supearlatives

If it's January 15th it must be.........................

2012-01-15T04:19:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year again. Chinatown in Sydney is full of drums and dragons. It's Chinese New Year.
2012 is the Year of the Dragon, and there were certainly a few of those out on the streets of Chinatown today.

In Paddy's market the sound of the drums echoed around the central atrium. I was there for a delicious Yum Char lunch with the family and suddenly... there was a beautiful golden dragon at the entrance to our favourite Yum Char venue, the Eight. The whole of Paddy's Market was hung with red lanterns and the dragons were being tamed by their 'carers' surrounded by an army of red and gold dressed followers and drum players as they went from shop to shop, restaurant to restaurant, to bring good fortune for the coming year. Here are some images from the celebrations.

Walking through the main market part of Paddy's I came across this wonderful array of strange and beautiful leafy vegetables just waiting to have their picture taken. I just wish I could capture the smells of the gorgeous fruit and veggies that arrest your nostrils as you walk through the main hall.

Coffee culture

2012-01-11T04:02:00.000-08:00

What I love about Sydney is the fact that they take their coffee very seriously. You don't just get any old coffee being served up in the numerous coffee shops and bars. The coffee has to be produced by baristas. There is even a barista school that tutors all the coffee makers. The result is.........perfect coffee every time.
These masterpieces were constructed at the Shenkin Cafe in Erskinville. A very artistic effort. There is even a App that can be downloaded to your iPhone or iPad showing cappuchino froth designs. Crazy!!

Sydney Festival Yeah yeah yeah....

2012-01-11T03:53:00.000-08:00

It's Sydney Festival time. Edinburgh with sun. Fab city, fab event. There are events going on all over the place in some pretty unlikely venues. See the complete list on www.sydneyfestival.org.au
Saturday January 7th was the first night. I was in Hyde Park to hear Caspar Babypants, the excellent Tuba Skinny, Norman Jay and his Good Times Sound System. I really wanted to see Manu Chao in the Domain concert but the youngest members of the family had to be bathed and put to bed. Never mind, next time maybe. However I did get to see the Polyglot Theatre's Tangle Jungle. Great fun, made me want to get my knitting out. The pictures are from the Tangle Jungle, child heaven. Even the austere statue in the park is joining in the fun.

Its Party Time in Sydney

2011-12-28T02:02:00.000-08:00

Sydney must be the ultimate party capital. Everywhere you go there are parties going on, works parties, family parties, friends parties, corporate parties. It's a mad time of year. Just standing at Circular Key at all times of the day waiting for the bus I can see girls dressed up to the nines with 7 inch high heels tottering on and off the ferries, travelling to all parts of the Sydney harbour. I am staying in an apartment by the harbour in Pyrmont which is close to Darling Harbour, the entertainment centre of Sydney and there is a lovely park running all along the harbour edge. This is full evenings and weekends with groups getting together after work and in their leisure time to have barbecues or picnics or just exercising. A really outdoor city.

Here are some images from one of the parties seen. I couldn't walk past without snapping a few pics. Crazy people!!

2011-12-15T03:23:00.000-08:00

Look at these windows in the Louis Vuiton shop in Sydney. I think they are wild and so clever.

Deskbound guys and gals play with wool

2011-11-29T20:36:00.000-08:00

Last week I ran an 'Away Day' aka fun day out for a media communications office team. They wanted a team bonding event and I devised the perfect scenario for them....a chance to design their fantasy office layout. This allowed them to have all their favourite items around them, the bar, the swimming pool, the pool table and of course the sun loungers.

They worked in five teams of three and after brainstorming and scribbling ideas on paper they cut out the layout and design in pre-felt and then wet felted all the plans.

Working in a Picasso sort of way, in both plan and elevations, they created some ingenious schemes. The groups then had to explain to each other group the concepts, the methods and the finished effect, all washed down with copious amounts of tea and coffee and the most delicious cupcakes from Cakeophony. Check out that colour!

