A Mini Maker Fair
This week I went to a Mini Maker Fair at one of the local universities. I went representing my Guild with my friend Elizabeth. there were some their guilds there but also lots of interesting science. There was R2D2. They were using him to talk bout robots.
There was a 3D printer, making some parts for something. I think it could make a cool spindle.
This one they were have in the computer make picture using pointillism. they seemed to be writing it as it went.
There was wood burning, print making and violin making.
And a fun one, Banana Piano. the size of the banana didn’t matter. They had hopped that they could line them up smallest to biggest but no luck. You play by tapping the bananas.
An now Us.
This is Elizabeth at her riged heddle loom and me teaching some kids show to make tube beads.
The beads are easy and fast to make. Just wrap some wool around 5 pencils, wet and roll in you hands. As it shrinks you remove pencils until you are down to the last one. When it’s tight around the last one, that’s it you have bead. The kids like it because its a bit noisy too with the pencils clacking away. Well it wasn’t just the kids. We had lots of adults wanting to make them too.
Do you know any other fast easy ways to demonstrate wet felting?
22 thoughts on “A Mini Maker Fair”
What a great day! … never knew about making beads this way – now I’ll have to give it a go – thanks!
Thanks, give it a go it is fun and easy.
Must show my grands this great way of making beads!
They will love it, it’s fun and noisy.
Those handmade fairs are right up my alley. So glad to hear the handmade movement is alive and well in Canada. I had forgotten all about the tube beads made with pencils. That was a clever way to show how felt is made, much more dramatic than working a flat piece of felt. Thanks for sharing the fun!
It was interesting seeing the cool stuff. It was fun meeting people and making beads. It’s not as messy as some other wet felting options.
Looks like fun. I took the yurt to one of these several years ago. We made flat pieces of felt in a bag. I think the pencil beads would be quicker. But we had lots of people interested.
We did have fun. Another nice thing about it is it didn’t take much room to do. I kept control over the water bucket so it wasn’t messy.
What a fun fair! The pencil idea was a good one to give people a taste of felting.
Thanks Marilyn. They really got the idea of it shrinking.
That looks like a great fari, Ann 🙂
I like the pencil beads. I’ve been thinking that if I do the MakeFest again this year I’m going to use some kind of props to demo the felt layout. I was tidying yesterday and found a bag of wool tops from discarded demo layouts that I never got around to carding up.
The beads were fast and easy. Might be less stress full then doing squares. Give you time to chat with everyone.
The beads are great Ann and a good introduction to felting. I’d love to have visited the fair – so much wonderful stuff to see!
It was fun. There is a bigger one I always miss. I hope I get there next year.
This must have been fun, Ann. Excellent idea on how to introduce felting to children, These tubes seem to be easier to make than felt balls. I need to try this out myself.
Thanks It was fun.The adults loved it too. Give it a try.
It’s excited to see another felters took part in the Maker Fest! It’s such an interactive way to share felting fun to more people! Participated last Summer in Toronto but with needle felting. You idea with wet felting sounds great & easy to handle with the water too! Easier than my last WF demo “wrapping wool about piping”.
Introducing people to wool and felting is lots of fun. Give the beads a try. when they are dry you can cut them in to smaller beads.
Cool beans Ann!
Looks like a lot of fun¡
Thanks, it is fun. Give it a try
Wet felting and high tech – I like the mix!
It was very interesting.