Summer Fiber Retreat 2012

Twice a year I head to the artsy town of Asheville to teach fiber art at a retreat hosted by the Friends & Fiberworks yarn shop at Biltmore Square Mall. I always feel like I'm going on a vacation instead of working, we have such a great time networking with other fiber-lovers! It's getting to be like family as we see lots of folks coming back every year to learn more skills and have fun in the mountains too. There are lots of class choices, knittting, crochet, spinning, weaving, drum-carding, and of course my fave felting! This year I taught classes in nuno-felting, where we start with a hand-dyed silk chiffon scarf and add wool fibers and other goodies to make a one-of-a-kind wearable art scarf; dimensional wet-felted wooly flower brooches; and my needle-felt cloak with a majestic swirling tree needle-felted onto the back of a wool coat, jacket, cape or wrap.

We have our classes in some of the shops that are in between renters, and I am so blessed as to have a room for my classes the entire weekend! This year though, my room happened to be in a former Spencer's shop. Now, I don't know if you're familiar with Spencer's, but they have lots of neat stuff, black lights and such, but not a lot of lighting, and that enhances their look. However, not great for creative uses! So I was able to move my actual classes out into the center of the mall right underneath the skylights, it was wonderful! We had so much space and lots of natural light, and also got to visit with folks walking around the mall, too. One of the neatest things were the trees; they have real small trees growing in the middle of the mall, and at Christmas, they decorate them with lights. So there are electrical outlets near the trees. When we had our needle-felt cloak class, we set up my felting machine near one of these outlets...first time I've ever had a class needle-felting under a tree! All my students made such amazing felted art, and I am so proud of each and every one, I know they're enjoying showing off their treasured work!

And Saturday night worked out to be Girls' Night Out! Here I am at a restaurant across the street from the retreat hangin' out with (l-r) my awesome roomie Suzanne ( who is a fabulous felter and dyer), Lisa the owner of Friends & Fiberworks, Pat who makes beautiful hats, earrings, scarves and you name it she does it, me of course, Kim a creative soul who has a passion for our feathered friends, and Angie who teaches and also raises alpacas. I always look forward to seeing my friends at these gatherings, and to making new ones too.

Felted Jewelry

Thought you might like to see some of the wool geode pins and felted jewelry I have made, I did these for the Sawtooth School of Visual Art shop in Winston-Salem. This is what the wool geode looks like on the inside, you can use the bottom for a pincushion (your pins and needles will love the natural lanolin of the wool!) and use the slice off the top for a pin or to add some color to a purse, hat, or other creation. The flowers are wet-felted as well, as are the wool bead earrings and rings.

Raleigh Classes

Here's some photos from our Wool Geode classes at the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo in Raleigh, my daughter Maxi came with me on Saturday and helped in the booth while I taught, what a great time we had! She modeled my little top hat from my "Fascinator Fun" pattern and dressed the part for the day in a steam-punk style, everyone at the show just loved her look and youthful energy. I had to snap a pic with her just as we got to the convention center, the quilters had decked out the statue of Sir Walter Raleigh in a quilt and garters to celebrate the show, that had to be a first for him!

The Wool Geode classes were so much fun too, it's always hard to photograph their work, as the geodes have to be cut after they dry, usually after the students get home. But one of my students did come back the next day, and as I had brought my cutting utensil, we went ahead and cut hers right there in the booth, it turned out gorgeous! These make great pincushions and the students can use the slice off the top to make a brooch to wear or embellish a hat or purse. All in all it was a fantastic show, made even better because I got to visit with my daughter too. Had to get a pic of the awesome cobb salad she made one night complete with grilled chicken and bacon, fresh avacado, and fresh slices of mango, yum!

