Wholesale order and update

In March I got a wholesale order for a few tea cosies and discussed this new kind of selling on  Forum Here. Everything went smoothly and today I have another offer from the same shop to make ten small size (8"x8") pictures which she is going to frame or use as a cushion panel. Again she is ready to pay upfront.
I'm not very keen on large orders, getting tired and bored quickly, but still it's nice to be asked.
I will post some pictures when I make them :)

Feeling grumpy today (and often!) about Facebook! At first it's always large bold font for short posts! OK, I managed to cheat to avoid this nuisance. Then they offer you to make a background of the post in colours! Now my page is screaming with posts in large bold letters on the acid green/yellow colour! And they are mostly about the very trivial stuff. I do not mind people complaining about the weather but not that loud please! I know that I could unfollow some friends to stop seeing their posts and I did it twice (when some become overly political) but always with a heavy heart.
Back to more cheerful things!
I've tried using the technique of making textured felt in scarves. See two of my first tries. They are very similar in colours and materials, more samples than finished pieces but I hope to make them proper pieces.

 
  

Catch up for Summer

Short catch up for June - July- early August  😊
Have been VERY busy!

New techniques.
After taking a course on a textured felt I started to use these new techniques in my fish and cushions. I think it works well for these items:

     

New Fairs.
I have tried a new event this summer, York River Art Market and it happened to be quite good for me (and for the most of exhibitors I presume).
I did two days, the weather on the day of the first one was very poor and still it was OK in sales. The second one, on the first Saturday of August was very good - a glorious weather, great location - a river work in the very centre of York. All in all it was very pleasant day and sales were high, at the same level as Xmas time. And it was so close to home ! Very pleased with the event, will do it again next year.
Could you see the difference?

 

 

 

As for a Art in the Pen this year it was not as good as last year for me. May be I need to reconsider "my strategy" 😊
Anyway I have finished with fairs for a while. The next one is Masham sheep festival the last weekend of September.
At the moment I'm nearly off to Finland for a holiday and try to put everything felty aside. Back to felting in September.

Colours in 3-D

I have asked for suggestions how to add new features and introduce some colour in bas relief technique I've learned at Feltrosa. Thanks to felters of feltandfiberstudio forum I've got a lot of advices.
This is my first try on colourful piece. I added colours and a bit of story, going to frame it as a picture.

 

 

I hope you could see the 3-D effect

 In this technique you could get rather sharp edge, better distinction than in traditional work with coloured prefelt.

Asking for suggestions!

I'm a bit stuck!.. After a workshop at Feltrosa festival I was so enthusiastic about new bas relief technique!
Apart from my first piece which was just a sample I had another go on it and made a kind of  case with a rabbit shape on it. This time I've used my favourite Kap merino, which provides such a smooth surface.

It was not a hard work but when it came to a finishing the problem arose. Apart from bags and cases where this technique could be applied? Even bags and cases are to be of simple shape and plain in colour so that the relief stands out better.
In this case I just added a small ceramic button as a closure:

Any suggestions to what the technique can be used for? Being restricted by colours (or rather by absence of it) and flat shapes I'm a bit lost!

 

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.