Hever Castle Feltmaking, 12-14 Sept 2014

Here are some of the results from last weekend's feltmaking demonstrations at Hever Castle.  My creative crew did a great job dealing with this more unusual feltmaking method (using a ball to create a 3D shape like a bag or bowl).  We ended up with some fantastic felted items - tea cosies, bags and bowls, plus a bag and a flower corsage using the more usual flat-felting methods.  There were over 4000 visitors to Hever during the 3 days of the event and there was lots of interest in our feltmaking, so an enjoyable time was had by all.

  

Felt Flower Wallhanging

With Open Studios coming up, I wanted to create something new for the studio, as well as to find a better way of displaying flower corsages.  So I created a wallhanging to pin the flowers to, which doubles up as something bright and decorative for the studio.  Thought I'd share some before and after photos, so you can see the process. 

Photo 1 shows the felt fleece all laid out in landscape colours, I then added some bubble mohair wool strands to act as flower stems.  Photo 2 shows the developing felt during the process - flattened with hot soapy water and rubbed to help the fibres felt together.  Photo 3 shows the finished felt (shrunk by about 30%) - I didn't worry too much about keeping neat edges as I knew I was going to cut the felt.  All in all this took about a day to make (half a day to make the felt and another to create the hanging). And we both appear on this week's front cover of our local newspaper to advertise Open Studios - link here:Oxted County Border News, 24 May 2012

 

Summer Workshops

Here's a selection of the fantastic felt jewellery, accessories and flower corsages made by workshop participants so far this summer.