Friday 13 May 2016

Back from FELTROSA!

I'm back from Italy where I spent a week  - three days in Verona and four days in small town Mel where the annual felting festival Feltrosa was held this year.
How was it? It was good even if I've heard some opinion that previous events had more interesting programme and were better organized. I couldn't compare because it was my first time and I couldn't complain - beautiful scenery, glorious weather and Italian food made up for all the shortcomings many times over.
I'm a felter still so the main reason (or excuse?) to go there was to see felt, workshops and take part in one of them. There were three workshops I've seen:
 - small jacket, 2-days workshop run by Natalia Shvets. As expected the "small" jacket became "full size" jacket and it took much longer and I've not seen the finished result unfortunately. Natalia wrote her own report on Feltrosa, it's in Russian but with many informative pictures - HERE 
- two one-day workshops on toques and fascinators run by Italian feltmaker Karin Monica. Small hats were presented in such a variety and made with such taste and fantasy that it was the best course in my opinion! See some pictures below. These hats were made by tutor but students' works were of the same high quality!




I attended the short  half day workshop on technique when you make digital print on silk fabric and could felt it in to create fully felted piece. Unfortunately it was a disappointment - both digital images I worked with disappeared completely by the end of felting process and I was left with blank piece of prefelt. The other participants got very mixed results as well... I was rather upset at first, then considered it as a new experience!
To finish it on more optimistic note there is a picture of lovely green heart one of Mel's resident created to his mother by carefully planting and pruning large ivy plant!
 
UPD: I've found the picture of a good result achieved by one of students, the image of daisies is a digital print:
 Unfortunately, I can't show mine because it was completely blank, no slightest image left...

10 comments:

  1. It's always great to see others work and mingle with fellow felters. I'm glad you enjoyed the conference, but sorry to hear one of the courses didn't work out. But I'm sure you have plenty of inspiration from the trip to make up for it.

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  2. i was also on feltrosa and have been for the fourth time , problems this time about finding a place to stay ,but Eva told why , i have very good experience with the impressions of felt it was difficult and take time , i have also a piece which have lost the colour , it is also and experiment with new ways to go , but i think Caroline did all what was possibel and you have only one day, i had spinning too and it went very well , in anyway i think it is good not to expect too much and think about which course and time goes to together , we all do different experience .

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    1. Trying not to go into details but will do it now. I've made two samples on two different printers and two different fabrics. Images were our join (my&tutor)choice. At the end the both (!) images disappeared completely and the tutor said that it was the worst result in three days and she couldn't say what was wrong. She is a lovely person but I can't be happy with the outcome. I didn't mean to upset anyone, it was my personal experience and I'm pleased that your case was so much better.

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  3. Sounds like you had a good time. It is always nice to get together with other felters. The hats look fantastic and the idea for you class sounds good. Frustrating for everyone involved I imagine.

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    1. Yes it was great to be with so many very enthusiastic felters and I enjoyed my time.

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  4. The hats look great, as you say, very creative in their styling, I look forward to seeing your finished jacket, sometimes it is worth taking on a bigger project that you cannot finish during the course if it will yield something you are more likely to use. That's a real shame about the image transfers and even more so that the tutor could not offer guidance on what might improve your chances were you to try again... :(

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    1. Teri I didn't make a jacket, too large project to me! But there were interesting models and I'm sure the students finished them nicely.

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  5. Sounds like a mixed bag but I have found that generally those big gatherings are like that. What kind of transfer on to silk were you using? I have not found that computer printouts on anything hold up that well to the felting process.

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    1. Ruth, we soaked the fabric in some solution, dried it and ironed to a paper to feed to a inkjet printer, printed the digital image on it and then work with the printed fabric, felting it in prefelt. Some students have got much better result (I add a picture of a good one to the post, see the last pic.) But there were very few of them and not myself unfortunately!

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