Woolfest 2009

Woolfest was fantasic, we were blessed with good weather, which was just as well as we were camping. I met lots of lovely people (so nice to meet others who share your obsession with wool), saw lots of beautiful inspiring things and spent a little money as well. Business wise, it's been my best year so far, I think my concentration on branding has paid off as the stall looked a lot more professional than previous years. Here's a few pictures:

There I am wearing my top / dress that I made on Charity Musoma Van der Meer's workshop the week before. It was a two day workshop organised by the IFA, I really enjoyed it and came away all inspired. I wore my top both days at woolfest and although it was very warm I did not feel uncomfortable in it. It is made from silk chiffon and super fine merino wool (one layer). I've just made a similar one for my daughter that I am going to dye purple, and then I'm going to have a go at making myself a skirt.

Right, I must go and do some work now so I can take a break to watch Andy Murray play at Wimbledon, I'll leave you with a few more pictures from Woolfest.

Tweet, Tweet

Here are some little birds I've been making for woolfest, the first two are perched on a dry stone wall of felted soaps. I still have lots to do, not enough hours in the day!

Banksy

I'd really like to go and see this....

Felting Workshops

I forgot to mention, the new set of felting workshops are up on the website (although some of the photo's need updating - will get DH onto it today). Take a look here.

Sorry, no felt today.....

I'm being a bit pants with the blog again, I'm also behind in the reading of blogs as well, I have over 500 unread entries in google reader!! Ever since taking time off from the computer during the half term holidays I've struggled to get back into it. It could be the good weather we're having, we had a cracker of weekend last week so we took an impromptu camping trip with our new family sized tent. It was fantastic to get away and explore somewhere new, the kids loved it. We're hoping to do it more often, surely we're due a hot summer aren't we?

These photos were taken on the Ingleton waterfall walk, so proud that the kids managed a 4.5 mile walk in hot weather with no complaining!

I received some good news last week, I don't know if I'd mentioned it here, but I was a little bit slow getting my Woolfest application in and missed out on a stall. I was gutted as I really like doing this show. Well, someone has pulled out, so I got a call last week to tell me there's a stall going if I want it! I'm really excited, but I'm working like mad to get enough stock ready, only 3 weeks to go!. Also, all the B&B's are booked up, so I'm camping with my Auntie (who doesn't camp), fingers crossed for good weather.

Other non felting news, here's my cat, after surgery to rectify an ingrowing eyelid and remove pre cancerous lumps from both ears! She's making a good recovery, but now looks a little bit like a bear! For those of you with white haired cats, use sun block if you want to avoid expensive vet bills!
I'll be back next week with some pictures of things I'm making for woolfest, I have been doing a lot of dyeing!

City and Guilds Felting Exhibition

Sorry it's taken over a week to post the photographs of the exhibition, I've had a few custom orders :)

So here we go, this is my stuff, sorry about the quality of the photographs, I was rushing to take them before the external verifier arrived. I've also uploaded them small as there are so many (I'll put my work on flickr in a moment).

And here is a snippet of the excellent work produced by the rest of the students....

Can't wait to get going with part 3.

I'm still here.....busy felting

Oh my gosh! I just changed my profile photograph (thought it was about time you see what I look like), and noticed my last post was March the 24th, how could I let a month go past without blogging. In my defense there has been the two week easter holidays, and I never get much done when the kids are about, but they've been back at school for nearly a week now so no more excuses. I have been very productive this week, but still have a lot of projects unfinished. Inspired by these over on the other blog (who was I kidding when I thought I could write two), I have been experimenting with needle felting.


These two now grace our mantle piece, I think they'll make good props at craft fairs so I plan to make some more in spring colours.


This is my latest bit of felting, I'm really pleased with how it's turned out. I'm using the colours as inspiration for my latest range of felt goodies. DH took some photos of me modeling it at lunch time so I can get it listed on etsy. There was actually one of me smiling which doesn't make me cringe so I'm going to make it my avatar, don't look to closely though, as you can clearly see grey hairs, I must go and purchase some hair dye, does henna cover grey?

I'm also busy finishing everything off for my City and Guilds, we're having an exhibition on the 2nd of May. So when I've finished my outfit I'll have a go at modeling that as well, and I'll share the resist for the cape.

Hopefully it won't be another month before I'm back.

Experimenting with nuno felt

We just had our last weekend of the City and Guilds course, which I'm really going to miss. I've learnt lots of new techniques and have been constantly inspired. I'm also going to miss the social aspect, it's so nice to felt amongst others when you are so used to working on your own at home. But, I'm hoping to do part three next year so that's something to look forward to.

Here are my two final pieces, the cape is not finished yet, but I'm really pleased with the shape, it took the whole weekend to get that far, I don't think I've ever felted anything so hard in my life! At one point I looked like something out of dynasty so the shoulders took a lot of work, now it's a perfect fit. The skirt is nuno felted merino (cobweb) and cotton scrim. I love the textures. I've been experimenting with this blend of wool and nuno, I made a small piece to make into a cuff, but it didn't get completed, so last night I chopped it up and made it into these buttons. Now I can't decide whether to make them into brooches, pendants or just keep them as buttons. Your thoughts would be very much appreciated.

A weekend of Culture

I got to see The killers at the weekend up in Newcastle, and as if that wasn't exciting enough, Mike and I were at the very front, right against the barrier, Dave Keuning and Brandon Flowers were about 2 meters away! I could have kicked myself because I told Mike not to bring the camera as we never get decent shots at gigs (hadn't expected to be at the front). They were fantastic, one of the best gigs I've been to in a long while, the support band were good as well, Louis XIV.


The children were staying at their grandparents so we made a weekend of it. We visited the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and saw Yoko Ono's exhibition. Some of her piece I liked but not all, some of it seemed a bit contrived. We also visited the city art gallery and the castle, which was right next to our hotel.



On the way home we stopped off at the Angel of the North, it's the most amazing sculpture that towers above the A1 ( the main road up into the north of England).