Dawn Edwards is hosting two incredible workshops for felt artists -
Fantastic Felt Inspired by the Natural and Built Environment by
Nicola Brown of Ireland and
Seamless Felt Jackets by
Charity van der Meer's of the Netherlands. This is a great opportunity to learn from these outstanding felt artists!
Details about the class are listed below. Dawn has full supply lists and lodging suggestions. If you would like to register, contact Dawn directly at dawn@feltsoright.com
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Fantastic Felt Inspired by the Natural and Built Environment by Nicola Brown
When: Friday May 25 & Saturday May 26 from 10am-5pm
Where: First Presbyterian Church
303 E. Bridge St.
Plainwell, MI 49080
Cost: $270 plus your materials (Lodging and meals are not included.)
Skill level: Basic felting skills are an advantage but beginners are welcome!
Lunch: Please bring a sack lunch to class. There are also restaurants close by. Coffee/tea will be provided.
Class description: Let the shapes, forms, colours, patterns, textures and structures of the natural and built environment fire your imagination! During this two-day workshop,
participants will design and create their own unique and beautiful
wearable, functional or decorative pieces of felt using nature and the man made
landscape for inspiration. Some participants may choose to create a purely
decorative art piece such as a complex vessel, sculpture or wall hanging while
others may decide to design and felt some wearable art or interior accent,
possibly a bag, some jewellery, some nuno felt or maybe a framed landscape or
table runner.
There will be time to experiment and discover techniques or
materials over the two days that you may
have never considered using in your
felting before. Nicola will be bringing some of her favourite mohair off cuts
for everyone to try out and will share with participants how she is currently
using free machine embroidery selectively to accentuate design elements in some
of her new bags and framed landscapes. She’ll also demonstrate the use of an
electric sander during some stages of the felting process and speak about the
possibilities of fulling nuno-felt using the tumble dryer, Nicola doesn’t use a
sander all the time herself but sometimes it can really help with certain tasks
and it is definitely useful to know when this might apply. The tumble dryer
technique is wonderful for difficult to felt fabrics and to eliminate all the
traditional rubbing and rolling, it’s not for everyone but it is fantastic to
speed up the process especially if you have a bad back or other health issues
so again, another technique that can be handy to know about!
Participants
are encouraged to bring along treasured bits and bobs from their stash,
buttons, beads, scraps of vintage fabric, shells, stones, glass nuggets etc.,
these all make wonderful inclusions in felt and help to personalize and create
a truly unique work of art! We will have access to a sewing machine during the
workshop but if you have your own machine with a free machine embroidery foot
please bring it along and some threads too if you have space in your car. We
won’t have access to a tumble dryer at the venue but if participants would like
to try this technique during the workshop they are free to lay out a large nuno
wrap during day one and get it to the stage where they can bring it home with
them and finish it using their own dryer that evening. Nicola will clearly
explain the steps to take and it should be possible to full the pieces and have
them finished to show off on day two!
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When: July 10, 11 & 12
Where: Scout House / American Legion Hall
410 E. Orleans St.
Ostego, MI 49078
Cost: $425 plus your materials (Lodging and meals are not included.)
Skill level: Advanced level workshop for experienced feltmakers. (This does not mean you have to be an expert but some felting experience is necessary give the complexity of the class.)
Lunch: Please bring a sack lunch to class. There are also restaurants close by. Coffee/tea will be provided.
Class description:
In this workshop Charity will be teaching how to make
garments in one piece using fine merino on silk (Nuno technique). This workshop
is for making fashionable and creative jackets. It is for felters who enjoy
playing with textures using different materials to create structure and layers.
We will work with silk fabrics, merino, Wensleydale, knitted
pieces, etc., and we will make use of different felting techniques to create
surface textures.
You will be making pieces of art and unique garments that
come into full expression when worn. These will be days full of surprises.
We will be aiming at felting a very textured, creative nuno-felted
Spring/Summer coat. In this course you get to work with all kinds of fibers,
and raw wool to create the textures to your own liking.
This is a great opportunity to create your new fashionable jacket/coat,
and also to learn how to make garments using felt.
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Hope to see you there!!!
