So far there are flags coming from three continents and with each pledge of a flag my daughter’s grin gets ever wider. To know that the bunting now has more chance of being finished on time and each time we use it we’ll remember friends across the world is an amazing thought.

Heather has jumped in feet first with a promise of two, Kate was quick to offer loans of bunting, Reduce Footprints has really helped to get the message out, Mary Anne gave me an idea for quick sparkles (spray paint and glitter), Florcita is very busy but is determined to help if she can , Tiffane has promised two and Trudis a dutch feltmaker living in Spain has offered to make one.

Trudis is so quick she’s already made her flag and blogged about it too but she’s not the only one who’s been busy. Lucie promised one, has made four which are already making their way to me and has sent me a photo. Here they are.

Aren’t they great! I never realised so many different people were reading my blog and it’s taken me to visit some really lovely blogs too, a benefit of this project that I hadn’t foreseen. I’ll keep updating you as new flags arrive or are promised and I’ll show you my pathetic attempt at crocheting a flag. It’s really not going well.

There are lots of places to buy bunting and she’d be delighted with it but oh no, I have to decide that I will make the bunting and that if I’m doing it there’ll have to be lots of it. So I’ve worked out that I need a minimum of 60 flags to make the bunting. Easy you might think and it would be if I got out my sewing machine, but of course, I haven’t. I am a feltmaker so obviously I’ve chosen to make them from hand rolled felt. Again, it wouldn’t be so bad if I made large pieces and cut them up, I’d have the requisite sixty quite quickly.

No, in my wisdom I’ve decided that each flag must be different (like who’s looking that closely?) and they will be in colour only, no neutrals (even harder for myself). Did I stop there? No, I went on to decide that as they’d be used at night I’d like some sparkle on each one to reflect all these flickering candles I’ve yet to make holders for. Why do I do it? I have realised that if I put the sparkle in during felting then I won’t be sat there sewing on sequins later which would be another task on the list. I’ve used sparkly yarns, sparkly fabrics and angelina fibres where I can.

As soon as I had the idea I began to make a flag whenever I had a few minutes to spare and I now have twenty flags. It felt good to reach the one third stage but now, I’m still busy with other things and the two thirds yet to do seem to be looming larger every day. Here’s the ones I’ve done already.

Not brillinat photos but the light’s not good today, there’s a very brisk breeze and the cats kept helping so it’s the best I can mange for now.

I’m beginning to crack, maybe I should include knitting and crochet in the production methods as I could use some sparkly yarns and they would still be wool. So okay I’ve cracked, knitting and crochet are included and that will increase my potential working hours as I could crochet whilst watching TV in an evening. The bunting doesn’t have to be ready until early October but the school holidays are rapidly approaching and I have a show coming up next month for which I need to do work, so time may be in shorter supply than I’d like. Plus of course we will go away on holiday and if I try to take my feltmaking kit with me I’m sure words will be had. Reckon I can sneak in some crochet though

If any of you lovely people would like to: donate oddments of sparkly yarns; knit or crochet a flag or make a felt flag for inclusion then I would be absolutely chuffed and delighted to accept it. Not because it’s less for me to do but because I love the idea of including flags from different people and I’ll be reminded of those people each time the bunting is used. In return, you’ll go on a roll of honour on my blog and I promise faithfully to contribute to a project of yours whenever the madness seizes you and you’re sat with your head in your hands saying Why do I do it?

I know of course why I do it – I’m a besotted Mum and despite the extra work I think it’ll be fun. If you’d like to jon in and I hope some of you do, the flag should be approximately 8″ (20cm) wide at the top and 8″ from the top to the tip of the point. Any suggestions on other ways of including sparkle are also welcome.

I thought it was also an opportunity to try out a new design idea for a neck warmer or short scarf. I carded together yellow, blue and green fibres which I laid out over white silk chiffon. Between the silk chiffon and the fibres I trapped a number of flowers. The flowers are the recycling element which I know Kate will apprecate as they came from an old net curtain. I spent hours one weekend (to bewildered looks from Hubby) cutting out all the flowers before I threw the remainder away as it was damaged.

The scarf is floral on one side and coloured on the other. I was hoping Kate would be pleased with her pressie but I needn’t have worried for she seemed delighted when I handed it over.

I’m now left wondering whether to make more in this style. The floral theme with the recycling element appeals to me but I’m not sure if it would be everyones cup of tea. Thoughts?

As you may have guessed, the theme is World Cup. There was no way we could have avoided that theme this year. Each of the children involved from Greatwood Primary made a piece of pre-felt to their own design and then we put them all together to make one hanging.

The theme here is Global Awareness. Children at Parish Church school were invited to submit designs then we looked at which elements appeared time and time again and composed a hanging from those elements. Lots of teamwork to achieve this in a short space of time.

I think the children from all schools have done fantastic work and once I have them back for the Art in the Pen exhibition I’ll show you all six together.

June has been an incredibly busy month with two weeks of it seeing me teach every day. It was such a boon to have good weather so that I could dry the equipment each night before repacking it. I don’t know how I’d have managed otherwise. It’s taken me a whole day just to tidy things away so that I could do some felting. The piece below was started at the weekend and finished yesterday.

