April saw the International Feltmakers Association AGM in Bath. We had a wonderful four days attending all the different workshops, meeting up with old friends, viewing all the lovely work on show and finally having a splendid grand dinner on the final evening. Delegates turned up in some spectacular outfits, all felted of course.

I attended a workshop on making 18th century corsets, one of very interesting felt beads based on seeds and tree fruit and a needle felting foxes one with Jenny Barnett. My fox sits on my desk and stares at me. I was lucky enough to visit the Fashion Museum in Bath and get to touch some of the beautiful antique dresses in the store, with white gloves on of course.

Wow! So much has happened since I returned home from Australia.

A project in a school in Gloucestershire, the Stitch and Craft Show at Olympia where I ran some felting workshops. And that's only March. The Stitch and Craft Show was very good and I met some very nice people, some of who have since come on my felting workshops. Here is some of the work that was produced in my one hour taster workshops.

A conclusion

Well here I am, at the end of my extended stay in Australia. The only way to end a wonderful three months is....to drink a toast to the land of the upside down and all the lovely people I have met there. So here's the empty bottle...and it's the only sort that a good feltmaker should be drinking. So long Sydney, until the next time.

Correction

My daughter, on reading my latest blog entry, sent me an email to correct me. Apparently I am getting my southern highlands mixed up with my western suburbs. So.....it should have read...I took the train into the 'Shires', in the southern highlands. There Gemma, better now?

Old friends and new.

I have been having a wonderful time in the last few weeks of my time in Australia, taking the opportunity to meet up with old felting friends and new ones.
Discovering that Pam de Groot lived in the Blue Mountains which border the Sydney conurbation I contacted her and arranged to see her when she came into Sydney to put some of her new stock in the lovely New South Wales Crafts Guild shop here in The Rocks. We met for lunch and I had the chance to examine her work and talk felty things. I have written an article about her for the next issue of Felt Matters, the magazine of the International Feltmakers Association. Pam is coming to Europe later this year and will be giving a workshop in London for the IFA Region 4 members and friends.

Flushed with my success at managing to find other fellers I emailed Anita Larkin when I discovered that she lived quite close to Sydney. So on Tuesday morning last week I took the train into the 'Shires' (western suburbs of Sydney) to see Anita and two of her felting buddies from the Illawarra felting group.
Anita and her friends Eleanor Brash and Melinda Binkins. Our meeting place was a halfway point for Anita and I and was at the Hazelhurst Gallery in Gymea, a really nice community art centre with lovely spacious studios for workshops. I was quite envious!
Anita has a piece in the 'Climate is Changing' exhibition which is currently travelling around Britain after showing in Italy and Germany. I love her work, it's so quirky.

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

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

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....

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

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!!

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

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.