Feltrosa 2017

I'm just back from felting festival Feltrosa in Italy. It's an annual event held in different locations (usually remote :) ) . This year the organisers' choice was a small town Nazzano rather close to Rome but still in a national park. The house on the first picture is where we stayed and the magnificent castle on the hilltop is Nazzano itself (the second pic.). It was rather steep to get there even if the road is good!

But scenery is breathtaking!

There was a small themed exhibition "River and Life". I can't miss such occasion and presented one of my fish :)

  There were a few entertainments, getting together, felting in a group etc but what I was waiting most was a workshop. This year they run seven workshops: nunofelted snood, wall hanging in some kind of mosaic technique, making a hat, weaving, small needle felted rings, eco printing and making wool bas relief (this one was my choice). More info on workshops is HERE . I was making a bas relief with a tutor Maria Jose Troncoso  Just a few of her designs:             

 

I like the simple elegance of monochrome very much and she is a lovely person! She is a Spanish speaking person, the rest of the class were Italians but even with this variety of languages we did very well. It was interesting workshop and fortunately not very demanding physically. These are the works of my fellow students:

 

And this is my little chap!

I have really enjoyable time there, meeting some friends from last year and making new ones. The weather was great and afterwards we spent three days in Rome! I came back overwhelmed with emotions and need some rest :)                          

 

  

Samples

These are samples I've made during the on-line course of Svetlana Boljuh. The name of the course is "Felt for garments", but I have different plans on the techniques :) !



1. Wool (white) and viscose (red)

 

 

2. Wool (dark) and viscose (red). Very soft and flexible.                                                                                               

 

3. Very thin layer of wool (white, not visible) and huge amount of decorative fibres. Not all of them felted well but it's just my first sample.                                                 

 

 

4. Sample with nuno: silk chiffon, margelan silk, just silk (may be a blend with synthetic), some silk hankies.                  

 

4. This is the most interesting detail: at the top right corner there is a piece of rather dense polyester which hardly felted at all (reddish), but part of it was covered with margelan silk (beige) and this "sandwich" felted well. The large "ridge" is polyester covered with margelan silk. 

 

 

 

5. It's the latest sample which was the main attraction of the course to me- carving.                                                               

This one is with all folds felted, still wet.                                           

                                                         

 

The back of the sample above

 

After carving, wet still. We are suppose to do carving on dry sample, but I just could not wait! I did some things wrong, but pleased with the result nevertheless.

 

 

 

Snowdrops

The small picture of snowdrops, made in a soft
manner, to reflect this last day of winter. Very dull, but spring comes tomorrow...

Grassy morning

I'm sure that most of you have seen it on Facebook, but decided to show it here as well. Framed.

 

New Pictures

Just wanted to show two new pictures. Recently finished and framed.
I'm not happy with the framing of the Sunflowers,  may change it...

Blue Fish

An inspiration for this fish came from ceramics. I have quite a collection of images of marine theme ceramics. Their sculptural forms and details always attracted me. I'm quite happy with this fish even if some stitches were required.
Obviously I've used a lot of cords to highlight the shape. The texture (the bulbous shapes) was created by lumps of half-felted wool covered with a piece of margelan silk and then felted together. Kind of nuno felting. This silk fabric features very loose weave.

  

Poppy Picture

Have felted large panel with poppies. The first picture shows just a layout, the second one - felted.

 Interesting to compare, obviously the sharpness of some lines is gone and some shapes changed. But in general, it's OK. If I make it a cushion cover (haven't decided yet) I'll felt it more.