After all the schools work there were oddments of colours and damaged fibres so I carded them together to make this hanging. The colour theme for this year’s Felt United is yellow, green, blue and I thought I could kill two birds with one stone. My daughter thinks it looks like sea and the beach and even my husband likes it. I designed it with yellow at the top but it could be hung either way or even used as a table runner. I’m contemplating whether to make more like this in other colours. Not sure if they’ll sell, what do you think?

Hubby has also been very busy in the garden witrh some assistance from yours truly. We now have a brand new trellis fence and bench. They look great and he’s now moved on to repairing the old fence which has meant a lot of digging out of old concrete, sweat and a ittle bad language. My contribution was to hang a piece of felt against the garage wall.

It’s on a north facing wall so we shall see how it ages in comparison to the one hanging on a south facing wall. The top half of the garage is a little bare at the moment so it also gives me something to look at. The weather has broken and we’ve had lots of rain, I wonder if they’ll stretch when the fibres are soaking wet?

Culture is the theme to reflect that they have children from over ten countries in their school. Each child produced a picture and we made the winning entry as the wallhanging. The background has carded fibres and recycled sari silk fibres. Next up is the work by year five and six children from Ings Community Primary School.

You can probably guess the theme – seaside. The artwork was based on work they’d been doing around seaside and a trip to the beach on the previous day. We’ve incorporated pieces of fishing rope and broken glass found on the beach. Haven’t they all done well.

In addition to working with Rutsuko’s techniques I’d challenged myself to work in naturals just because I rarely do so. I had gone armed with, a natural grey and a 100s superfine white Merino and bits of yarn, ramie and spare fabric. The first difference of the day was the availability of silk organza as the fabric for the scarf. I had taken silk chiffon but thought I’d give the fabric from Rutsuko a go. the silk organza has more body than the silk chiffon and is Rutsuko’s fabric of choice.

Step one was to make some pre-felt to cut up and use in the sample scarf. I normally use the width of my hand to pull the fibres from the tops and then lay two layers of fibre, the first horizontal the second vertical. We were advised to lay out two layers of diagonal fibres. No wet and set stage but a small number of rolls increasing in quantity and pressure until we have a pre-felt. Now I don’t make the softest pre-felt (part made felt) in the world but even I was surprised at what Rutsuko considered a pre-felt. We rolled until there was no movement left in the fibres, a stage so late that some people would actually have finished felting at this point!

Then we began to lay out the scarf. All around the edge we put two diagonal layers of fibres then laid on our designs using our pre-felts, yarns etc. We were all very keen to make a flower using Rutsuko’s technique and as usual I had a yarn that I didn’t know the composition of and decided to experiment with it anyway. You perhaps can’t tell from the photo but it was quite hairy which is the main reason I wouldn’t use it again. It only stuck where I used a few fibres to attach it so that tells me it wasn’t pure wool either. I still really like this scarf and it is wearable. I love the natural grey merino which felted quickly.

We rolled and rolled and rolled until there was no movement in the fibres at all and it was even beginning to shrink a little. Then we heated it up and rolled it just in our towels. This fulling (hardening) process made it shrink quite quickly as we continued to add hot water (or dip into hot water) between each set of rolls. Things really got wet at this point, it’s a process that could easily be done on the draining board at home so at least all that water would have somewhere to go. Only after all this was finished was it time to cut the flower and shape the petals. The flower and the leaf lattice at the other end are my favourite parts of this scarf.

When it was time to make a scarf on day two I knew I wanted two flowers, some lattice work and to add more texture but I also decided just to work in white and on silk chiffon this time.

Along the edges I added Ramie fibres and curly kid Mohair. In the centre are some plastic rings wrapped with lambswool yarn and trapped under scrim with a little fancy yarn on top. The lattice is made from strips of fibre but twisted a few times. I wouldn’t normally twist the fibres but you can’t tell from the finished item that I have.

Could I have made this scarf using my usual techniques? – yes. I don’t think I learnt a huge amount on adding effects and finishes to my scarves but the techniques used to achieve them were new and interesting. I would adopt some of the techniques in some instances and I really enjoyed working with someone from a different culture and with so much experience. Rutsuko shared her knowledge willingly and with a mastery of English that I could never hope to emulate in Japanese. It was also wonderful to give myself entirely to making felt and to focus on design and techniques without, wondering if the washing was ready to hang out yet, having a cat walk on it or being distracted by the fridge. I feel like it’s refocused me on thinking about what I do not just doing.

I really thought my husband would like these scarves as they’re so restrained but he surprised me by saying they were wishy washy. It hasn’t put me off, I still think they’re great.

I hope it’ll make booking easier for those who prefer the convenience of online booking. If you need to pay by cheque instead, that’s fine too.

Before I have chance to recover from this two day intensive training I’ll start work with six primary schools in Skipton to produce wall hangings in felt. I’ve been fortunate to be chosen to work with the Mart Theatre to deliver workshops to local schools. Each school will produce a wallhanging to their own theme (so far we have: culture, sense of place, sense of community, seaside, worldcup) which will be displayed at the Art in the Pen show in August and then at the premises of HML in Skipton. HML is the sponsoring company whithout which this project wouldn’t be happening. I hope to show you some of the children’s work over the next few weeks. It’s an exciting time.