Wool Beads Class at Sawtooth

We had a grand time in our Wool Beads class at Sawtooth last Saturday! I was so honored to have a family spending part of their special weekend in our class, they made some beautiful jewelry too. Also enjoyed Cat as always, she is such a joy and blessing in my class and life. And a new student Jane, a spinner like Cat and Suzanne...who knew? I'm looking forward to sharing techniques on silk scarf dyeing, nuno-felting, and yes fiber dyeing in 2016!The group made some gorgeous pieces, here are a few photos of some of their work.

Cat made these beautiful earrings, I love the variety of colors and sizes she used, and some of them match her scarf she made in our last nuno-felting class!

 3 generations wearing their gorgeous pieces, they really did an incredible job and had fun too!

 I love the combination of fibers with the glass beads that Jane chose, so unique!

 Berkeley did an amazing job felting her beads and was such a fast learner, and a natural model too!

Wet-felting their wool fibers into wool beads, hard to believe they start out the size of golf balls!

Nancy's Fascinator entry

There are only 3 more weeks to get your entry into our 25-Year Anniversary Fascinator Contest! The lucky winner will receive 25 items from our company to celebrate your patronage, including patterns, kits, notions, fibers, all kinds of goodies! All you have to do to enter is send us a photo of a fascinator you have made from one of our fascinator patterns: #175 "Fascinator Fun!", #190 "Downstairs Fascinator", or # 195 "Holiday Fascinator". Each entry will be included in a drawing the first of January, 2016, to receive the grand prize; contest is over at midnight Dec. 31, 2015. Check out Nancy's adorable hat she made from our #175 "Fascinator Fun" pattern! Nancy is so talented, she starts with our woolfelt which she hand-dyes to add even more color and pattern. Then she cuts shapes and adds stitchery using her gorgeous hand-dyed threads, I just love her work. Good luck with the contest Nancy!

I was inspired!

I was so inspired by my felting students, I had to create a new nuno-felted scarf of my own. I had planned to sell it at Sawtooth, but I think I'll hang onto it for a while to inspire my future students, I really love how it turned out! I started with a sort of raspberry/orchid hand-dyed silk scarf, and added the orange flowers and my favorite shade of green leaves and vine. Yellow and orange bamboo fibers and wool neps were used to add texture and dimension to the oversized blossoms, and bamboo and curly fibers enhance the leaves. Theses sun-shiny colors make me happy just to look at them!

Nuno at The Fibre Studio at Yarns to Dye for

We had such a good time nuno-felting scarves at Debbie's studio in Charlotte this past weekend! Several of the girls knew each other, and that always makes for more fun. They were such a sharing group too, helping each other out with tips and suggestions. And their scarves were so gorgeous! Each one was so different, it's just amazing to see how the students' personalities are reflected in their work; some like their designs clean, symmetrical and simple, while for others "more is more". They all turned out just exquisite, here are some pictures of their beautiful work.

 This sweet lady's layout was wonderfully abstract in lots of "shades of gray"!

And here is a close-up, she had a real gift for laying out those curly fibers, love the textures!

 This was a wonderfully clean, symmetrical design, I love the addition of that pop of salmon!

 A beautiful mix of pastels contrasting with the rich textures of bamboo and curly fibers.

 This talented lady has taken several of my classes and has grown so much in her felting experience! I just loved this layout and color palette she chose, absolutely gorgeous.

Some wonderful sculptural effects along the edge after she felted the scarf, and the bamboo added just the right touch to her leaves which she cleverly extended over the edges.

Deck the Halls!

Every year, the Sawtooth School of Visual Art holds its annual Christmas sale, assembling beautiful art from lots of local artists in a variety of mediums: fiber art, scarves, knitted items, pottery, paintings, jewelry, pastels, woodworking, mixed-media, photography, handmade soap, art dolls, the list goes on and on. I brought a few of my fiber art pieces

to sell along with a few fascinators, I didn't take quite as much this year as I cracked a rib and that did slow me down a bit. But I was able to pull together a few things, here are a few pictures of some of my work.

Sawtooth Nuno-felted Scarf Class

After an insanely busy schedule in Houston at the quilt shows vending and teaching, I rewarded myself with a relaxing vacation with my daughter for a few days. Before I knew it I was back home and right back in the swing of things teaching a class at Sawtooth the following weekend! Luckily teaching is one of my favorite things to do...I totally immerse myself in the zone of helping my students enjoy their own personal art experience. In my fiber classes I bring lots of different fibers and embellishments for them to try: bamboo, silk, Angelina, curly fibers, yarns, merino wool, and I dye my own silk scarves for the nuno classes in a variety of colors along with basic black. I like to bring photos for inspiration for design and color combinations, and I share special layout tips and techniques throughout the class. The students love creating their own unique works of art with the supplies and tools I bring, and there is nothing like seeing their success at the end of a busy class when it all comes together. This class at Sawtooth was exceptionally artsy (maybe all that extra art energy floating around in the air there?), and their scarves were just spectacular. Here are a few pictures, the scarves are still wet in most of them but they're just beautiful.

 This delightful lady chose the yummiest colors and textures for her scarf!

 This sweet lady had a design in mind when she arrived, keeping her art clean and modern.

