Claire had never made flet before , lovely colours on here, inspired by pebbles.

Simple but very effective felt from Kirsten.

Ang loves driftwood and tree bark.

A lovely landscape from Claire.

A wonderful textured tree bark from Ang, can’t wait to see what she creates at home
so remember to send me a pic Ang.

A painstakingly created hellebore from Pippa. the colours are wonderful,
the stamens stand out from the centre and although it’s not quite finished in the picture the
edges of the petals will also curl upwards.

Great landscape  from Kirsten, have you spotted the castle?
Come back soon ladies, I’m ready for another session when you are!

The second group, today, was one of my monthly workshops across at Bradley near Skipton. We’ve had a really good day, not as much laughter as earlier in the week as most had never met before and they were a most studious and prolific group!  To see the progression in one day from complete novice/first time flower maker to creating specific flower shapes and understanding the subtleties of colour in felt making has been amazing.

We had tea/coffee delivered to the tables,absolutely no chance to slack and there was a kind of possessed frenzy after lunch as people succumbed to the felting bug. There’s no hope for them now but at least it’s fun.

The reds, oranges and browns are also quite autumnal so I used a leaf design on the front in nuno felted organza.Th process began by stitching into the fabric before it was laid on the fibres. At the pre-felt stage I stopped and added some extra stitching and then added more once felting was complete.

Extra texture is supplied by hand dyed Teeswater curls in turquoise, yellow and brown. There’s also space dyed roving and some silk fibres on a merino base.  Using organza in nuno felting gives scrummy textures, much bigger than using natural fabrics.

Not sure I’m going to be able to convince myself to sell this one. If you’d like to make your own I’m running a workshop on Saturday 22nd October in which you’ll make an A5 sized cover.It’s one of my favourite workshops and the notebooks make great presents which can be used year after year.

I’d been playing around with the shape and couldn’t decide what to do. Some of you were kind enough to respond with suggestions and Kate suggested putting beach glass in the holes. It’s taken me a while to find the time but here it is.

I decided to put the beach glass on the outside rather than in the holes and I like the finished piece. The brown beach glass looks good and I’m so pleased to have found a use for some of it as I seem incapable of not collecting it.

I was chuffed to find a thread that matched and it does look good on the gravel. Thanks Kate.

I thought whilst I was making one I might as well make two!

The shiny bit in the centre is throwsters silk waste, my favourite silk fibre. All I’ve got to do now is go and finish off everything else that’s waiting – sigh!

I quite liked it this way with the top rolled down but it wasn’t fully felted and was a little too organic for me although now I’m not so sure.

Very plain but I liked the fullness of the shape however, I decided to keep going.

Less plain with this shaping around the neck but I just couldn’t leave it alone!

So this is what I’ve got now. it has some shaping around the neck and is encircled by 8 smaller holes. Still not sure about it. It’s getting smaller all the time and is very nearly at the point of no return but I could just reshape the neck if I wanted. Opinions? Looking at these pictures now I wish I’d gone with the rolled over neck!

When I finished felting all the tails were sticking straight out like spikes and it looked quite ridiculous so I pinned each of the tails down to allow them to dry in more of a curl shape. It seems to have worked too.

You can see all the lustrous yarn felted into the inside but overall I am disappointed. I’m not sure if I need to change the three circular openings and I definitely want to put something shiny inside the pod. All suggestions for this very welcome. But I’m going to leave you with a picture of some fabulous texture.

I took lots of bashed around wool scraps

Made quite a lot of these – 40 in total but at least being small they didn’t take too long to make.

Took more of the scrappy fibres, carded them and then laid it all out

Decided it needed more and started to lay on Teeswater and BFL curls.

Thought I’d finished, then went back and added more curls! It’s drying now so photos of finished item coming soon.

Originally it was intended to hold fat balls for the birds but the wind was always ripping it off the tree, I tired of hunting for it in the shrubs and set it aside to do something with. It’s been set aside for about a year but yesterday was the day I had an idea. I’ve lots of felt balls (waiting!), a rusty bell garland (also waiting! it was a new year bargain), a surplus bird (waiting! it was a sample from a commission), some newly died rug yarn and some leftover Teeswater curls.

I cut up the garland and hung it from the heart doubling the overall length. Somehow, just doing that makes it feel more of a statement art piece. Rust is orange / brown in colour so looks perfect with blue and I had some turquoise blue rug yarn. Silently thanking Yvonne for the suggestion to put some weaving in the heart, I used the rug yarn to warp up the shoulders and then wove the Teeswater curls through it. A few curls were tied on but I haven’t made the weaving solid as I want it to have holes and texture. Not sure if I should add some yarns through here, too just to give even more texture – opinions?

The bird was way too brown so I sat and couched on a fancy yarn in turquoise in my favourite flowing scroll shapes. Blue cap, throat and eyes completed the bird which I then needed to attach to the heart. The bird is too solid to push the spike into so I covered the spike base with an unfinished brooch layer (yes, it was waiting!), glued on some balls to cover the spike and glued the bird to the balls. Sort of looks like it’s on a nest of blue eggs doesn’t it?

I attached three blue balls to the bells below the heart and was very happy to find a turquoise ball the perfect size for the hole at the top. Sometimes, it’s just meant to be. I’d like to put this in the garden but we’re in a very windy spot and it just wouldn’t survive so for now it will hang in the dining room as soon as I get a ceiling hook.

Once the felt was at the pre-felt stage we dried it off as best we could and put more stitches into the work.

It was then time to finish felting it. Of course now the felting is finished there’s lots more embellishing that can be done and the best thing is that the more stitch that is put in the better it becomes. It builds up layers of rich texture.

I’m not sure if the ladies realised how much they learned on Saturday – how to felt, felting to a specific size, controlling the shape and incorporating fabrics and threads. Quite a lot really for just one day. I enjoyed the day, they were a pleasure to work with and the lunch was very nice – thank you.