Sunday, April 1, 2012

Felting Workshops from two international teachers


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

*  *  *  *  *


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!



*  *  *  *  *

Seamless Felt Jackets by Charity van der Meer




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 descriptionIn 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.

*  *  *  *  *


Hope to see you there!!!


No comments:

Post a Comment