Learning how to felt ....

Hi everyone

Winter has hit us with biting cold winds & lots of frost & fog

but also amazingly beautiful sunsets ....

As my regular visitors to the blog know, I am a great advocate of life long learning skills, like hand sewing, learning to paint furniture the Annie Sloan way etc.   I love learning new skills that interest me & who better to learn it from, than tutors who are fantastic in their crafts. I love my tutoring job, but I also love having a Friday off so I can relax, unwind, do the things that interest me, then my job does not become a chore ... 

I did a course through this fabulous local craft shop before - learning how to decoupage & learning how to crochet, including a special crochet course to do a rose.... 

When Helen advertised a felting course, I signed up straight away, especially as Helen ran it on a Friday, my day off. 

I knew nothing of felting so was relieved that the 6 of us on our course were all in the same boat. 

The worktable was set up ready with our all we would need - foreign objects but once Maxine, the fabulous tutor for the course, had demystified them, we were ready to proceed ... 

Starting to layer up our woollen threads on our block. The picture in the frame shown is one of Maxine's

 Building up the colours I want to use - delicate strands layered across the base felt square then needled in with the large round felting tool (which has 5 felting needles in it) or with the single felting needles ...

Tea, coffee & cakes arrive - thanks Helen, we are all totally engrossed in the calming work ...

Gorgeous soft pure wools in beautiful colours just give so much choice ... 

Getting there - the background is looking good, I decided on delicate shades reminiscent of heather & the countryside. Time to make some sheep ....

Working my sheep shape in to the background felted image with a single needle. The room went very quiet as we all just concentrated on keeping our fingers away from the single needle ...

Adding some more details from the beautiful wooden yarns available ...

Woollen threads to add details with ....

I decided that I wanted some heather like plants in the foreground so I felted in some tiny flowers. I am really pleased with how well the image looks. However, my one sheep has a wonky leg - but that is how he is going to stay - lopsided! 

We all had exactly the same materials to choose from & yet everyone did something different. This one was the one next to me ...

Our finished works in their little frames ....

And another one with lovely yellow flowers balancing the image perfectly. 

Our six completed pictures - all perfectly beautiful, all reminiscent of water colour images, delicate, yet detailed, tiny yet powerful!

Pop over to the talented tutor, Maxine's website - Tilly Tea Dance  to see some more of her stunning work. 

I hope you are also inspired to step out of your comfort zones & learn knew skills & hobbies, whatever your interests are. 

Thanks for stopping by & taking the time to read & comment, 

Dee ~♥~