December 29th is called Tick Tock Day. It is a reminder that there are only 2 days before the new year. It is traditionally when the prior year is reviewed for lessons learned and achievements met, lists are made for the coming year whether it be new year resolutions or goals and dreams that you long to fulfill. So it seems a good day for me to look back over what we have accomplished here at The Felting and Fiber Studio and what I have managed creatively in 2015.

At the Studio, we started off the year with a focus on color. All of the Studio Challenges related to color this year. Thanks to everyone who participated in the color challenges and we hope you learned a little more about color wheels, color schemes and how to blend different colors of wool to achieve the exact color you wanted or needed.

We were very proud to begin offering online classes here at the studio. We had several very successful Wet Felting for Beginners classes and I offered the first module of a series of classes Nuno Felting with Paper Fabric Lamination. In 2016, the Wet Felting for Beginners is available at your convenience and I will be starting my first Experimental Screen Printing on Felt class on January 22nd. I plan on offering the Nuno Felting with Paper Fabric Lamination in the spring too.

Our number one viewed post for 2015, was the wonderful tutorial on making slippers by Nada V. The other posts in the top 5 were Eco Printing Onto a Silk Chiffon Scarf by Terriea Kwong, Ice Dyeing – A Quick How To, Making a Cat Cave and our page Wool and Other Animal Fibers. So you can see that posts from our forum members and guest artists are very popular. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the site this year – we appreciate it.

Now on to a few things that I created myself this year. It seems like all I did was work on my online class videos and PDF’s. I know I spent a lot of my time with that for sure. But I did make a few things.

There was dyeing fabric, dyeing fiber and playing with Gotland locks. I made some slippers, cat toys, notebook covers, phone sleeves and drink sleeves. I played in my sketchbooks all year long and made one sketchbook that was a study in shades of green. With my local surface design group, we played with screen printed rust, layering synthetic fabrics, mixed media paintings, silk paper making, making silk screens and soy wax combined with shibori techniques. I started a new project with my friend Deb Stika using her designs for machine stitched samples which might become a book someday.

My friends and I self published a book called The Whitefish Fashion Collection and put on an exhibition of all the sketches and artwork included in the book in August.

This is one of the sketches that I recreated in stitch and colored pencil on fabric.

I also traveled a bit in 2015 including visiting Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and New York City. Both were inspirational in different ways.

I enjoyed assisting Gail Harker in a Level 1 Experimental Hand Stitch in Kalispell in June. It was a great group of ladies and we all had a wonderful session of stitching. We are planning a Level 1 Experimental Machine Stitch course in May of 2016 with more details to follow.

The year has been a busy one and I think next year will be the same. I always seem to have something on my plate. What do you have planned for next year? We would love to hear about it on the forum or if you have an idea for a guest post, please let us know. We are still looking for anyone who is interested in teaching an online course. We would love for you to submit a proposal for a class.

So Tick Tock, the year is coming to a close. We here at The Felting and Fiber Studio wish you a happy and creative, fiber filled new year.