 Like a breath of fresh air, this nature-inspired design was like a spring garden!

 And here is a close-up, so pretty.

 Beautiful rich colors, this scarf was wonderfully artsy!

 This scarf reminded me a bit of Monet's colors and was wonderfully sculptural.

 I loved the textures and colors this student assembled, so pretty!

A beautiful scarf, loved how she extended her leaves over the edge!

Houston Mixed-media Demo

Thursday in Houston brought an afternoon of demo's at the Mixed-media forum. I had a blast showing everyone how to marble and stencil on wool fabric...yes we've used the Tsukineko inks on cottons, but wool? Why not! We also dyed our silk sari ribbon to match, and even some pearl cotton to stitch it all together and embellish it with. Here's a photo of some of the pieces I demo'd, I did use some of them later to make a special gift for my daughter.

Houston Pincushion Classes

I also taught a couple of pincushion classes at Houston Quilt Festival. Friday night was our "Daddy's Necktie Pincushion" class, and we made pincushions out of silk neckties. I took a ton of neckties for them to choose from, there was just enough really, with just a few to spare.The pincushion takes 6 necktie "ends", so they could swap around with each other if they chose. I also took some fun buttons and beads for decorative pins, gotta have some fun with embellishments! Their pincushions really turned out pretty, I know they'll enjoy them for years to come.

Sunday was my last class before heading out to visit my daughter in Texas! It was small and cozy, and  I even knew a couple of my students. They created the prettiest little Crazy Patch Pincushions, so proud of all of them!

Saturday's Nuno-felted Scarf Class, Houston

Yes, Saturday in Houston was Halloween, and there were a lot of folks dressed up and celebrating! That afternoon I taught a class in nuno-felting, one I normally spend 5 hrs. teaching with a lunch break I had to do in 3 hours - and we even dyed our scarves! The only way to do it was to start with a smaller scarf; normally I use 6 ft. long scarves, but for this we used 5 ft. scarves that were not as wide. We all had fun! The students loved the dyeing, and made some spectacular scarves. Here are a few pictures of some of the scarves.

 Beautiful scarves my students dyed, ready to be embellished and felted!

Gorgeous scarves created by my students, love that poppy red on the lime green! And also the gorgeous colors and fibers on the other, so happy and cheerful!

Beautiful festive scarf of many colors, love it!

 Adore this scarf of purples and blues and the embellishments she used.

More finished (but wet) scarves in beautiful rich colors, each one a work of art!

Saturday Sampler in Houston

Saturday at Fesival was a busy day! First I participated in Saturday Sampler, I demo'd how to sew the Spiral Rose on the sewing machine. I'd had lots of long sections of silk neckties from my "Daddy's Necktie Pincushion" class the night before, and made a red

silk necktie rose out of one of them. Then I brought the extra's and offered them to the attendees for 2/$1.00 - a great price for silk! I did the demo with jelly-roll strips, and made about a dozen during our 2-hr. sampler. If you missed it, there's a link on the Home page of my web-site to my Youtube video on how to sew them.

Festival, Day 2: Felted Lattice Scarf Class

The second day of teaching at International Quilt Festival in Houston had me busy as a bee teaching my Felted Lattice Scarf class to a large group of students, many of which had never felted before. But I love teaching felting, truly this is my passion, I love sharing my knowledge and experience and watching them take off down their own personal creative path. Large classes are special, as everyone can learn from each other's individual style. And this class was no exception, we had an awesome mix-up of students, they loved selecting their own "goodies" from my "embellishment buffet" of yarns, Angelina. curly mohair locks, bamboo and silk to go with their hand-dyed wool fibers. Here are a few photos of some of the scarves, so proud of each and every one of them!

 This talented spinner chose a wonderfully sun-shiny color palette of fibers and found the perfect yarns, bamboo and goodies to really step it up!

A wonderful colorway of roses and pinks formed the base of this beautiful piece.

 This happy gal created her work of art with lavenders and blues, stunning colors for her!

 This lovely piece was created as a gift for a very lucky recipient, beautiful!

 Love the teals and greens in this gorgeous work of art, nice long fringes.

 I adore the colors and layout this gal used to make this one for a fall table runner!

 A beautiful airy scarf in colors that matched her jacket (see it on the left?) perfectly!

 Beautiful golden hues in this extra-long scarf, will be perfect for this tall lady!

 Love these colors of greens and blues, and she used the perfect curly fiber accents!

 A lovely scarf in colors of Monet, looks great on this gal!

 This student created an elegant simple scarf in beautiful shades of sky blue.

 The gentleman who created this beautiful piece chose my fave shades of green, love it!

 This lady chose the perfect color palette to go with her hair for this gorgeous piece.

 Loved the eclectic mix of colors and fibers this creative lady used in her work of art!

 This experienced felter created a beautiful Christmas table runner, notice how she took the time to tuck under her fringed edges for a very clean, elegant, symmetrical look.

Loved the fun colors and goodies used by my "teacher's pet"/helper in her scarf. It was amazing she did this in addition to all the help she gave me in passing out all our tools, getting water, and clean-up - what an angel! And a fun, wonderful class too, I thoroughly enjoyed it, as I think they all did.