2011-11-14T16:04:00.000-08:00

Look what I came home with from the Designer Makers Fair on the weekend. I can never exhibit as these fairs without buying the other stallholders work. I fell for Uncle Albert (as he is being called now). He was looking very festive with streamers and a mince pie in his saucer but the mince pie had to go. I think he is just fab and James Cochrane who made him is so clever and talented.

2011-11-07T15:30:00.000-08:00

I will be at this Designer Makers Fair on the 12th and 13th November. It will be at the Hampstead Town Hall, Haverstock Hill, London NW3 4QP.

It promises to be an excellent event with 22 different Designer Makers there showcasing their wares. As you can see I will be showing my little friends.

Admission is free and the times are 11am to 6pm on saturday 12th, 10am to 5pm on sunday 13th.

Hope to see you all there.

2011-11-07T15:16:00.000-08:00

Well, I've been in my shed for the last few weeks hatching out new friends to add to my collection. I'm showing a few of them here. I've now added rabbits to my obsession and a couple of sheep thrown in for good measure. I have such a good time making their little clothes. When I was little I used to make clothes for my teddy Buttercup Billy ( a teddy with gender confusion). I was given lovely fabrics from my aunt who was a dressmaker and used to construct beautiful evening dresses, so Buttercup Billy was the best dressed teddy in town with his/her green satin evening dress.

Hope you all like my new friends. PS. I still have Buttercup, hairless but still loved.

happy days at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Ally Pally

2011-10-19T05:17:00.000-07:00

What a lovely lot of people I had for my workshop at Ally Pally. The show was as wonderful as it always is. Lots of interesting things to see and to look at, not that I had any time to look except for a very quick visit to my favourite woolly people Piiku to buy some of their gorgeous wool. New colours this year, great excitement. I had so many nice people come to visit my stand, the first time I had taken a place of my own. Wonderful Nicky Bibby came to help out on the Friday and Saturday and of course I had my good friend Jill Denton who was sharing the stand with me this year.

My workshop was for felt inlay pictures using the delicious Felbi pre-felts, of which I am the UK supplier. The pieces my class made were truly gorgeous. Here is a sample of what they did.

I also had some of my needle felted friends with me and a few of them didn't come home with me. Here I am with Maurice Mouse, named by his new mummy who apparently couldn't live without him and contacted me afterwards for a sale.

New arrivals

2011-09-19T16:46:00.000-07:00

These are a couple of new needle felted animals that have found their way out of my wool bag. The rabbit has a lovely white fluffy tail and a very large carrot. The other is a Private Eye mouse keeping an eye on the felt toy box, making sure that all the creatures are behaving themselves.

I really must stop this obsession with mice!

Country Crafts at Hever Castle

2011-09-19T16:27:00.000-07:00

I spent Saturday in the lovely surroundings of Hever Castle, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn. What a beautiful place. I expected to see the Red Queen from Alice bursting out from the amazing topiary. There were Tudor dancers and singers and a recorder group playing. Very Elizabethan! The castle was used for location for the making of 'The other Boleyn girl'. I was there to demonstrate feltmaking and I had decided to do some needle felting. Difficult to talk to visitors and needle felt at the same time, could do some horrible damage to myself. Luckily I only stuck the needle in my finger once.

When I got home after a smashing supper at Annie Hawkins' house I found that the film was on the TV so of course I had to watch it.

Glove workshop with Cathy Unwin

2011-09-19T15:40:00.000-07:00

I had a fab day yesterday at the glove workshop that Cathy Unwin gave for Region 4. I cannot believe that the enormous templates that we used would ever shrink down to fit my hand snugly but it did. I was using my own special dyed wool which felts like a dream. I now have to think about what additions I should make to the gloves. Should I sew on beads, do some embroidery or what? Such decisions.

Workshop at Urban Yarns, Vancouver

2011-08-22T22:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the hottest day of the year in Vancouver. This was the day planned for the Creatures Workshop at Urban Yarns.
We had three air conditioners going and it was still hot!
There were twelve participants, most of whom had never made felt before except by knitting and then throwing it into a washing machine. They all did brilliantly and we even managed to squeeze in a lovely high tea at a very posh teashop a couple of doors down from the yarn store. Urban Yarns has the most delicious yarns, most of which I had never seen before. A mouth watering selection of the softest wools, mohairs, cashmeres and fine cottons. I wanted to try out everything but there aren't enough hours in the day to do the things that I am trying to finish at the moment.
Here are some pictures from the day. Everyone had a good time and the birds all flew home.

