Catherine O'Leary

Great News we have been awarded a very generous grant from The Arts Council for Northern Ireland and we are set to go for a wonderful three day workshop up on the north coast! The cost of the workshop for the three days is £120, incredible value. For the £120 pounds you get three days workshop with lunch included, and some materials ie Felbi (which is prefelt from Australia) this is an expensive material, so its even better to get it included in the price!

Feltmakers North has reserved some rooms at The Bayview Hotel, Portballintrae which successful applicants can book, but this year we are letting the applicants arrange it themselves. We hope that we will all meet up in the evening for dinner as usual!

Application forms will be available from Tuesday 27th August from Ann McCullough so email her amccullough1949@gmail.com places are limited and they will be drawn from a hat on the closing date and successful applicants will be notified asap! We are also looking for helpers to help out over the three days, it can be one person for three days or different people, so if you would like to help contact Ann. Accommodation will be provided for one helper if they are helping over the three days!

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It isTime to Felt!

These are the beautiful Blue Faced Leister Sheep, and in September at our felt in Gail Cooke will be using their wonderful wool, in all three of its natural shades. Do not worry if you do not have any Gail will have some for you to purchase! (These are very gentle sheep, when I was a child living on a farm we had a beautiful BFL called Barbara, who nearly always had triplets every year!)

For those of you attending our September Felt in, we would like everyone to bring with them a useful tip for felting! It can be something like bring a bar of olive soap and some grated soap to a workshop, or something completely different. It should be interesting and hopefully useful to hear everyone's ideas! If you are unable to attend the felt in you can always email you tip to us and we will read it out!
                                                                                

Here is a small sample of some of the wool we have ordered for the Nuno felting workshop in September. This wool has come from Treetops in Australia, which specialises in fabulous colours, in silk, wool fibres and silk fibres. The workshop is Saturday 28th September and starts at 10 am and runs to 5pm in Hillsborough Village Centre, applications are available from Ann email amccullough1949@gmail.com places are limited and names will be pulled out of a hat!

We hope to have some good news this week about our residential workshop with Catherine OLeary in November, so keep an eye out for when the application forms will be available again places are limited. Again contact Ann.

The committee is looking forward to seeing everyone in September for the felt in, so we hope you can make it!
Fiona Harvey

Two day summer workshop

Nicola Brown of Clasheen was out tutor for two days at the beginning of August, the topic was a complex bag! Nicola was most generous with her time and knowledge, we all learnt a tremendous amount!
                                                                          

We had a choice of styles of bags, Denise decided to make a bag for an I pad with an internal pocket for an I phone, here is Nicola discussing the size of the internal pocket!

                                                                      

                                                  
Dorothy taking care at laying her fibres, we were using cap merino which is a type of merino a lot of us hadn't used in a bag before!

 Nicola is demonstrating how to place the wool at the edges so they stay fine and are not bulky!

Above two of the bags after they have added their decoration to one side!

Bronwen and her bag with pattern laid out!

Dianne on her first workshop with Feltmakers North! She is preparing her spikes to add to her I pad case!

Jayne still smiling even though she is at the rubbing stage, which went on a long time! However the end results were well worth it!

Nicola is showing us how to attach the spikes to the I pad bag!

 Denise's colourful I pad case with flap to keep it closed.

 Bronwen's bag with her integral handle, has worked really well!

The spike are now attached to Dianne's fabulous I pad case! I think we all stretched ourselves at  this workshop under the careful guidance of Nicola.

Some of the bags at the end of the workshop, not quite finished but well on their way!

The happy but tired felters at the end of the workshop. It was a fantastic two days of fun learning, and great spending time with like minded people. Nicola was a great tutor, who made sure she circulated around the room, trying to help everyone as soon as they needed help! I would also like to thank Liz Nicholls who was Nicola's helper and did a great job. Not forgetting the ever helpful staff of Hillsborough Village Centre, I must say we are so lucky that we have the use of their venue, the staff and facilities are brilliant!

I hope that the girls will bring their finished bags to the September felt in, so we can, see them in all their glory, so watch out for more photos!

