were such good rollers and fullers that the washboard was unnecessary. What! You haven't tried a glass washboard? If you work on 3-d felt, it should be in your tool stash, you can buy one at Columbus washboard company. They are the last washboard manufacturing company in the USA http://www.columbuswashboard.com/ This is Martha laying out her hat and in the background you can see Maureen working on her hat.

3-d felting is one of the more interesting and fun ways to felt.  As I showed you, my children and I recently created slippers using a 3-d method of felting called the resist method.  This method involves cutting out a piece of foam and laying the wool down around the resist.

December 26 at B.Felt Studio was a slipper extravaganza. Ian, Emma, Oliver, Rory, Miranda, Lily and Sandra came to my studio at 12 noon filled with the enthusiasm of the unenlightened. They had no idea what they were in for. I had tried to warn them, but to no avail, they partied all night and thought they could cakewalk through the day. HAH. It was a lot of fun and hard work. The quote of the day, my daughter, Emma says " Mom, I can't believe you do this everyday !' "I'm exhausted". They finished their slippers by 8:30 that night, seven pairs of slippers successfully made and here is the video to prove it. It was the largest slipper class I have ever taught. 

Making nuno felt requires lots of agitation.  Agitation makes the wool fibers pass through the silk  to laminate the wool and the silk together.  Soap and water lubricate the wool so that it can pass through the silk weave.  To agitate the wool fibers, we wrap the wool in bubble wrap and roll it.  After rolling the wool we will peal off the netting that is holding the wool and the silk  together and roll the scarves again.