Beautiful Vancouver

2011-08-22T22:20:00.001-07:00

Beautiful Vancouver. At her best in the summer sunshine. Here are some images taken from an exceptionally nice restaurant on Granville Island. This is an exciting area of Vancouver with many artist and crafts galleries, a wonderful food market and eclectic clothes shops surrounded by a marina of fancy boats. Here also is another image from the city.

Wooly Canadians

2011-08-20T21:11:00.000-07:00

By a serendipitous chance of fate I happened to stumble over a store in the Mount Pleasant area of Vancouver that got my senses buzzing. Just walking into Cara Birkland's store Birkland Bros. Wool Ltd had me sniffing the air recognising all those lovely sheepy smells that Handweavers Studio in Walthamstow used to smell of.
Cara is the 3rd generation owner of this historic store from 1939. She welcomed me with open arms and proudly took me to see her fantastically large carding machine that was brought out from the UK.
I had come to buy some felting needles for the workshop that I am giving on Sunday 21st at Urban Yarns in Vancouver. Why wasn't I doing a workshop for Cara's store she wanted to know. When I told her I hadn't known of it she made me promise to come back another time to run some workshops for her. So Vancouver, you had better watch out, I will felt the city.
Here are some pictures of the store with Cara and Eri and one of Cara with the carding machine.
Her website is www.VancouverWoolShop.com and has all wooly needs including spinning wheels and looms and everything in between.

The amazing Mary Ellen Frank

2011-08-19T22:18:00.000-07:00

Strolling through Juneau on an a mid August afternoon I happened upon a sign for a doll museum. This was on the first floor of a building tucked away in a side street.

I climbed the stairs and followed the sign and found myself in the workshop of Mary Ellen Frank who is a doll-maker extraordinaire. Mary Ellen makes dolls, but not just ordinary dolls, these are perfect representations of Northern Native Americans. She makes to commission, portrait dolls which are now in numerous private collections and museums worldwide. Everything she makes is perfect in detail and scale and her people are correct to the smallest detail including any physical differences there may be.
Here are some of her dolls and clothes made for the dolls.
Please visit her website www.auntclaudiasdolls.com www.maryellenfrank.com and http://www.juneauartists.com/MEF/

Ice, ice and more ice

2011-08-19T21:59:00.000-07:00

Alaska is big! And i have only seen a tiny fraction of it. But what fabulous sights. Glaciers 400 ft high, icebergs so blue that you cannot believe they are real and settlements only reachable by air or sea.
We visited Sitka, Juneau, Skagway and Katchekan. Sitka was a busy place with some very cute little houses. Juneau is the State capital. Amazing really considering that there are no roads in or out and can only be reached by boat or air. Skagway was a busy place thriving in summer with all the visitors but deserted in winter except for the local doctor and supermaket.
Here are a selection of images from these trips.

The wonders of the Frozen North

2011-08-19T19:04:00.000-07:00

Wow! I have always wanted to be Anchored out in Anchorage (as Michelle Shocked sung) however it was only a fleeting visit to Anchorage and it was pretty grey, cold and rainy. I was actually anchored in Seward a 4 hour train ride away. Seward is delightful with cute house, boats and planes everywhere. Surrounded by mountains, this is where the cruise ships go from and it was where our cruise started on it's journey through the Inner Passage down to Vancouver.
A wonderful trip with amazing sites along the way. Here are just a few of the magical images along the way.
This is the view from the train on the journey to Seward.

2011-08-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

What are you all doing on Bank Holdiay Monday? Well, if you have nothing going on why don't you come along to Lauderdale House in Highgate Hill, North London to the 30th anniversary of the Lauderdale House Craft Fair. Lots of nice things for sale, nice cafe and some musical entertainers. Open all day. Lets hope the weather is nice. Here are some of my friends who will be there with me.

