I really liked the glass with texture and those with colour striations. I’ve used red, orange blue and turquoise, it’s not a great work of art but okay for a first piece and it is my own design. The good news as far as my husband is concerned is that I won’t be taking this up as a hobby, really great to have a go at it but somehow it’s just not for me. What’s next??

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.

17th September Flowers – this workshop now has 2 spaces available and is a popular workshop so don’t wait too long to book.

24/25th September – Masham Sheep Fair. I love this event and go each year. This year of course I’ll be there with Adelaide Walker so do pop into the old schoolhouse and see us.

30th September Pictures – sorry this is fully booked but I may run another in the new year if anyone would be interested.

1st October third international day of felt. Felt United This years colours are red, purple, blue. I’d like to do something to celebrate this day but am devoid of ideas, can anyone help with suggestions? p.s. nothing too big please

1st/2nd October British wool weekend Sat and Sun – you can book for just one or both days of this weekend. We’ll be working in both 2D and 3D with over 15 different fibres on offer. If you choose to work smaller I’d expect you to be able to make 3 items per day, so lots of chance to work with the different breeds.

7th/8th October North Pennines Wool event.Looks an interesting event.

9th October Sunday – English Tea workshop – table runners, tea cosies, coasters, mats and tea light holders.  Runners are an interesting item to make as they can be abstract, patterned, pictorial etc. and really could be used on your table or on the wall.

20th-23rd October Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair at Manchester. A very good quality fair with some stunning exhibits.

22nd October (Sat) Stitched in felt – book covers combining felt with stitch. You don’t need to be able to do anything more than running stitch so don’t worry if you’re not an embroiderer. Your finished piece will cover an A5 size book/diary or use it as a picture.

27th October (thurs) 3D Pods – weird and wonderful, with spikes, spy holes, tails. A real fun workshop

16th November (wed) Felt for Christmas – cards, baubles, garlands, wreaths. Felt that sparkles.

19th November (sat) Mixed Media and Texture. Incorporating: rag rugging, knitting, crochet and weaving into your felt for fabulous texture. No previous experience of any of these crafts is necessary.Use it as a discovery day or leave with a fabulous picture. Add fabrics, flaps, pockets, recycled items and lace to your felt. You’ll be amazed at the number and variety of objects that can be  felted in.

24th-27th November Knitting and Stitching Show at Harrogate. I usually help out with demonstrations on the International feltmakers stand, see you there.

3rd December (sat) Lattice and frilly felt scarves.  All wool scarves to keep you warm and glamorous looking all winter The key to a frilly scarf is in the laying out, come and learn the technique in the last fun workshop of the year.

Suggestions for other workshops are always welcome and I am, of course, working on next year’s batch now. Also, if you know of any other events that we felters would be interested in do please let me know and I’ll add them to the list.

Now I’d like to introduce you to my latest creation. I had great fun making this bag and I think it shows. There’s a pocket on the outside and two more on the inside. I’ve included, pre-felts, fabric and yarns for extra texture plus a flower for decoration.

I love it and I’m going to have so much fun beading it up. The best bit is it’s made of old fibres which I’ve carded plus ends of yarn, scraps of fabric and leftover pre-felts so it feels as though I’ve been quite economical. Remember 5th March is the next bag workshop.

We worked on freestyle organically shaped flowers and more controlled shapes. There were some unusual colour combinations which I think worked really well too. Below are examples of the flowers beaded up plus one which Rachel was inspired to make when she returned home and is made using Herdwick wool. Great stuff ladies.

Rachel N was also kind enough to send me the following feedback “I just wanted to say a huge thank you for such a wonderful day on Saturday! I had a great time and learnt a lot! I made another flower on Saturday evening after I had got home from the workshop day! Then yesterday, I beaded up some of the ones I had made on the workshop – I think I may have caught the bug!

I enjoyed your teaching style as you took it a step at a time, and let us a do a bit and then show us the next step and I appreciated that way of learning.  Your gingerbreads were delicious too!”

I am such a happy bunny after this feedback – thank you!

I love the contrast interiors on these slippers and the sparkly bows on the green pair are great. Once you have a basic pattern it can adjusted for many styles of slippers / boots. It’s also quite simple to create patterns and make slippers for other people’s feet in the same way. However, if you’re totally smitten you can buy lasts from Wingham Wool Work. It’s also possible to do some shaping by using an old trainer or a wellington boot. As usual with felting, there’s always more than one way to do things.

That’s the last of my workshops for a while so I hope to be showing you more of other crafty things I get up to and experiments with dyeing that I’ve been putting off for far too long.

The pink fabric is a synthetic which is harder to work with but gives lovely big crinkles in texture. The less fibre that passes through the fabric the larger the crinkles. Next to that is a silk which in addition to giving texture also adds shine. Bottom left is on cotton muslin with the outline of a pre felt showing through and the final sample is on my personal favourite, silk chiffon.

You can see the muslin has far more crinkles (but smaller) than the synthetic and in the sample above on silk chiffon you can see it’s a smoother finish still. The black circles are more silk chiffon added to the fibre side to make it truly double sided. Nuno is a very interesting technique and is a favourite way of working for me.

We weren’t working with raw fleece. Halifax Spinning Mill near Selby is able to process small numbers of fleeces so we were working with Rose’s carded batts . I think Herdwick are quite pretty looking sheep but the fibre has a poor reputation with some feltmakers and many are frightened to have a go with it. It has quite a coarse fibre so it’s not suitable for clothing but no reason why it can’t be used for pictures, bags, rugs and other items that don’t go against the skin.

This one would make a lovely wallhanging I think. As with other fibres, it will grab and hold onto yarns, silk fibres and Teeswater curls as you see above and it has a nice mottled grey colour.

I don’t know why two look brown because I promise you they are grey. The pictures don’t show that some pieces also have angelina fibres included. At least one has successfully added synthetic yarn and another has embroidery thread in it.

In my experience, you get a shrinkage rate of around 30% with Herdwick fibres, less than with breeds like Merino and Blue Faced Leicester. You need to use more soap than you would with Merino and to be gentle in the early wet and set stage to avoid spreading the fibres. So yes, it does take more patience to felt with Herdwick but it is possible and not nearly as difficult as some believe. I’d like to leave you with the photo below. This guinea fowl has found the warmest place on the farm for cold feet and the Herdwick sheep doesn’t seem to mind! Thanks to Rita for the picture.

The scarves are long enough to be tied around the neck but you can see the blue one had a slit cut into it to form a hole, which allows the scarf to be fastened by threading through itself. We used cotton muslin and merino fibres and finished with silk fibre decoration. If you can’t see the silk it’s because it tends not to shine whilst still wet.

The mittens are silk chiffon with merino wool and silk decoration. With the muslin you get a larger texture than with the silk chiffon. I thought it would be useful for people to work with two fabrics to understand the different effects that using different fabrics gives to nuno felt. Didn’t they do well?