New Felting Workshops – Whitsundays Creative Arts Festival 2017

I am very pleased to announce that I am teaching 3 felting workshops at the Whitsundays Creative Arts Festival to be held 29th June to the 7th July 2017.    Rather than week long workshops this festival offers 2 day workshops meaning you can participate in 3 throughout the week, and making it a great way to teach felting.  Felting is very much a building up of techniques after learning to make quality felt.  There are so many directions you can go; fashion, wearable art, vessels, and my fave sculpting, let alone the number of techniques and styles.  I think this is going to be a great opportunity to teach several techniques using some of my favourite obsessions, and set in the beautiful Whitsundays, Queensland.  I can’t wait!  So what am I teaching?

  1.  Reef Dwellers.  Saturday 1 July & Sunday 2 July
    We are going to make gorgeous tropical fish using resists and templates, encompassed layers and differential shrinkage techniques, then we will stitch and bead them.  Full details and to book click here.
  2. The Felted Cactus Garden  Monday 3 July – Tuesday 4 July
    Create your own Cactus whilst learning multi-ribbed resist technique. This method of making resists will change the way you think about 3D felt making, and we’ll learn interesting things about Cacti along the way!  Full details and to book click here.
  3. Trio of Pots Thursday 6th & Friday 7th July
    Working your way through the Trio of Pots you will learn how to manipulate and shape felt into structurally sound and beautiful objects using differential shrinkage rates.  Full details and to book click here.

Full details of the festival, accommodation and the wonderful side trips are click here.

 

 

Review of Structural & Sculptural:Complex 3D Shapes in Felt by Nancy Ballesteros

eBook Structural & Sculptural Complex 3D Shapes in Felt

I am so lucky to be reviewed by Nancy Ballesteros from Treetops Colour Harmonies here’s what she had to say:

Judging by the title, this is not a book for beginner feltmakers. It is however, a great easy E-book for anyone with a little 3-D experience to extend their knowledge and skill base. I love the fact that you can quickly download this book onto your tablet and take it with you anywhere to read and apply the techniques.

The books briefly covers the basic felting skills needed to accomplish more complex 3-D forms ie. layout, prefelting, fulling and resist making. There is a discussion of differential shrinkage rates when wool is layered differently in different areas and for those more technically minded there is also a discussion with Shrinkage Rate Calculations. These basic skills are only covered at the start of the book and then you are continually referred back to this information as you need it.  A clever way to keep information in the following chapters simple and to the point. Your focus is mainly on learning the specific skills needed to execute the relevant 3-D shapes being taught.

A huge variety of resist forms are covered, Soosie eases you into resist making with a simple Evening Purse, then moves into the very interesting creation of a multi-angle resit in the form of a Barrel Cactus.  Tubes/Snakes and Negative Space resits are covered. A complex box is also tackled, quite a difficult task in felt.  Soosie then moves onto stitching construction methods for creating 3-D forms like Echeveria cactus and Peony Roses from prefelts.

There is quite a lot of information to digest in the small E-book and for ease of learning it is packed full of  pictures and diagrams. Felters wanting to take their 3-D repertoire to the next level, this E-book is definitely worth purchasing.

By Nancy Ballesteros
Treetops Colour Harmonies

eBook Structural & Sculptural Complex 3D Shapes in Felt

eBook Structural & Sculptural Complex 3D Shapes in Felt

eBook Structural & Sculptural Complex 3D Shapes in Felt

My new book has finally been published and to celebrate the first 50 customers get How to make Felt for free.  Its been a long path to publication but its worth the wait – 88 pages of 11 Projects plus an extra section on more ideas.  Easy to follow and loads of photos.  Its my biggest book yet.  Value at $10.

Learn how to shape and mould felt into complex 3D forms using a variety of template resist and prefelt methods for wet felting techniques. You only need basic felting skills to start as the multiple felting techniques in 11 sessions and 9 projects, in Structural and Sculptural, will give you the foundation skills to create your own complex shapes in felt. Loads of images and diagrams, and step by step instructions will lead you through the processes.