2011-08-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

Well, holiday time is here at last and I am off to the frozen north. I am off to Canada and although Vancouver is not going to be in the minuses when I am there I will be going North to Alaska. Flying up to Anchorage, a place I have always wanted to visit, and then on a cruise down through the Hubbard Glacier and on to the Inside Passage finishing at Vancouver where I am giving a workshop for Urban Yarns www.urbanyarns.ca We are going to be making my crazy birds. Check out this picture of some of my Felted Friends.

2011-08-01T10:27:00.000-07:00

AT LAST!!!
I have joined the 21st century. I have a Felt Better Facebook page, name felt-better, and now I am officially a Twit. My Twitter name is feltyfriend so I hope that some of you out there will be 'tweeting' me from time to time. I have fought shy of being so available but that is really just silly. I need to be 'out there' to ensure that feltmaking can become even more available. Please check out my Facebook page and maybe even become my friend so that you can see all the things that are happening in my felty world.

2011-07-18T16:02:00.001-07:00

Well the last lesson was today, the last of the 10 week course I have been running in the slightly grungy craft workshops off the Holloway Road. Maybe a bit grubby but a great space nonetheless.

My lovely group of students brought in their felt work and their portfolios to show. We oohed and aahed over the lovely hats and smart berets and all the extra bits that they had done at home. I hope I have inspired them to carry on producing such great work. Here is a picture of some of the work and also a picture of my group. In case any of you reading this are interested a new 10 week course will be starting on September 12th every monday until November 14th. Just visit my website and drop me a line.

2011-07-02T03:47:00.000-07:00

Went to the New Designers Show at the Islington Design Centre on thursday. Walking back to the station I saw this sight. The cat's name is Bob and he belongs to a really nice Big Issue seller who 'pitch' is just outside Angel Station. Bob is just like a dog, walks on a lead, sits when told and wags his tail when he's happy. A lovely cat. If you are in the area stop and say hello and buy a copy of the Big Issue. It'll help Bob and his man.

2011-07-02T03:36:00.000-07:00

This is the finished piece inspired by Hundertwasser, hanging in my dining room at home. It is 60cm by 1m. I think I will tackle a smaller one next time.

2011-07-02T03:11:00.000-07:00

Back from Latvia last week. I had a fantastic time at the workshop of Karoliina Arvilommi and Rod Welch. I love Karoliina's work and have never been to Riga so it was the perfect opportunity. Ilona Vasilevska arranged and organised everything. She lives in Riga, about 15 km away from the venue which was a detached villa with enough bedrooms to fit in all 12 participants. We were from the UK, Holland, Belarus, Riga and Russia. We worked very hard, it rained a lot but we all had a wonderful time. Rod first talked to us about Karoliina and his work and then told us to forget everything we ever knew about making felt. I don't think we quite knew what to expect but by the end of the 5 days we had all made our samples and finished our main piece and also managed to get in a bit of Riga sightseeing. We also went to an amazing house in Jurmala which is a seaside resort near to Riga. The house was called the House of the White Dragon and was like something out of the Brothers Grimm fairy stories, surrounded by carved wooden creatures and animals which I am sure came alive at night. Can't wait to go back there!

Karoliina and Rod were extremely patient and helped us all to complete all pieces in time. Some of us (me in particular) bit off more than they could chew and insisted on making pieces too big, but I needed it for a particular place in my house so that's the size it had to be. Despite panicking about it not being finished/dry enough to take home all was well and I didn't have to fly home wearing all my clothes at once as I had a soggy heavy mess in my suitcase (which I would have done if it had been necessary).

Now the piece is home and hanging proudly in my dining room. I think it looks really good. But then I am biased.

2011-07-02T02:49:00.000-07:00

It's July already and I have neglected my Blog.

This is slightly understandable as I have a new addition to the family. Amelie Rose arrived on June 1st, a sister for Joshua. She is beautiful and my first granddaughter so now I am busy knitting pink things. Joshua, I think, would have rather had a combine harvester or a bulldozer with big grab hands but the choice wasn't his.

