Guildford Soroptomists

If you are anything like me you are probably thinking "soropto-what?"

I first encountered the soropotmists through a friend's post on Facebook a few weeks ago and promptly went off to look them up. It turns out they are a charitable organisation focussed on empowering and enabling women across the globe. While the Western world has seen the benefits of the suffragette movement and decades of feminism, although we may sometimes feel less valued than our male counterparts, there are dozens of countries where women really are still treated as second class citizens and the soroptomists have made it their goal to help these women.

If you would like to know more about the soroptomists you can access their website here.

Purely by accident, I was looking through listings of upcoming craft fairs trying to identify the ones that I would like to attend and noticed that the Guildford soroptomists are organising a fair in a village hall not too far from here. Their table price is a little more than I would usually pay but when I discovered the proceeds from this fair are going towards the Ebola crisis in West Africa, it was a no-brainer for me.

If you are in the area I would love to see you there, approx 30 stallholders selling home made food and gifts will be there supporting this cause:

10 am to 4 pm Sat 29th Nov at, Cranleigh Village Hall, High St, Cranleigh, Surrey GU6 8AF

On a more light-hearted note, I shared this picture with you last time and asked what you thought it might be:

Ruth was the closest, it is indeed a pod. I had some hand-dyed silk left over after completing my dress a couple of weeks ago and it was so pretty I wanted to use it rather than resign it to my inspiration bag. I settled on making a decorated pod. This is the result, it's about 25 cm (10") across:

Give Aways!!

To promote the launch of my new Facebook page I have decided to offer the chance to win a £20 (approx 30USD) voucher to spend in my Etsy shop as a thank you to everyone who has helped to spread the word. I will hold the prize draw when the number of likes reaches 100. It has already reached 13 with no promotion so I'm hopeful it will get to 100 within a couple of weeks and the lucky winner can use their voucher for a Christmas splurge.

To enter all you need to do is:

1. like my FB page (click here)
2. Share the "Give Away!!" post on your FB timeline

The winner will be drawn at random when it reaches 100 likes. GOOD LUCK!!

And another Give Away - TextileArt.org are offering 10 of their favourite textile art books for free, just follow this link to enter.

Onto more woolly matters... ;)

This is the finished "sea creature" bowl I posted a picture of last time, I used the dyeing technique in this tutorial to created the colour graduations. The bowl was made using a combination of multi-layered resists, adding flaps of prefelt and stitching during the felting process. It was a bit of an experiment to put all 3 techniques together so I'm really happy that it has turned out so well.

I confess I made this scarf a couple of weeks ago but have only just found time to photograph it, it is some rainbow dyed habouti 5 silk with merino nuno accents. The silk catches the light beautifully but you will have to take my word for that - I just can't seem to get sheen or metallic shine to show up in photos - can you?

The show at the Rural Life Museum was fun but not particularly lucrative, but all the other traders were lovely and there were some really interesting customers including one lady who my heart went out to; she struggled to find gifts for her overly discerning (and IMHO ungrateful) mother so had changed tack and was now buying gifts that she would like to receive in the hope that it would be regifted back to her. I think she has the patience of a saint, I don't know that I would tolerate that sort of behaviour - I certainly wouldn't continue to buy gifts for them!

Blog Centenary

The last few weeks have seen quite a run of achievements for me, this blog reached its first birthday at the end of October, last weekend my City and Guilds certificates arrived, and today this blog has reached its 100th post.

It seems quite fitting that this post should be about another milestone; my first felted dress. Being a nuno felt dress the template was HUGE, 1 m wide by 2 m long, forcing me to work on the floor. Not something I like to do as I ache for days after spending all day crawling around on all fours.

The dress didn't quite go to plan, no matter how much I rolled and worked them the shoulder straps were still far too long so I resorted to cutting them down and sewing seams across the shoulders. Here it is drying on the mannequin.

The front

The back

Close up of the silk panel

Now I just need to pluck up the courage to wear it to work!

Here are a couple of other pieces I have been working on too. They are both winged pods but very different styles.

This first one reminds me of undersea creatures so I am thinking of dyeing it aqua blue / green colours.

The second one reminded me of a helter skelter so I dyed it red and yellow. Here it is before dyeing.

A helter skelter slide

And after dyeing

I will be attending the Rural Life Museum Christmas Fair this weekend in Tilford and would really love to see you there if you are in the area.

Linking up to nina-marie, off the wall Friday

It's Official!

My City and Guilds certificate arrived yesterday, I heard that I would pass in October but did not want to tempt fate by telling people until the certificate had safely arrived. Silly I know, but I am strangely superstitious like that. It has finally arrived, and to my surprise is actually 2 certificates...

To celebrate I started making myself a nunofelt dress, it's not quite going to plan but I think it is still salvageable with a bit of dressmaking. My biggest learning so far is that the "holes" (i.e. around the neck line and arm holes) in the template should not be increased by 50% along with the rest of the garment.... more on that next time.