Keep checking the blog, we hope to have details of Catherine O Leary residential workshop in a week or so, again this will be a draw for places, but we will be looking for people to help. So if you don't get on the workshop, there is a possibility that you could get selected for a post as helper! The forms are now available for the nuno workshop on 28th September so email Ann, details on workshop section of Blog!

Enjoy the summer and I look forward to seeing you all in September. Fiona Harvey

Heat Wave!

                                                                            

The Sheep that live near me have had all the wool shorn off and look a lot cooler temperature wise that these poor chaps! Although these boys are very cool! I just found this photo and thought I had to include it in the blog!

So the 12 lucky people who have been drawn out of the hat for Nicola's workshop have been notified and we have a reserve list! There will be a post after the workshop, so you can see all the lovely work!

Keep an eye on the workshop section as we have some very exciting workshops and felt ins coming up, and its a good idea to get them in the diary!

I hope you are all enjoying this lovely weather!

Fiona

June felt in!

This morning was another very creative and busy morning at Feltmakers North! We were experimenting with adding materials to our felt to see what felted in and what didnt!
 It was good to see some new people who had discovered us at The Creative Stitch Show, in Belfast.
                                                                          

These are samples that I had made which I showed everyone, to give them an idea as to what we were about to do. In these samples I have used synthetic organza, net, several knitting yarns with a variety of types of wool in them, also some ribbons, sari silk and string.

It was very interesting seeing all the different combinations.

Here are some of the finished samples.

At the end of the session we discussed what we had used and how it had felted, I think we all agreed it had been very interesting and some of the textures created were fabulous!

(sorry about this sideways photo dont know how that happened!)

 

This was our last felt in before the summer, so our next felt in will be in September, keep an eye on the blog, so you dont miss anything. If you are a member dont forget if you would like to take advantage of the great summer 2 day workshop with Nicola Brown of Clasheen, you need to get your application in before 30th June. All applications have to be in by 30th June with a cheque, none will be considered unless this is done. Then on the 30th June a draw will take place, as places are limited, then the lucky members will be notified!

I would like to wish you all a happy felting summer, with good weather and fun, take care and hopefully see you  some of you in August and the rest in September.

Fiona Harvey

Third AGM!

We got through the business of the AGM as quickly as possible and moved on to the show and tell! Here is Elaine modelling her hat and dress to match!

The show and tell is a great source of inspiration!

Beautiful contemporary vessel by Marguerita!

Kathrina Hughes from Feltmakers Ireland was our tutor for the day! We had such fun and learnt such a lot, we used cap merino which for some of us was a new experience! Above is Kathrina with a selection of her jewellery.

Very useful tools for punching holes in felt!

Deirdre and Jane happily felting away!

Barbara trying out the hole punch!

Nearly finished and looking good!

Hole punch worked well in this piece.

Great fun was had by all, and it was a good turn out for the AGM. Next felt in is 15th June and I (fiona harvey) will be taking it and we will be adding bits and pieces to felt to see what will felt in, an experimental fun morning, hopefuly ending up with a panel for a bag! Please keep checking out the blog over the summer to see what is going on, we have had 18000 hits so we are delighted so many of you keep checking the blog.

Hope to see you soon Fiona.

Exhibition Photos!

I am including some of the very complimentary comments left in the book at The Island Centre, which visitors to the exhibition wrote!

Really enjoyed the exhibition, some fantastic pieces!

Wonderful exhibition, great use of colour, very well done to all involved!

                                         

Absolutely mouthwatering!

                                           Absolutely wonderful exhibition, such a variety of work, takes my idea of felt making to a whole new level!

Amazing work I feel inspired to have a go.

Exciting exhibition- I can feel a new interesting project coming on!

Creative and Inspiring exhibition keep up the great work- I'll be checking out the blog.

Such an amazing display of inspiring work. Who knew such things were possible with felt! Will be signing up for some workshops ASAP!!
I would just like to take this opportunity to thank all our members, the exhibition was a great success and we pulled out all the stops, but wait till they see the next exhibition!!!
Fiona Harvey