2011-03-08T02:49:00.000-08:00

My felting workshops are going well. I have good bookings and my students come from all over. I decided that I would like to take the teaching further and so I designed a 10 week felting course that covers all the fundamentals of feltmaking and gives a very good overview of all the techniques. This course starts on May 9th in my Highgate, North London workshop. If any of you reading this are interested please go to my website www.feltbetter.com for details or email me on suepearl@me.com

My workshops are travelling too and on March 25th and 26th I am in Oxford at The Jam Factory running a Beginners and an Improvers workshop. If you are interested look at www.thejamfactoryoxford.com website.

I will also be at the Stitch & Craft Show at Olympia this month from 17th March to 20th March. Maybe I will see some of you there, please come and say hello. My stand is under the banner 'Felt like sisters'.

2011-03-08T02:34:00.000-08:00

So now for the felting bit. It seems that a lot has been happening in my felting world as well as family life. I spent seven weeks in Australia over Christmas without being able to do any textile stuff at all and then came home raring to go, but the cold has kept me away from my 10ft by 6ft shed (sorry no metric yet) in the garden. However I have been tempted out there as the snowdrops began to emerge from the frozen ground.

One of the things I disliked was needle felting. I don't know why. Maybe it's the needle stick wounds that my hands are covered with, but I have decided that I have to suffer for my art. The trick is to keep my eyes focused on what I am doing and not be distracted by that sweet little robin singing to me from the tree outside my shed, or the helicopter circling for the third time up above me.

It all started with a mouse, a little mouse in my new kitchen. I thought I had managed to seal up all holes, cracks, crannies etc but I hadn't realised that the plumber had made a whacking great hole in my kitchen wall from my utility room and not filling it in.

The little mouse came in, liked what he saw and decided to stay. How long he had been there is anyone guess but much as I like mice (and I do, I do) I decided that my new kitchen was not the place to make his home. We tried to catch it with tempting peanut butter and cheese but he managed to lick it off and scarpered. The hole was filled in and the mice went or maybe it was the other way around.

This must have set up something in my brain because soon I was hatching out these little guys using the dreaded needle felting technique. And now I'm getting to like it more.

2011-03-08T02:23:00.001-08:00

I should be ashamed of myself!

How can I have a blog and not write anything.

In my defence though I can say that a lot of my year has been taken up with new arrivals and refurbishing my home. All that is done and dusted although my newest grandchild is so gorgeous that I have to include a picture of him a couple of weeks old being bathed in the kitchen sink. My mother would never have approved!

2010-08-26T17:22:00.000-07:00

Bullied by the Red Cross

If you visit my website and think that it looks a bit different these days from the last time you looked at it this is because I WAS BULLIED BY THE RED CROSS.

It was in May this year when I received the first email. It was from someone using just their first name and telling me that I was in danger of contravening the Geneva Convention, breaking International Law and putting the purity of the symbol of the Red Cross in danger.

Now I just dismissed it as a joke email but the emails continued and I was getting annoyed. Firstly because of the good people of Britain who had given their hard earned cash to just causes such as the Red Cross, who were now wasting it by employing web crawlers to check out ‘misuse of the symbol’. And secondly as I had my website for the last eight years and nothing had been said until now, why suddenly was I putting the Red Cross in danger? The person who had contacted me continued with her emails, couched in the nicest possible way, suggesting that maybe I would like to change the logo/colour/shape? When I checked out the link she had sent me to the Red Cross website and the ‘reporting of misuse’ page I surmised that what they were after was a fee for using the symbol.

Well, the correspondence went all the way to the International Lawyer of the Red Cross and at this point I began to take the situation seriously. I consulted a Lawyer who specialised in copyright issues (many thanks to you Joel) who agreed with me that the whole thing was ridiculous but also told me the price I would have to pay if action was taken against me by the Red Cross. A very physical price, a fine between £2,500 and £5,000 would have been the outcome if their case had been proved. A step too far I decided. Although principles are involved here and I refuse to be bullied, money is hard to make and easy to spend.

The outcome is my logo designed by my daughter, two plasters covered in red fabric with the words FELT BETTER printed over to symbolise how making things with your hands makes you feel better, has now become green, purple being too close to red. I hope I won’t now be sued by the Pharmacists organisation for using the green cross. I suppose I can only say ‘Watch this space’.

www.feltbetter.com

A little bird told me.............