Purchase here

eBook Structural & Sculptural Complex 3D Shapes in Felt   eBook How to make felt

Barrel Cacti made from felt

felt Cactus

I have had requests for images of the individual Cacti made from felt and a little about each one so here goes!  First up the Barrel Cacti.  I love these slow growing prickly giants.  It took me several attempts to get the ribs right –  each resist becoming more complex and more barrel like.

felt Cactus  felt Cactus felt Cactus felt Cactus

felt Cactus IMG_4279 IMG_4281

felt resist This is the resist for the white spined barrel.

It also made this sculpture I named Nutmeg:

felt sculpture felt sculpture

 

Back to blogging

Its been a while since I have blogged regularly and now feel the need to do so again.  I have got a really busy year ahead, and as I found when studying at Uni, blogging helps me keep things clear in my tangled maze of a brain.  So what have I been doing for the past 2 and a bit years?  Graduated from Uni with a First Class Honours degree in History, travelled the world and became obsessed with making Cacti & Succulents from felt.  Yes from felt.  I became so obsessed I made a whole garden.  My video is below I hope you enjoy and please feel free to share.

 

 

Melbourne Scarf Festival

Coast to coast

Got a Highly Commended Thematic Category in the Scarf Festival in Geelong for my Coast to Coast scarf. Wool on silk using 33 resists.

The theme for the festival was “coastlines” and my scarf was inspired by the Japanese traditional drawings of waves pounding the Japanese coast, I have used the hollow form of felt to produce movement and light stitching and beads for detail, to hint at the subtle strokes of the Japanese work.

The scarf is a tube (resist 1) with 16 resists perpendicular to the tube at each end for the waves.

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IMG_5203  IMG_5199

Bathroom art

I couldn’t decide on what combination I would use so preceded to gather all the necessary accoutrements that I could find. I found some scrap pieces of felt – synthetic and natural, some wadding, wool tops, embroidery thread, an assortment of beads and various pieces of synthetic organza. I finally decided to group them in threes so that each canvas would have three smaller canvases of a similar colour and design.  By using similar techniques and theme on all three sets it would bring it all together.  I decided to use the free machine embroidery sandwich technique, laying down a base piece of a solid colour to enhance the depth of the colours above.  Next you lay down any wool tops, threads, yarns, other pieces of fabric, or any think you can think of to give you colour and or texture.  Then cover all of the layers with a sheer fabric, in this case I’m going to use the synthetic organza.  After some very tricky pinning I will stitch the base design and create texture and colour blending through the layers.  Finally I will beat it to enhance and complement the underlying stitching.

The first set has a base of white wadding, and then a layer of brown and beige wools covered with white organza, stitched with tricolour metallic embroidery thread and beaded with tiny glass beads and shell pieces.  The three embroidery patterns represent sand, shelves, and the bubbles created a at surfs edge.

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The second set has a background of black felt, a layer of fairy organza, then the blue and green of Nancy’s Monsoon wool tops, all covered with a green organza and stitched in a deep blue metallic thread.  As this set will hang in the middle of the three I chose not to bead it and to use the images of living things; fish faces, a giant clam, and a fan coral.

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The third set has a bottom layer of blue felt, covered in a layer of blue wool tops, silk threads and throwers waste, topped off with a pale organza and embroidered with silver metallic thread.  All three of these pieces are stitched with water themes; a swirling whirlpool, raindrops, and flowing water.  Then beaded with glass beads and tiny little fish.

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Finished set.

full

Time for a test drive

I sat at the table in my new sparklingly clean and organised
studio and thought “where the hell is everything?” First of all, I
couldn’t find my design book or even a pencil, then as the ideas began to flow
for my new bathroom project, I had no idea where anything was. Ideas would pop
into my head prompted by the creative side of my brain, but then the practical side
of my brain would say, “where did I put that?” This happened over and
over again. Finally I came to terms with the loss of my wonderful collection of
stuff, I had to be the new minimalist me and only use what I kept. There was no
point in racing downstairs to the garage, rummaging through the boxes marked
for the garage sale looking for that piece of frou-frou that I knew I had. Had
being the operative word. I have to let go of the things that won’t fit into my
new studio, I have to be content in the knowledge that this precious collection
of frou-frou will go to good homes and be cherished as much as they were by me.

