felting fun!

A few of my girlfriends (including Vivien (who just posted about the subject too and with a very similar title...) and I, took a beginners wet felting workshop yesterday. It was so much fun! Not only did we get to commune as we girls do, but we got to learn a new and fun craft for all of us. We found our teacher by googling her and totally lucked out. Linda was an entertaining and creative teacher, and her two studios are just to die for... We started our felt experience in her wet studio, just check out her walls of inspiration.. Bits and pieces of artful felted things everywhere! We worked on three separate projects with varying levels of difficulty. The first was a very basic felt square just so we can grasp the concept. Then came the fun! This is start of my second piece where I found out that I can successfully trap plastic netting in felt. A revelation to make me quite happy! Here's a close up. And here's my finished square hanging out to dry. This is a table in Linda's wet studio with all the roving and yarns and glitz to add to your felt. These are all of our felting projects for the day drying. We had lunch upstairs in Linda's lovely home full of art. This is a detail of one of her 3D flower sculptures. An inspiring wall in her upstairs dry studio. And this is her Gratitude Rocks installation in the living room. The idea is to take a river rock and wrap it in yarn as you're imagining something you are grateful for... lovely. A close up of the large felt rocks. After lunch we made a felted vessel, and unbelievable how easy it was. This is how mine started out. Here it is freshly formed. Look inside....

Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway) - my head is full of ideas of how to incorporate my new found skill into my current work. I had already started using needle felting, and now wet felting just opened the doors wider. And to think this all started with a visit to the felt at exhibit at Cooper Hewitt a few months ago. Gotta go dig out my catalogue from that exhibit and look again...