Last week I taught my final workshop of the year. It was Nuno Felt Scarf. I had 8 students. Previously, I have been restricted to 6. The old class space at the guild was a snug fit with 6, but since some rearranging of space, I can now teach 8 students comfortably.
This was a fun class; one lady had bought 5 spaces to surprise her family with a Christmas workshop. They had no idea what they were doing until they arrived. They were all game, but I did see some scepticism there too.
I started with a little more explanation than usual to help the surprised students get a better idea of what we were going to do. I had lots of samples to show them to help decide how they wanted their scaves to look. Then I explained all the embellishment fibres. It’s a lot to take in when you’ve just started thinking about it. Most students have been thinking about it for a while and have an idea of what they want to do.
They picked scarf blanks and then base colours. There was a lot of back and forth to pick wool colours, and then the embellishment fibres. Everyone was encouraging and helpful with colour choices and what goes together. All colours go together, just in case you didn’t know. I always enjoy watching everyone work out colours and often working up the courage to be bold and add all the extra bits of colour they want.
After everyone gets their scarves wet, it’s time for lunch.
Usually, lunch is a bring-your-own, or there are a couple of fast-food places around. However, the student who had bought her family had decided to provide everyone with lunch. It was very tasty, cold cuts, cheese, salad and bread. Then there were homemade cookies and fruit for dessert. I felt very spoiled.
After lunch, they moved on to rubbing and rolling.
I am sure some of them thought it was never going to work. Then they noticed it was really shrinking. Then, when it was time to finish fulling, it was so fast, and they could hardly believe they were done. They were all very happy, and there was talk of doing another class; it was so much fun.