So I got down to the job of designing my new bathroom
project, three canvases with three small square canvases on each where the photographs
once sat. This gives me three sets of three, nine in total to do something
with; lots of options to choose, three of the same on each canvas, three of the
same but one of each on each canvas, nine completely different, or nine all the
same. Continuing with the water theme seemed important, some of the ideas I
came up with, fish stars coral, water patterns, sea creatures, shells, and
tropical themes. In the end I chose to do three canvases with three different
patterns and colours but all tied together with the water theme and the
techniques used. One canvas will have water patterns stitched over sand colours
and beaded with shells and glass beads, the next we’ll have water patterns
stitched over ocean colours and beaded with pearls and glass beads, the last
one would have fish silhouettes stitched over metallic colours and beaded with glass
beads.

That is of course as long as I can find my sewing machine!

Getting my house in order

Apparently Larry King is credited with this quote he was
talking about getting his house in order to reduce the confusion, a direct
reference to personal organisation. It dawned on me that that is exactly what I
needed to do, after I started cleaning my studio the cleaning frenzy took over
and before I knew it, I had cleaned out, sorted, organised, and rearranged
every square inch of our house. I sorted out our wardrobes (the salvos did
really well out of that), I cleaned out the kitchen cupboards, I went through
the linen press, the music room got a going over, we read wired the house with
cat five cable, and I reorganised all of our object d’art. Then I set my sights
on the office; the tax records got a going over, I upgraded software, I started
scanning old resources, I took an inventory of everything we own (including
photos), I bought Dragon Dictate (dictation software to help with my RSI
problems), there was nothing left untouched.

Once the turmoil subsided and looked out upon my vastly
improved, and clean house and office I felt I was ready to be creative again.
First project up will be the new artwork throughout the upstairs bathroom. When
we first renovated bathroom are created three pieces which featured photographs
I had taken of various seaweed from around our vast coastline. Unfortunately
the UV has got to them and faded them badly, so I have a plan to stitch my way
out of my block. And of course share my project through my blog.

Creative block or my life as a seesaw

I haven’t written anything in my blog for a couple of months
now as I’ve had a massive creative block.
My creative juices were flowing freely until after we got back from
Europe, I came down with a virus which put everything on hold. Not just my uni
studies, but house work, office work, absolutely everything. My precious
Vauxhall Gardens has even come to a stop but luckily I have created the
majority of the structures and plants needed to complete the project. On top of
this, my son’s childhood friend is returning to live with us in a couple of months’
time. Which means the boys (well not really boys they’re nearly 20) will need
more room than just Tom’s bedroom to hang out and have fun, so I am giving up
my beloved studio for them. But this means I have to move out of my studio into
a room that is only one third of the size say on top of being unwell creatively
blocked I now had the prospect of moving 10 years’ worth of collected fabrics
paint craft items and sundry stuff into a room one third of the size. No wonder
I can’t be creative.

In my writing unit of the first semester, we spoke about
creative block or writers block as they call it, and the ways in which you can
get around or remove it. We discussed many ideas like; exercising, taking a
shower, going out, or cleaning the house. I usually find that my creative
blocks are caused by unfinished business, yet I couldn’t quite put my finger on
what it was that was bothering me. So determined, I plunged into moving my studio
into the smaller room. Creating havoc and mayhem in my house, and uncovering
long lost treasures buried deep within the boxes and draws of the gathered
stuff. Luckily, my gorgeous son was a willing participant in helping his poor
old mum sort through and rationalise the mountain like piles dotted around the
house. A garage sale this weekend should sort most of that out.

It was while I was cleaning up after myself, but I realised
my creative block was at my own doing; I had things that needed completing, I
had procrastinated about many things before we went to Europe, doing the
typical Aussie thing, “she’ll be right mate”. When in reality they
obviously aren’t.