You win some you lose some!

So, I only made two sales at BVAC, and managed negative profit by purchasing a lovely woven artwork by Jill Brose! Well, it was worth it :-) and it looks lovely on display with felt balls inside.

Pop up shop!

Im selling a few things as part of the QSWFA Felters stall at the BVAC pop up shop this weekend, a great place to do some Christmas shopping! 

If you do buy something I've made I'd love to hear from you - I put tags on each item with my blog address (as it seemed a bit impersonal just to put a price tag!), please just comment on this post ;)  

QSWFA open day 2014

I woke up with a start this morning, it was light in the room - but it shouldn't have been if my alarm had gone off when it was meant to! Fortunately I made it in time to help set up for open day an hour before we opened, just enough time to get our Felt group stall set up. The sun shone, the crowds came and we had a really fabulous day, a busload even arrived with a group from up the coast. Short workshops and a fashion show through the day were drawcards, and there were lots of gorgeous things on sale. Lovely feltmaker Phillipa Rooke was clearing out her stash, and now significantly added to mine!  Here are some photos of our Felt stall, very creative work by Jonna, Lili, Kathy and I also had some felt knick knacks that sold well for my first ever sale :-)

BVAC pop up fashion show - autumn colours and eco-dye

I went along to the Brisbane Visual Arts Community (BVAC) 'pop up shop' today as they were having a fashion show by some of the artists selling at the event.  The artists in the fashion show were Pam Hovel, Anne Leon, Gina Mastio and Mfanwy Stirling, who are also showing/selling their work this month at 'Crossing Borders' - Gallery 159 at The Gap, Brisbane.  Here are some of the photos I took of their wonderful creations! 

 

 My favourite was this white dress, sorry I didn't make a note who designed it which is very remiss... I do remember it being over $900 though!  

and here are the lovely artists....

As you can see above, 'eco-dying', popularised by India Flint, is very much still all the rage, with some amazing work on show, including Lili Haas' exquisite prints that I always admire.  So, in the end I couldn't resist making a purchase from fellow QSWFA Nat Billing, who makes beautiful eco-dye prints on all manner of surfaces, in this case a pair of leggings!! She loves the idea of memories and time in art, for her 'eco dying is the memory of the moment when leaves and surface come together in perfect conditions'.  She has an online shop on Etsy called Memory Cabinet.  A walk in the botanic gardens in the sunshine after the show brought to life all the wonderful images and imprints of nature that the artists had captured in their art (and on my new leggings!).

Anzac weekend scarf

A three day weekend and a whole day without any plans... out came the wool!  First I had a flick through some old Felt magazines for a bit of inspiration, and in Issue #1 I revisited a great article on 'Extreme Texture with Myfanwy Stirling', by Michelle Moriarty.  Myfanwy is the daughter of well-known Australian feltmaker Polly Stirling, credited with developing the Nuno felting technique.  The focus of the article is mainly on the use of small resists that are later cut out to form colourful slashes in garments.  But I was intrigued by a clever 'bow' pattern formed with a resist that was pictured without instructions... well, I love to try and figure out how things are done!

I made one of my 'infinity' scarves incorporating the 'bow', I've made quite a number of these scarves now, many of which have been given to friends and family!  I continue to experiment and hopefully improve my design, its also a good project to try out new textures and colours like this, here I also added some blue goat hair curls.

More nautical necklaces!

I've really got into making these knotted nautical necklaces now from my hand felted cords!  Trying out different designs from the book I've had since I was little.  A friend requested a black one, not too sure whether it works in black though so I've been trying out some different shades.

Pods Pods Pods!

I have so many things to post, I need to catch up with myself!  I'm still lagging behind from the 12th Southern Hemisphere Felting Convergence that I went to last August!  The tutor that travelled the furthest to be there was Anna Gunnarsdóttir from Iceland, so it was a real honour to be able to learn her unique pod technique.  She makes exquisite magical organic forms, often lighting them up inside to give the felt a gentle glow.  Below is one of her pieces that was in the 'Feltportation' exhibition that accompanied the convergence.

Below is my effort, the photo was taken while it was still wet and it seemed better to dry it up on end.  I used a gorgeous rare-breed wool batt (not corriedale, but similar), pictured behind, that was hand-dyed using natural Eucalyptus leaves!  It smelt divine, like a forest in summer. I bought it at the convergence from a lovely lady called Tabitha of Tabandy Textiles, who has a smallholding on the wilderness coast (near Bega) and dyed the wool herself.  It was the first time I had worked with a batt, it was a revelation, so much better for 3D work than laying out the wool, the edges bound together seamlessly and the texture is amazing.  I added some raw mohair fleece for extra texture and shine.  I hope to make another one of these if I can remember how to do it next Tuesday at my local Felting group (QSWFA).  

In the photo below you can see the colours and the mohair texture better in the light.  It is next to a little pot I made in a short workshop with Anita Larkin at the convergence, who is a great feltmaker from the Illawarra and was the chief organizer for the convergence.  She has a wonderful technique for making 3D objects without a resist.