Workshop

Pamela McGregor workshop

It's been awhile since my last post and I apologize. Life Happens. I was in Cabo for six weeks in Jan. and February. I painted while I was there but no felting. When I got home I had to do some new paintings for our annual Art Studio Trek and get my studio and house ready for that. It was a success and worth the work. I sold about half paintings and half fiber art. 

The end of May, first of June I went to Minnisota and attended a great felting workshop with Pamela McGregor. I learned how to make a wet
felted tea pot with a nice fitting lid. We learned a lot of surface techniques, how to make handles, a great wool to use for three dimensional felting and much more. Below is the teapot I made in the workshop.

The teapots were made with Finn Wool. What a difference this wool makes when making vessels. It felts quickly and becomes very firm and rigid with no sagging. When I got back from the workshop I wanted to felt but only had Merino wool. I made the piece below but it is way to soft. I wanted to put the fold in it, which was fine but the rest kind of sags. I think I will wet it and throw it in the dryer and try to shrink it up even more to stiffen it.

I wanted to practice felting bubbles and nodes so I felted a small sample and then decided to make a cuff out of it. I added a felted loop and a button closure.

I finally received my order of Finn Wool and have been working on this teapot for a couple of days. Everything was going pretty good but when I made the topper it came out a bit too small for the opening. Not wanting to waste what I had done I figured out a way to make the hole smaller without too much trouble. I made a black felted cord long enough to fit inside the opening. I needle felted it on and now the lid fits perfectly.

The photo above shows the black cord needle felted to the inside top edge.

This is the topper that fits inside with a flat rim over the teapot edge.