2010-08-21T02:55:00.000-07:00

I am upside down again.

I have travelled to Sydney, Australia to see my daughter, son in law and gorgeous grandson Oliver. There are always great things to do in Sydney and I went to visit one of my favourite places, the Gallery of New South Wales. There is a great exhibition on there at the moment which is called 'Paths to Abstraction' which shows how the modernist movement came about through the paintings of Whistler, Seurat, Matisse, Picasso, Braque and Mondrian to name but a few.

The exhibition was very well laid out and informative. It was filled with schoolgirls being given the culture thing on a friday afternoon.

I had some tea in the coffee shop at the gallery, some chai which came with honey in a cup and hot milk. It's a good thing that I like my chai without milk and sweetener as the photo shows what happened. I though they were so cute I didn't have the heart to shoo them away.

Cheeky little things!

2010-07-26T02:31:00.001-07:00

Just back from a lovely weekend in the Cotswolds visiting my old haunts and seeing old and dear friends. Spent friday meeting up with Seb and Odette, Seb is my website designer. We had a meal at my favourite restaurant The Old Butchers in Stow. This was after seeing the 5 o'clock performance of Giffords Circus, a wonderfully quirky show a bit like visiting a parallel universe. It's a circus without the animal element apart from three beautiful horses, two ponies, a chicken and a goose. Here are some photos from the show. Have a look at their website www.giffordscircus.com

2010-07-22T15:51:00.000-07:00

I have been very lazy in keeping up my blog but I have been involved in refurbishing my house. So I have been spending my time with wallpaper and fabric selections, lighting layouts and kitchen planning, bathroom designs and choosing tiles and finishes. At last the job is coming to the end and the house is almost ready for the carpet layers.

I managed to slip away to Italy and escape from the builders for a week, for the opening of the wonderful felt exhibition in Prato. The exhibition is titled 'The Climate is changing' and it was a very impressive selection of the best pieces sent in to be judged. The International Feltmakers Association in the UK and Feltrosa in Italy were the organisers of the competition which drew in contributions from all over the world. The exhibition is now travelling to Germany and will be in the UK in April 2011 in Huddersfield to begin with.

Feltrosa ran some very good workshops to compliment the exhibition and I had decided to stay on and take advantage of these. I attended a great bag workshop given by Judit Pocs and came home with a very snazzy bag of which I am very proud.

There were lots of wonderful workshops going on and a sunday market for supplies and felt work for sale. We were given tremendous hospitality and it was lovely to meet up with feltmakers of all over the world.

I'm putting up some pictures here of my bag, fellow felters showing off there work and some of the lovely work for sale in the sunday market.

2010-04-12T03:17:00.000-07:00

I have just given a creature workshop to a very nice group of people. There was Ann and Paul from Bedfordshire and Mae from south west London and Hadewych from Weybridge. All but Mae (who is a serial feltmaker, or maybe I should say cereal as she is delightfully crackers) were total felt beginners. But they all managed the challenge of constructing and felting their own very individual felt birds. I can't wait to see what they make if they come to a four legged creature workshop.

A good time was had by one and all and a lot of chocolate biscuits were consumed.

2010-03-18T16:08:00.000-07:00

Every dog has his day!
There I was, driving along, minding my own business and out of the corner of my eye I saw this giant dog or is it a car!?! I had to pull over and take this picture. It was outside the Village Vet in East End Road in East Finchley. Very cute!

2010-03-17T03:58:00.000-07:00

March 13th and 14th. The Contemporary Textile Fair at Teddington, south west London held in the lovely (but a little chilly) Landmark Arts centre. It was a great opportunity to see some of the best textile artists today. So.. lots of lovely textiles and lots of visitors although that does not always result in lots of sales. However it was really nice to chat textiles to 'the sisters' and show the visitors what we were made of.

I loved the way people came wearing their items whether it was a special scarf, coat, bag or some wonderful knitted construction. Here are a couple of images from the show.

