Good way to spend a Saturday morning!

We had a lovely Saturday morning making Nuno, with Jayne Burgess. Jayne had brought lots of samples to give us ideas and show us different techniques!

She certainly showed us the diversity of nuno felting, and we all had great fun making our sample pieces! She stressed the importance of making a sample before starting a larger project so you know how it is going to shrink and react!

                                   Jayne's demonstration piece!

There were a great variety of colours and above Deirdre has used some muslin rather than silk!

We had a first at our felt-in Sarah launched her booklet called Fleece to Felt, a guide to using native wools, and her first print was sold out in a matter of minutes, so well done Sarah!!  If you would like a hard copy £5 plus postage and package or a Pdf is available from Sarah email spiderlingcreations@gmail.com

Joanne carding her wool ready for her next project!

During the free felting in the afternoon we had great fun, relaxing and felting whatever we wanted, making the most of having two tables and lots of space.

Keep the sheep photos coming, they are great and I am so pleased I have had a response from far and wide!! So Thank EWE sorry couldn't resist it! 

Keep an eye on the diary dates so you don't miss out as we have lots of exciting plans for the next 12 months!! Enjoy your felting, and see you next month.

Now what do you think of this fabulous photo, can you work out what exotic location this was shot in? I wish I was there with the beautiful blue sea!

Well are you guessing?..........................................................

This photo was taken at Luskentyre, Isle of Harris, which I believe is meant to be gorgeous and the locals have a gorgeous soft accent!  

Fiona Harvey

Fifty Shades Of Felt

The Exhibition looked absolutely fabulous, I was so proud of all our members that exhibited, it was stunning, and there were fifty shades of Felt!!

From Left Ann Mc Cullough (Chairperson) Fiona Harvey (past Chairperson) Simon Community representative and Gail Cooke(past Secretary)

Also in the exhibition were our friendship blankets which we had balloted to raise money for The Simon Community. Feltmakers North raised £500.00 for the Lisburn branch, and we presented the Cheque to their representative on the opening night. The friendship blankets were made up of felt squares, which all the members had produced and we sewn together into a colourful and warm blanket, when finished they looked amazing!

    Some of the work on exhibit and friendship blankets to the right!

 I thought I would share a few of the comments written in the visitors book at the exhibition!
"Wonderful exhibition"

"Some stunning work, fabulous!"

"Most interesting exhibition I've ever been too!"

There is a lot happening from now until Christmas with Feltmakers North, next Saturday we are having our monthly Felt in, when we will be trying out nuno felting! Check out diary dates for the details of all our other events between now and Christmas!

I almost forgot, I will be posting soon lots of fabulous photographs of the exhibition, so keep checking the blog!

I have heard lots of talk of our photographic competition, but I haven't yet received any photos? Send them in as soon as you take them, as you can enter several times, in fact I hope you do!! This competition is open to everyone, so all of you that read our blog from overseas please email in your sheep photos to feltmakersnorth@gmail.com I am feeling optimist and I hope I will get some soon!

Just ending with this wee cutie!

Hope to see lots of you on Saturday, and remember there is free felting in the afternoon!

Fiona Harvey

Jumping for Joy!!

We were all glad to be back to the first felt in of the new season, and Sarah gave us a wonderful talk on Native wools! It was great to hear from a such knowledgeable person as Sarah Jarden. As Sarah has some sheep herself, she also is a spinner and a feltmaker. So she was able to give us practical tips on the felting qualities of the different types of wool!

Sarah had brought with her a variety of fleeces, so we could experiment felting with them!

It was a busy morning with membership renewals and leaving in exhibits for our exhibition, which opens in The Island Arts Centre, Lisburn on Tuesday 29th September at 7pm.

Here Sarah had felted up some of the native wools including Blue Leicester and Shetland.

Shetland Fleece!

Here are some of girls wearing their new Feltmakers North aprons which they were given on renewing their membership!

Don't they look great!

After seeing all Sarah's lovely photos of sheep I had an idea!!......... 

So we are going to run a COMPETITION we would like you to take a photo of a sheep or sheep and email it in to us at Feltmakers North, (feltmakersnorth@gmail.com) even better if you can tell us the breed and the place/country where you took the photo! We would really prefer it if you took the photo yourself and didn't take it from the internet!! There will be a PRIZE of course and its open to everyone. The closing date will not be until April next year so you have plenty of time to get some lovely photos, autumny sheep, snowy sheep, springy sheep or lambs,etc

Needless to say I cant wait for the photos to pour in so please do not disappoint me, they need to be in j.peg formation if possible, because later on we will have a gallery of all the photos and show the winner!!

Keep checking the diary dates so you don't miss out on our exciting programme for the year!

Fiona Harvey

Hello!

 

Katia A line Vest

Hi Everyone, well its that time again to get back into the routine and back to felting!! We have our first Autumn Felt in on Saturday 19th September, when we will be exploring the delights of Native wools with Sarah Jarden! It will be a busy Saturday as we will be renewing our membership and Ann and I will be collecting in your felted treasures for our exhibition! We cant wait to see all the beautiful items!!