Original Sewing & Quilt Expo - Raleigh

What an exciting show the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo in Raleigh turned out to be! I was so blessed, I was able to stay with my daughter Maxi for the duration of the show, and she totally spoiled me with home-cooked healthy meals and lively company every evening...and even a little shopping too. She and her friend Sharon even helped me during the show, with Sharon lending her very talented touches to the booth set-up and helping in the booth the first day, and Maxi helping the last day and with the booth break-down...not the fun part. But they did such a wonderful job, they were willing models for my new "Fascinator Fun" hat, and Sharon even got to be a part in a videotape made by the show staff, lucky girl!

I love to teach, and was thrilled to be invited to teach 3 classes at this show. The first one was a zipper flower brooch class, and I put together kits of all colors of metal-teeth zippers for the students. Did you know you can dye vintage metal-teeth zippers? I used Rit dye to over-dye some of the zippers in my kits, even the metal teeth and zipper pulls dyed! I just dyed them like you would dye any fabric, keeping in mind if you start with one color, that will affect the finished hue. For example, I had a lot of yellow zippers; I over-dyed some of them in a very diluted dye-bath of royal blue, and voila! A beautiful shade of chartreuse. Ditto for some old grungy gold zippers, I over-dyed them in dark brown to get a nice chocolate brown for sunflower centers etc. The girls really did a beautiful job stitching up their zipper flower brooches, each one turned out different and truly a show-stopper!

Flower Class at The Fibre Studio

What a wonderfully cozy class we had making our Wild Wooly Flowers at The Fibre Studio in Charlotte! I always love teaching here, the shop is so inspiring with all the beautiful colors of fibres and yarn, and the classroom set-up is a teacher's dream. Nice high tables we don't have to break our back to felt on, hot water right in the same room, good lighting, and Debbie, the owner, even provided our morning Keurig coffee, yum! Both these talented gals had taken my nuno-felted scarf class, and it was a joy to share the day with them making these gorgeous flowers to wear with their scarf, purse, hat, or just to enhance their home. They really did a phenomenal job felting them as you can see, love the colors they chose, and their layouts were spectacular! I know they'll enjoy their felted flowers for years to come.

Sawtooth Faculty Exhibit

I was thrilled and honored to be invited to teach at the Sawtooth School for Visual Art this summer, I'll be teaching a felting class making a fun little Strappy Shoulder Bag in July. The gallery is also having an exhibit of the teachers' work, and we were asked to bring in up to 3 pieces representing what we'll be teaching. So of course I had to do a couple of new felted items; I knew the attendees would enjoy the Flower Fairy Bed & Quilt, especially the kids. I also nuno-felted a new silk and wool scarf, it came out looking like the solar system...should've named this one "Transit of Venus"! Doesn't it look like it's flying through the universe? And then I felted a flower, should've named that one "Wicked" lol! I do love the colors though, always enjoy happy, bright cheerful colors and of course I love the greens!

New Designs

I've been having a blast felting and designing some new patterns for spring! My Woolfelt source, National Nonwovens, came out with some gorgeous new colors in Woolfelt with a wonderful heathery look, and I couldn't resist creating some fun new hat styles to show them off. First I updated the classic pillbox hat with some contemporary fabrics and embellishments, I love this style and there are so many things you can do with it! I only did 3 in Woolfelt, cotton and batiks, but you could use lots of different fabrics and arrive at so many different looks: dupioni silk, velveteen, linen, almost anything with a little body will work. What gives mine the great shape is a new interfacing I used called "Soft and Stable". It's almost like a thin bonded foam, easy to sew, presses great, and really holds the hat shape beautifully. My sewing time was made even more fun when I ran across the interviews on tape with Jackie Kennedy - you know, she practically invented the pillbox hat! - and I listened to those vintage chats from 50 years ago, taped just after JFK was killed, it was quite enlightening to hear Jackie's take on those years. And then I just had to do one of those little fascinator hat patterns, they are so adorable and look great on everyone! My awesome daughter Maxi was sweet enough to model for me and she was just perfect! We had a ball shooting photos at different scenes, even got a couple of good shots of her and her dog Beta (who just happened to match lol!) Maxi looked so pretty and really showed off the hats nicely, love the look she brought to the picture.