Felting classes are available every Friday evening, from 5 to 6:30 pm or 7 to 8:30 pm and every Saturday morning from 7:00 to 8:30 am or 9 to 10:30 am.
Felting a Vase: We felt around a small glass cylinder vase so that it can be used for fresh flowers or to force branches.
Felting a Scarf: We wet felt a scarf with about an ounce of fleece and warm soapy water. Thse scarfs are warm and durable and can even be given as a gift.
Felted Flowers: We use bits of roving and hot soapy water to wet felt flowers and leaves and tendrils and attach them to pin backs. They can be used as lapel pins, hat pins, to decorate knit mittens or gloves, as holiday ornaments, as gift ties, and anything else you can think of. Each student usually get between 3 and 5 flowers finished.
These classes are $30 each for one person or $20 each if there are two or more participating. The gallery can accomodate about 6 people for a class, so feel free to form a group! If you are the first person to sign up, you get to choose what we make. If more people sign up, your cost drops to the group rate.
Bring a bath towel if you can, and a used plastic bag to take home your damp project.
Join me at Prairie Oak Artisans on Friday evening or Saturday morning and explore the fun of felting!
I can also teach you how to make felted 'paintings' but this class takes 2 sessions and costs twice as much. They can be on the same weekend or on different weekends. I have a collection of photographs of flowers, leaves, trees, and ferns that students choose from as the subject of their 'painting'. During the first session, we wet felt the background mat and any petals or leaves or other pieces that we can. During the second session, we needle felt the picture together, adding yarns and fleece to build up the 'painting'.
I will also teach a group class in the Chicago suburbs, Mineral Point, Reedsburg, the Dells, and anywhere nearby or in between. Find a room at your park district, library, community center, office building, church, recreation center, fitness club, and we can hold a class for up to ten people. In good weather, we can work outdoors, but we should have a back-up location in case of bad weather.
Form a group, find a location, and lets felt together!
Fall Art Tour is an amazing multi-community event in the Driftless Region of southern Wisconsin where artists' studios are open, with the artists often demonstrating their techniques and methods. Since artists up and down the street and across the street are on the tour, visitors to my gallery on that weekend expect me to be working on something more interesting than maybe putting ear wires onto beaded earrings or finishing the ends on knitted scarves or repolishing the silver jewelry. So most years, I demonstrate the process of making my felted landscapes. In 2013, the subjects were a yellow aspen forest, from a photo my son in Tucson, AZ had taken a couple weeks earlier, a pear branch from a photograph I had used as inspiration for a multi-pane block print I had completed the previous week, and a Jack-In-The-Pulpit from photograph I had been using to complete artwork for another larger block print. This is the status of the landscapes at the end of the Fall Art Tour event; they all still need to be detailed and squared up and framed.