2010-02-27T04:28:00.000-08:00

I have just given a Creatures workshop to a lovely class of 10/11 year olds at Tibberton Primary School in Shropshire. Their teacher had found my book and got the children interested in my methods. They raised the money for the cost of the workshop by various fund-raising activities in the school and the local community. This touched me more than I can say.

Their teacher had ordered the wool and great excitement was generated as they opened the bags and the coloured wool fell out. They worked very hard and gave up half their lunch break, and although they didn't have time to wet felt their creatures (that will be done with the help of their teachers) they managed to create the most wonderful bunch of whimsical birds that they call the Tweetures. Here is a picture of the work in progress and one of the final line up.

Hope you all like them.

2010-02-18T03:45:00.000-08:00

These feet were made for walking.

And that's just what I did having to leave beautiful Australia for cold rainy/snowy London. Although I didn't walk 500 miles and then 500 more, like the Proclaimers sang, and I arrived back courtesy of Virgin Atlantic and Sir Richard's lovely staff, I feel all of the 12,000 mile distance.

Now it's back to normal life and although I love what I do a bit of sun would make it a lot better. I am running my monthly feltmaking classes again starting with a Beginners workshop on February 21st with an advanced class on March 21st. If any of you out there want to learn or explore further feltmaking skills then get in touch with me or look at my Workshop diary on my website www.feltbetter.com

I am at the Contemporary Textile Fair 2010 at the Landmark Arts Centre on 13th to 14th March www.landmarkartscentre.org for more information and opening times. If you visit then come and see me.

2010-01-12T05:32:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of my friend India Flint and me at the Gallery of New South Wales indulging in a little light refreshment. She was in Sydney just before Christmas and came to stay with me. She is now off on her wanderings in the Very Northern Hemisphere, off on an expodition to the North Pole as Winnie-ther-Pooh would say.

2010-01-12T05:18:00.000-08:00

I am lucky enough to be in Sydney while the Sydney Festival is on. Each year that I am in Australia I always seem to miss out but this time I am trying to get to see as much as possible. Tonight I went to the see one of the most amazing visual and musical events I have ever seen. It was the Manganiyar Seduction and it was truly wonderful. The Manganiyars are a caste of musicians from the Thar Desert of Rajasthan. They all have the surname of Khan and they sing songs of love and ballads about Kings and songs marking special occasions such as births and marriages and other delightful things. The set was like a jewelled box for treasures with many compartments. Each compartment held a musician or singer and lit up when its inhabitant was performing. A true spectacle.

2010-01-05T17:24:00.000-08:00

Three months is a long time to be without something for my fingers to do. I knew I would feel like this, twitchy, without something woolly between the fingers, so I bought out with me some crochet hooks and a small assortment of interesting yarns that I had secreted away in my yarn store for such a time as this. I found myself constructing strange tube like protuberances and realised that hands were beginning to form themselves off the crochet hook. This is not a new departure as I had hatched an 8 foot high edifice some way back in the '70's when I was sick of making matinee jackets. This lady was loved a lot by my then small children. She ended her days in various positions dressed in 1930 hats and a cigarette holder stuck in her mouth (?) in the front window of my dear departed neighbour Marsha Gardiner. She was a wonderful woman and a dear friend who took a fancy to my creation. She startled many a passer-by.

These newly constructed hands have taken on a life of their own and who knows where they will take me. I think at the moment they remind me of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Watch this space

2009-12-31T05:53:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to everybody.

We have just had New Years Eve in Sydney with the usual spectacular firework show. Here is a little taste of it. I'm off to bed now but the rest of Sydney is still partying.

2009-12-17T03:23:00.000-08:00

The video was put together with the help of the very nice people at the Apple store in Sydney. My trainers were Peter and Max who have such an amazing knowledge of what can be done on a Mac. I have been taking advantage of my One to One lessons that I bought along with my lovely Mac Pro. It's amazing what fun you can have with a few photos and some buttons to press. I hope you all like the finished product.

