Silk Scarf-dyeing as Art Therapy

I'm so blessed to be a part of Sawtooth's Art & Wellness program, and I love sharing our silk scarf-dyeing class with patients and their caregivers! This is such a fun and creative class, and there's nothing like making something beautiful that you can wear to boost your spirits. Here are a few of the beautiful scarves we dyed at the cancer center last fall, everyone was thrilled with their creations, and we had a great time!

SAFF 2019

The Southeastern Animal Fiber Festival last year was, as always, amazing! There's nothing like gathering together with hundreds of fellow fiber-lovers to energize and inspire us to new heights of creativity, and SAFF did not disappoint last year. I loved shopping the many vendors with their huge array of richly colored fibers and yarns, I'm always able to stock up on hard-to-find class supplies there. And I hope my classes were inspiring to my students too! They felted some gorgeous things, here are a few pictures of some of my students' work.

 This student wanted a neutral toned scarf she could wear with everything, we were able to dye her pre-felt right in the classroom! She seemed quite happy with the outcome.

 The students learned a variety of techniques including both needle-felting and wet-felting in this creative class. You can see in the scarf above the student enhanced her blue flowers with a bit of amethyst needle-felting, it added a nice depth of color to her piece!

 Love these autumn hues!

 This scarf was full of happy colors!

The pink lotus blossoms in this piece were gorgeous!

 This lovely girl had never felted! I love her choice of white for her flowers, so unique!

 This lady's clever cutting of her blue blossoms really enhanced the stained glass look, it was almost like a Tiffany piece!

I love how this scarf turned out, and the student seemed quite happy too!

Our hand-dyed and nuno-felted windowpane scarf class, stunning results!

Teaching at the ASG National Convention

Teaching at the ASG National Convention in Boston last summer was so exciting! I met some amazing people there, and saw so many beautiful things. One of the highlights for me was entering their fashion show. I entered a 3-piece ensemble: my "Cut-up Kimono Jacket" worn over my "Quick & Easy Ladies' Vest", and paired these with my "Paper Bag Skirt". I had some rave reviews, and had such a good time with the other ladies there! One of my classes was the ladies' vest, the girls did an amazing job using pre-cut kits in a nice variety of colors. They really kept me hopping, and I'm afraid I didn't get many pictures of their beautiful vests, I was so busy. The first day there we did nuno-felting on my hand-dyed silk chiffon scarves, and the students did some spectacular work! I did manage to get a nice group shot, everyone was very pleased with their scarves as they should have been, they were gorgeous. Another fun class was our Marbling on Wool, so much creativity shown! And the Wool Bead Earrings class was fantastic, it was like one giant party. All in all we had a great time - and I was even blessed to be gifted with a ticket to a cruise in Boston by one of my students! It truly was a special weekend - I even managed to fit in a little shopping.

 The fashion show, we had such a great time!

These awesome angels helped me clean up after our Wool Bead Earrings "party", they're wearing their creations!

Our phenomenal Nuno-felted Scarf class, these gals worked hard and made some beautiful scarves!

 Beautiful art pieces created by marbling on wool!

Our cruise ship, here we go!

 Leaving Boston behind in the sunset, what a beautiful, peaceful view.

My awesome roommate Jean, we had such a good time!

VA Bead Society classes

I had the honor of being invited to teach a weekend of fun felting classes for the Bead Society in northern VA in July of 2019, what an incredibly talented group of gals! We had our workshops in a wonderful gallery/arts center in downtown Vienna, a beautiful area just outside of Washington. They had just opened up the classroom area of the gallery that week, it was wonderful! Great lighting, nice roomy space, a kitchen with running water/microwave right off the classroom, and an inspiring display of paintings created by veterans with PTSD on puzzle-piece shaped canvases illustrating their feelings on the surrounding walls. The girls worked hard at nuno-felting gorgeous scarves and wet-felting colorful flowers, they created some beautiful art! I really enjoyed getting to know this fun group that weekend.

 Beautiful nuno-felted scarves, still wet here!

 Colorful art created by veterans dealing with PTSD.

National Fiber Extravaganza 2019

I had such a great time teaching at the 2019 National Fiber Extravaganza! For those who haven't been, that it a national fiber show held in TN featuring everything alpaca: vendors, classes, demo's, and of course, live alpacas! I taught a variety of classes including nuno-felting, wet-felting wool flowers, wet-felted vessels, needle-felt landscape, and felted soap. Here are a few pictures of my students' work, I think everyone learned and had a great time doing it!

I loved this beautiful lily this artist created! Look closely and you can see the rippling silk fibers she added, a nice visual texture.

This clever felter added wool nepps to her flower, so much fun!

 Beautiful autumn hues in this gorgeous posy.

These 2 friends drove for hours to attend the show and created these lovely flowers in warm tones!

 Needle-felt landscapes, so pretty!

Needle-felt vessels drying. It was interesting how 2 of the vessels (the lighter blue one at left and the darker purple/blue at right) were felted by sisters, who chose the same fibers for the outer layers. But the lighter one used white fibers to line her vessel, while the other one used dark fibers to line her piece. They came out totally different, each gorgeous!

 Beautiful alpacas were on hand for photo ops for those interested. Below, sweet Hercules giving me some love! He was so friendly, and loved having his picture taken. I look forward to teaching more fun felting classes at this show in July 2020!