Felting follow up

Well the felting class with Renata Kraus was terrific. Day 1 we made the bag to pre-felt stage with serious work on the handles. Day 2 was all about the picture making which is the fun part in my opinion. It was tiring (as felt making is a very physical activity) but loads of fun. Renata is a great teacher and everyone was complimentary about her sharing of techniques and small tricks to get it all looking just right (not every tutor does you know!) Here are a number of pictures of bags in process. A lot of us chose to do the poppies as they are so appealing and that was my choice too. Wonderful fun and great results all round.

Felting workshop with Renata Kraus

I am very excited to say that I am doing a wet felting workshop this weekend with Renata Kraus from Vilnius in Lithuania. I was aware of her work long before I knew about the workshop. My understanding is that she does not use prefelts or needlefelting and yet her image creation in the felt is amazing - like a painting!

Photo via Renata Kraus

I was so lucky to find out about the workshop which is being held at Virginia Farm - where I go each week to learn spinning. Apparently Renata is visiting friends in Australia and is also doing a workshop at Virginia Farm as well as the NSW Spinners & Weavers Guild. I know the class at Virginia Farm is full - but the Guild may still have places - why not check here if interested. 

Blue Mountains Weekend

Because it was Mother's Day last weekend - but Sunday was taken up with Mother's Day obligations (but nice ones!) - I decided I was allowed to take myself off to the Blue Mountains for Saturday. Claire decided to come with me on the strict understanding that she wasn't allowed to whine. Once.

So we headed off to Leura (this was a chicks day out go to the Blue Mountains - not a go to the Three Sisters look out and go bushwalking trip). We went to a place called The Nook which features work by local artists.

There were two artists who particularly caught my eye - one was Pam de Groot who does some of the most beautiful felt work I've ever seen - her colours and colour blending are gorgeous. There was a beautiful rainbow wrap and some handbags (one of which is on her blog). Claire also liked the journals covered in felt - I told her we could make one on the weekend. She's not going to let me forget either!The other artist was Lindy Longhurst who does beautiful naive style paintings with dream and fairytale motifs. I think I liked them so much because many of the girls in the pictures have long, dark hair.

We also discovered this amazing stationery store. This pic doesn't really do it justice. I thought I might have a hard time convincing Claire to spend time in there. Boy - was I wrong. Her eyes were like saucers. I had a quiet chuckle to myself - I am passionate about paper - can't explain it - just am - so it was amusing to see at least one of my kids has inherited my love for all things stationery. This love was also extended to an amazing antiquarian bookshop in Katoomba where she discovered a book of poetry by Tim Burton called "The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy" and sat reading it quietly for the best part of half an hour. This was the favourite I think.

Staring Girl

I once knew a girl who would just stand there and stare.

At anyone or anything,she seemed not to care.

She'd stare at the ground, She'd stare at the sky. She'd stare at you for hours,and you'd never know why. But after winning the local staring contest, she finally gave her eyes a well-deserved rest.

She was disappointed that I wouldn't buy her the book ($35) but knowing I could probably do better on Amazon or Ebay - I said no. However as a consolation I let her read my Spike Milligan books - "A Dustbin Full of Milligan" and "Small Dreams of A Scorpion". Another win for genetic predispositions - it was a hit.