The Three Tenors

2009-12-15T19:44:00.000-08:00

2009-12-06T04:00:00.000-08:00

Melbourne December 5 2009

I am at the last meeting of the year of the Victorian Feltmakers in Melbourne. They invited me to come and talk about my work and about the IFA. A lovely group from all over Victoria. I was staggered to hear that there were over 200 members just in Victoria. These r very fine felt makers and so they should be with all that lovely Australian wool available.

2009-11-08T10:03:00.000-08:00

Just finished my last workshop before leaving for Australia.

We had a felt slipper day with Maggie, the serial felter, Roz who will only use black and white, Theresa and Vivienne, who had the day as a birthday present from Theresa.

We made a last of our feet using plastic bags and brown vinyl tape and then drew our feet onto brown paper before making a plastic resist. The slippers all came out beautifully. Here is a picture of them. It will be twinkle toes (and cosy toes) for Christmas.

2009-11-01T10:09:00.000-08:00

I have just come home after an exhausting two day workshop with the wonderful Jill Denton. She gave a workshop on making a nuno felt waistcoat or vest. We had participants from as far afield as Mongolia, Siberia and Canada.
It was a wonderful two days. We laid out our chosen fabrics after we had all made patterns with Jill's help based on her lovely designs. It's quite a worrying process as the pattern has to be 50% bigger than you want the finished item to be. It's all well and good if you are sylphlike and pixie faced but some of us (and I have to include myself in this category) are well endowed in certain areas and therefore our patterns were frighteningly big.
Once we had got our fibres down on the fabric it was time to start the felting process so we were swimming in a sea of soapy water. Just when we thought that these big baggy pieces of fabric were never going to shrink the magic happened and we all finished with our chosen designs beautifully shrunk and felted. I for one will be wearing mine on the flight to Australia. With any luck the air crew will be so staggered at the beauty (the waistcoat not me) that I will be whisked up to first class.

Here is a picture of the group at the end of a long weekend. Feltmakers rule OK!

www.jilldenton.co.uk

2009-10-30T07:42:00.000-07:00

This gorgeous photo was taken by my lovely husband Ray in our garden. He has become besotted with autumn leaves and drives around going 'look at those colours there, look at those colours here." In fact he does go on a bit too much about it. But he is right, the colours this year have been fabulous. This is a photo of the Acer we have in our garden, such a surprise that it was going to turn into a sunset!

She's leaving home

2009-10-27T06:04:00.000-07:00

The late autumn weather is turning in. The season of mellow fruitfulness is all but past. The clocks have changed and soon it will time for sitting around the log fires listening to the winds and rain outside.

But for me I will follow the sun. Three months in the southern hemisphere. I'm off to Sydney to babysit and catch up on my nursery rhyme recitations. I am going to visit the Victoria Feltmakers while I am in Australia and catch up on all the gossip with my mate India Flint. I am available to give workshops out there if anyone wants me. Three months without a bit of wooly tops between my fingers is too long. So if anyone on that side of the equator is reading this 'just call on me and I'll be there with love from me to you.'

See you on the far side.

Improvers workshop

2009-10-26T07:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I gave an Improvers workshop. Although some of my students were completely new to feltmaking they all produce some wonderful work. We made some very pictorial felt using an upside down method used by the Turkish felt carpet makers. Then we went on to talk about nuno felt and to experiment with different fabrics and fibres. I finished up with a felt flower demo over an orange. Here is some of the work that my students produced.

2009-10-26T04:07:00.001-07:00

Just had a lesson at the Apple Store at Brent Cross with Grace. We had such fun editing a film clip I made earlier. And then we published it on You Tube. Crazy really. Where will this advance in technology take us? We will probably evolve into beings with video cameras implanted in our heads so that we can record life as it happens. Now there's a scary thought.

Check out my first effort at You Tube. It's called In the garden. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7_R9A1b1dY

Suepearlative jottings

2009-10-26T02:22:00.000-07:00

These are the first entries into my blog. It's very exciting to be joining the blogging generation. What would my mother have thought, all those times I tried to hide my diary from prying eyes and now I'm publishing on the web for the whole world to see. Crazy really!

I hope to be adding things that move me, things that excite me, things that please my eye and wonderful things created in my workshops by my students.