Vases and Bowls

Needless to say, today's felt making with Caroline Lindsay, was fantastic! We made vases and bowls. I won't go into detail on the method for making them as it would take too long but check here (click on photos to the right) and here for some 'how to'. In making our bowls, we used balloons instead of balls to get the shape. We also used silk hankies to cover the outside of the bowls. I forgot to take photos when we were making the vases until the very end!

We also got a brief demo on making felt beads.

I have needle felted in some of my art work and I have played around with wet felting. However, working the felt roving to get a 3-D piece was very rewarding. I think there is more lurking in my future.

Felting Workshop

The felting workshop with Caroline Lindsay was quite enjoyable and relaxing. Did I say relaxing? The wet felting method was quite the upper body workout. After laying out the wool roving and covering it with silk chiffon, we then rolled it up in bubble wrap. We had to constantly work the felt inside the bubble wrap with our hands. Of course, the felt had to be unrolled and rolled up over and over again. Check out this video clip from Google as it will show you basically what we did. That was the first day.

We took our felted pieces home that night to wash for 30 minutes in the washer and then dry it. I chose to air dry mine as I didn't want it to shrink further.

The second day we started to embellish our piece. Everyone got lots of individual attention and suggestions as to how to finish it. Needless to say, I have yet another workshop piece to finish. However, I will get it done as I quite like this piece.

Thursday, I'm going to make some bowls and vases with Caroline.

Notice how the yellow and hot pink coloured silk overlays changed the colour of the wool roving. The same coloured roving was used for both samples.

Cabot Quilt Guild - Show and Tell

The Cabot Quilt Guild, St. John's, NL, meets the 3rd Tuesday of each month. Here are some of the quilts shown at our last Show and Tell:

Felting

I spent yesterday at a felting workshop with teacher, Caroline Lindsay from the UK. We used a combination of wet felting and nuno techniques to create rich fabrics ideal for hand or machine embroidery. Today, we will be embellishing our pieces with stitching. Here's a sample of her work:

Previous Post

In my previous post about Row Houses, the photo of the green house and the cruise ship in the harbour, is missing from Fire Fox. Please check it out using Internet Explorer.

Row Houses, St. John's

It was a beautiful day here is St. John's so I spent the afternoon taking photos of downtown row houses. The Row House theme is frequently used in my textile art. These colourful wooden houses have their roots in the fishing industry. Whenever the ships returned from sea, each captain would search for his house all along the hills. So that they stood out from each other, every house was painted a different vibrant colour. Today, the tradition is still kept. As you go from street to street in the downtown area, you can see every colour imaginable. Even on a foggy, rainy day, the colours help to brighten things up.

Check my previous posts for references to row houses:
Experimental Piece
Work in Progress and More Buildings
View from the Rooms (photos used for textile piece)
View from the Rooms (textile piece) 

Cruise ship in the harbour.
Taken from the backyard of above green house

Down Under Blogs

One of the things I like to do when I visit another blog is check out the favorite sites listed there. You never know what you will come across. I've selected a few interesting blogs from the land down under for you to visit today. Enjoy!

Linda Stokes ... textile artist
The Quilters' Guild of NSW Inc. - check out the member's blogs
Serendipity and the Art of the Quilt
The Quilting Owl - traditional style quilting
Patchwork Fundamentals
Suzanne Gummow - a journey in Textiles
Crafty Quilting with Pamela
Fairholme Quilters

Design is Everywhere

Design is everywhere around us. I sometimes find it in unexpected places. 

For example, last weekend we were at Digby, Nova Scotia, where the annual Wharf Rat Rally was held. For those of you unfamiliar with this event, this is a rally for bikers. There were thousands of people with all kinds of motorcycles. The main street was shut down to all traffic except bikers and pedestrians. I'm not into motorcycles but I was impressed with the wide range of colours and designs of the various bikes. Big money is spent on customizing them. The imagery painted on some of the bikes was spectacular. I may not use any of the designs from the imagery I saw in my work, but who knows what tidbit from the whole experience might just influence something I do.

Remember, it's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.