Here are couple of other pieces I have been working on this week:

It may not be that easy to see from this photo but I have used resists to create flower patterns peeking through the green, I plan to add some embroidery to the centres of each flower.

This piece has been sat on my table for a few weeks now and I still can't decide where to go with it, should I just leave it as it is? The yellow and pink patterns are rather nice but not as striking all the way round as they are in the photo below. I could add some embroidery but am concerned it might just detract from the dye pattern. Another idea I had was to cut holes about a 1/4 of the way down and add a drawstring to make into a bag rather than a pot. It stands about 30 cm (12") tall. What do think? What would you do?

I also made a couple of coin / key purses to match the 2 bags I made recently, both will have a zipper on the back and the loop at the top allows for a key hoop to be attached.

This is another coin purse, but using the flower resist technique again, the zip will sit across the top where you see the line of orange. I plan to add some embroidery to the centre of the flower on this one too.

Hope you are have a creative week too... :)

Felting Exhibiton

Last Sunday saw the second International Feltmakers Association (Region 5) exhibition in Sonning Common. It was a good day with lots of chat, very nice cakes and some felting demonstrations from yours truly. The visitor numbers were rather low due to incorrect dates being advertised in various papers and magazines. I'm not at all happy about the poor organisation but I won't keep harping on about that, I still managed to have fun and met some really lovely people.

The exhibition as you walk in

My display area

The view from the far end of the hall

I also had an interesting experience with some wool I was demonstrating with. I was making pods and used a coarse red wool (afraid I don't know the breed) on the inside and variegated purple merino on the outside. The coarse wool almost refused to the felt. Even when the merino was firmly felted there were still unfelted tufts of the coarse wool but it did give a very interesting texture that several people likened to a brain.

I also made a couple of more conventional pods and think I might have even inspired one of our feltmaking group to have a go at making pods too :)

Blogiversary

I have just realised that this blog reached its one year anniversary on Tuesday. I can't believe how the time has flown.

I had a look back through my old posts expecting to find my style or felting techniques to have changed over the year but I'm not sure they really have. Certainly I have learned some better ways of making felt but for the most part I am still using the same basic techniques such as nuno felting and using resists and inclusions in my felt. The only obvious change is my choice of fibres, a year ago I was almost exclusively using merino but lately have been using more Corriedale and BFL. Have you noticed any changes in your felt-making over the last year or so?

Here are a couple of pieces I have been working on this week.

The finished pumpkin bag:

And a couple of pods:

I have also been working on a second lichen-inspired wall hanging which is currently drying with various pins holding the lichen folds in place. I will post a photo in a day or two when the pins come out.

Linking up to nina-marie, off the wall Friday

A Productive Week

Not sure what happened to me this week but it's like someone put amphetamines in my coffee. Last week I could barely motivate myself to cook for myself and only managed to produce one piece of felt. This week I have turned into a felting whirling dervish... Here are a few of the things I have started / finished so far this week:

I dyed the lacy scarf I made on Sunday but after looking at it for a couple of days decided I wasn't that happy with it so put it back in the dye bath.

Much better!

It now makes me think of autumnal leaves falling into a river.

Some felt cuffs using a similar technique to the scarf, there is an adult and 2 child sizes, I think you can just see where I have cut some slits in the adult one, I hope the cuts will open up to make a lacy effect with a little felting persuasion.

A little felt pod made using an adaptation of the lacy felt technique to create the loops you can see in the second picture.

A felt vase made from some shibori dyed prefelt, this is still very much a WIP but I hope the top will look like a 5-petal flower when it's finished.

A Halloween-inspired bag, still quite a long way to go on this one but I think you can make out that it will be a pumpkin... one day!

I started this "coral" piece before I went on my hols but it takes so long to needle-felt each strip into place that I only just got as far as wet felting it this week. It is currently drying and waiting to be fixed to some stretcher bars.

These 2 pieces were started at Dagmar Binder's class in September. The pale blue piece was an uninspiring, flat multi-layered disc that I have been looking at for weeks trying to decide what to do with it. I finally picked it up and started playing with it this week, folding it this way and that and this shape was born. An hour of stitching later and it is now drying in it's new form. Given that I was ready to throw it on the reject / recycling pile a few days ago I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.

The dark blue piece below is a sewer's bowl, the raised ring around the outside is a perfect pin cushion, while the bowl will prevent your reels of thread, beads etc. from rolling away. It was inspired by photos of a coral polyps:

A nuno felt scarf (would you believe, dyed the silk, felted and finished this week, including a rolled hem).

I also felted this cotton scrim and embroidered bowl, even after using CMC to stiffen it I wasn't that happy that it would keep its shape so opted to felt it.

And finally another piece from Fiona Duthie's surface design class. I think this might be come a book cover...

As if all this wasn't enough I have also scoured and dyed a Shetland fleece, all the beautiful colours are busy drying over my bathtub. More on those in another post.

I think I have earned myself a glass of wine :) Hope you are having lots of fun in your felting adventures too :)

Linking up to nina-marie, off the wall Friday