Weekend Felting Classes at the Gallery

 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!

Fiber Art Faire at Shake Rag Alley

On June 1 and 2 at Shake Rag Alley, fiber producers and fiber sellers and fiber artists gathered to offer their wares and demonstrate their crafts and arts.  I was in the blacksmith shop, a building that my sons actually helped restore as a part of a log cabin workshop a few years back.  While I demonstrated wet felting and made scarves and covered vases, Alice demonstrated needle felting.  We also offered event attendees an opportunity to try their own hand at wet felting by making a felted flower to put on a pin or make into a hair barette.  I love it most when kids take my little workshops and see how good they are at making something oh so lovely! 

It was a fabulous weekend, because I got to work nearly outdoor on fiber projects while showing the art to other, but mostly because both of my sons were there with their wonderful girlfriends and kept me company and helped me set up and pack it all back to the gallery at the end of the weekend.  Can't wait until next year!

New Felted Scarves

Sometimes the drive to play with materials leads to a new product and this is one of them. I finally made it to Esther's Place, an amazing felt studio in Big Rock, Illinois, where Natasha Leherer teaches classes and workshops in a wide array of felting techniques and sells some amazing products. She has yarns for local producers, from bison to alpaca, and one of her most fabulous products is roving from her own sheep that she herself hand dyes. The colors are just beautiful. I purchased a palette of colors to use in my felted landscapes and florals, and then got the itch to make something right away. I had watched her teach a class on nuno felting where thin layers of fleece pulled from the roving are laid down onto silk chiffon scarves, but having no scarves at hand, I tried making a scarf from just the fleece, with my own floral designs. What you see here is from my first batch, made on the bathroom countertop at the lake house.