Summer Retreat in Asheville

My roomie Suzanne and I on our way to Bellagio in Biltmore Village, 2 tired but happy campers.
Awesomely beautiful posies from my Wild Wooly Flowers class!
These sisters were so much fun to have in class!


Love this ring 'n earring set, she did a fantastic job...and they matched her wild wooly flower too!
The gals in my Nuno-felted Scarf Class worked hard and it really paid off, beautiful scarves, each one a work of art!



These Needle-felt Cloaks were well on their way to beautiful wearable artworks, can't wait to see the finished products!




Above: having dinner with Suzanne 'n friends my last evening in Asheville, see ya this fall! (Below:) Taking a little break with Anne Marie of Smoky Mountain Fibers on my way to my fave java spot in the mall.
We had such a good time at Summer Retreat in Asheville! It was so good to see familiar faces from Winter Retreat, and also made some new friends too. I had the privilege of rooming with Suzanne M. again, a fellow felter, always enjoy the little bit of time we get to spend together. As usual, the weekend went by much too fast! I look forward to seeing everyone again at Winter Retreat in January, in the meantime, here's a few photos from our felting fun in Asheville!

Cabarrus Quilters Flower Class

The Cabarrus girls felted up some beautiful flowers!
Visitors to our guild, these fun gals were eager students and fast learners!
This young lady was a natural felter, and made a gorgeous flower!
Happy colors!
Carolyn took great care with her layout, and made a beautiful blue flower...
...as did Rosie!
Barb adding some pizazz to her posie...
Hmmm...what else does it need...
...anything? This will be so pretty on Sharon's awesome wall hanging!
Earlier this summer I had the privilege of sharing my felting skills with my very own quilting guild, the Cabarrus Quilters Guild, and we really had a blast making these Wild Wooly Flowers! Every flower turned out unique and absolutely gorgeous, and the girls learned several felting techniques while keeping me and each other quite entertained! Here's a few pictures from our fun day, the flower photo truly does not do their finished projects justice, I think the sun was a bit bright. But it did allow all the components to dry quickly, so they didn't have to take home too many wet items!

Summer Fun

Projects from some of my classes I'll be teaching at the Summer Fiber Retreat in Asheville July 15-17!

Detail from one of my quilts embellished with needle-felting and wet-felting

I couldn't resist this morning, the gorgeous day beckoned me to come play outside, and so I gathered up some of my felted projects and spirited them away to the back yard to take a few photos. Here's one I shot of some of the projects I'll be teaching at the Summer Fiber Retreat in Asheville July 15-17 at the Biltmore Square Mall, I can't wait to get back to Asheville again! The Winter Retreat was a blast, even with the snow piled in little hills everywhere and having to navigate the ice, we had so much fun and I made and met so many new friends. I know summer will be even better, the mountains in summer are definitely calling me, and Asheville is such an art mecca in itself! I know I'll come back refreshed and inspired by all the creative energy that will be there. If you'd like to join me, you can get more info at www.friendsandfiberworks.com

Last night I took some of my inspiration/obsession and shared with my quilt guild, I hope they enjoyed it as much as they seemed to, I know I did. My son helped me put together a new PowerPoint presentation, so I was able to show so many details from my work that I hadn't been able to before, what freedom! Here is one of the quilts I took embellished with my Wild Wooly Flowers and needle-felted sunset, so many fun things you can do with felting and fibers!

Wild Wooly Workshop with Lake Norman Quilters

What a fun and super-talented group, the gals from the Lake Norman Quilters Guild

These wild women all chose rich spicy colors for their blooms!

Mine's the biggest!

Puttin' on the glitz!

Getting the layout just right

The Lake Norman Quilters Guild invited me to teach my Wild Wooly Flower workshop in conjunction with my Wild Wooly Wearables lecture a couple of weeks back, and the girls truly wowed me with their creative spirit! Not to be outdone, these gals all picked rich spicy colorways for their big juicy flowers, and they truly felted some show-stopping blooms! They learned several techniques, including how to make pre-felt, how to felt dimension in their blossoms, how to create the curling tendrils, and how to make wool beads. I know these very clever ladies will put all their newly found skills to creative use in the months to come, and I hope to see their blooms on display at their wonderful quilt show this weekend! Here's a few pics we took in class, what a fun group and so talented too.

Carolina Fiberfest 2011

Lisa and Angie having fun in the Friends & Fiberworks booth!

Aren't they the cutest? Young alpacas, only a few months old, they were just adorable!

These gals all made big beautiful flowers!

Her first felting experience, turned out awesome!

Getting a great layout is key...this one looks right on!

These gals were a barrel of fun and such a help, too!

As usual, things have been such a whirlwind around here, but I haven't forgotten what a great time we all had at the recent Carolina FiberFest in Raleigh a couple of weeks back! I was so fortunate to get to teach a couple of my felting classes there, the gals in my Wild Wooly Flower class were a real hoot and made some absolutely gorgeous flowers! Here's a few pics from the weekend, forgot my camera for the wool beads class which is a shame, they turned out so pretty too and finished their bracelets right there in the class. We all had a great time, even ran into my friends Lisa and Angie from Friends and Fiberworks in Asheville, NC, they had an awesome booth there! And I made some new fiberlicious friends, too, look forward to seeing folks at the Summer fiber Retreat in Asheville July 15-17 at Biltmore Square Mall and also SAFF this fall. Oh, and I couldn't resist these young alpacas, aren't they adorable? I thought they were getting friendly, but their owner said they were getting ready to fight...maybe this is how alpacas come out instead of shaking hands...?

NC Quilt Symposium, the Wearables!

Once again, the Capital Quilters' Guild in Raleigh hosted a spectacular quilt symposium, and of course one of my favorite parts was the Wearable Art Challenge and Fashion Show. This year was no exception, as Roberta Morgan coordinated a fantastic assortment of wearables by Lyric Kinard, the wearable and accessory entries, and many of Roberta's own spectacular work. I was so blessed to win the top honors in the Accessories category with my "Tangled up in Blue" nuno-felted scarf, this is the perfect size for just a touch of something around your neck or wrapped around your hair as an accent piece. I also entered my "Divine Devore" jacket with hand-felted sea anemone pin. And I had the privilege to even get to model one of Lyric's phenomenal ensembles, the green jacket with circle skirt is hers, shown in the photo with Lyric (in her awesome green shirt!) sharing about her beautiful cutwork skills. Lyric also did a great job narrating/commenting about the show, here are a few pictures a good friend snapped for me, enjoy!