For those of you becoming or renewing your membership we have a little surprise for you........ you will have to wait for 19th to see what that is!

The application forms are now available for the Katia Mokeyeva workshop in November this sounds like its going to be an amazing two days!! Places are limited so get your applications in quickly!

We are looking forward to seeing you all on the 19th!

Fiona Harvey

Nancy Ballesteros Workshop

Feltmakers North were lucky enough to have Nancy Ballesteros over for a two day workshop, using her fabulous silk hankies, silk fabric and wool, which Nancy dyes into the most amazing colour ways! 

Sample of silk scarves

Nancy had brought with her a great selection of sample pieces along with a range of silk fabric, and fibres, it was so good to see the vast range of colour schemes, all beautiful.

Sample of silk apron!

It was a great experience learning how to use silk hankies to their full potential!

Dorothy working hard.

Silk hankies have been teased out.

Nancy giving Mary some expert advice.

There was an interesting variation of designs.

 This is a proper photograph of Maria, seemingly the first two I took were not?! Its hard work being a photographer/blogger! Lol!

                                                 Side two.

Here we are after two days of great instruction and brilliant fun! Everyone who took part in the workshop was delighted with what they made and how much they learnt. We all left with plenty of new ideas and enthusiasm to felt more, so hopefully we will have some amazing scarves at our exhibition in September!

Next Saturday Felt in is September 19th at 10.15 am, we look forward to seeing you there. Check out the diary dates as there is news of a new workshop in November, which sounds very exciting!

Thought this was a good photograph of a sheep in the process of being sheared, although the whole sheep can be sheared in less than two minutes by a professional sheep shearer! The Champion sheep shearers are in New Zealand when 720 sheep were sheared by Darin Forde in nine hours! It must be back breaking! 

Enjoy the rest of the summer? Keep felting,we are looking forward to seeing everyones pieces for the exhibition!

Fiona Harvey.

Hats off to Jeanette and Alison!

Wow! Look at the amazing work from our Third residential workshop, on the North coast! Jeanette Sendler and Alison Mountain were fabulous tutors, very generous with their time and knowledge. They gave great demonstrations on techniques, and spent time with each individual!

 They had brought with them a great selection of samples to inspire us, this also allowed us to see what style suited each person best!

As you can see from the photos it was a very relaxed and fun filled week end!

Jeanette and Alison demonstrating! The two days gave ample time to enjoy the learning process without feeling rushed or under pressure!On the second day there was a sewing bee corner where the hats were embellished!

 Everyone enjoyed The Portballintrae Village Hall as it is so light and airy, and of course has the most amazing view of the sea!

To end I am just going to include a few of the comments from the evaluation sheets.
"This workshop will be the  highlight of the year, lovely location and excellent facilities and catering. Feltmakers North workshops are great, so well organised! Thank you."

"This was an inspiring workshop suitable for all abilities and personalities, would highly recommend the teachers and any further Feltmakers North workshops!!"

My thanks to Ann Mc Cullough for the photos!

I hope you all have a lovely summer, keep checking the blog for updates and news of up and coming workshops and felt ins! Also if you would like to buy ballot tickets for our friendship blankets you can contact me on email feltmakersnorth@gmail.com all monies are going to The Simon Community which is a charity that helps the homeless.

Think this photo sums up the school holidays when all the kids are off school! Good times! 

Fiona Harvey 

Summer Felt In

. The morning was related to our exhibition being held in September, at The Island Arts Centre, Lisburn. Raffle tickets were issued to sell for our felted blankets to raise money for the Simon Community!

During the last few months members have contributed squares of felt which they have made, these were then sewn together to form a blanket. The draw for the ballot will be held on the opening night of our exhibition. the blankets are a riot of colour and texture and will be on show at the exhibition!

There was a show and tell when the ladies who took part in our recent Residential hat workshop in Portballintrae, showed their amazing hats!

I think you will agree they all look fantastic (more about workshop to follow)

The ladies had the opportunity to use our carder!

It was a great morning and everyone went away inspired to make great items for our exhibition! Keep an eye on the blog as there will be another post soon about our residential Hat  workshop with Jeannette Sendler! If anyone would like a raffle ticket they can email me tickets are £1 each and all monies go to The Simon Community, which is a very worthwhile cause that supports homeless people in N Ireland!

Keep felting and enjoy the summer. Our next workshop is on 31st July with Nancy Ballestros, which is so exciting! As we will be using all Nancy's lovely wools and silks which she dyes herself, the workshop was sold out straight away, so sorry there are no places left!
Our monthly Felt ins Resume in September so keep checking our workshop page for updates, so you don't miss out!

I couldnt sign off without a sheep photo so her e it is! Hope you all have a colourful and fun summer!
Barbara Finlay and Fiona Harvey.