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Author: Shepherdessann

Autumn is always so busy

Autumn is always so busy

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Autumn seems to be crazy this year. I imagine it is crazy every year; I just forget how busy it is and schedule way too much to do. Two weeks ago I did a nunofelt class. So dying silk blank was necessary. This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving, so our last market for the regular season. It will be busy, as everyone wants goodies for Thanksgiving and to stock up to get them to the Christmas shows in mid-November. I booked a nuno scarf class for later this month, the first full week in November is our guild sale,  and then there is getting ready for the Christmas market sales. I think there is something else too. Oh yes, Microsoft Publisher is going to stop working, so I had to convert all those files to PDFs so I may be able to open them somewhere else.

Oh dear, it sounds like I am complaining, but I am not really. I prefer to be busy rather than not, but it does sneak up on you.

Anyway, what it means is I am mostly doing some finishing work and more soap. Nothing very exciting. Here are some pictures of small spirals I made. They are waiting for the grommet kit so I can add key chain ends to them, and I haven’t decided if I will add a little curly lock to the other end yet. Sorry, these are a bit raw. They were hanging to dry.

 

This is a screenshot of the grommet kit, as I don’t have them yet. It says they will be here tomorrow. I thought I had some, but they were odd little things for paper.

 

I made some more lantern covers. They have to have thier bottom ribbons, and my tag added to them. I would like to make some more, but I may be out of time.

 

And there is soap to make. I haven’t done that, so you can see an old picture.

 

P.S.

I went to my studio Sunday to do some finishing work. And………. ended up making 3 more simple covers. They are still wet, so no pictures yet. The two leaves are to add to the short white cover in the picture above.

 

 

Felted Lantern Workshop at Pinhey’s Point.

Felted Lantern Workshop at Pinhey’s Point.

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A couple of weeks ago, I did a class at Pinheys Point Historical Site. It is a beautiful site.

Rob Huntley image for Visit Pinhey’s Point web page.

We set up in what was the ballroom. The room is about the same size as my living and dining room. Not what I think of as a ballroom, but I guess there was enough room even with the big dresses. If you’re not dancing, you have to stand in another room.

They had lots of fun picking wool colours and silk. They were a great group; they listened carefully and asked good questions.

I love how they are all so different.

Here are a couple of group shots in front of the window. I shows you better how they will look with light in them. They will all lighten as they dry, too.

 

I always enjoy this class; it’s only half a day, but it gives such great results.

 

Don’t forget: registration for the expanded 3D resist (book resist) class is open. Class starts September 26, 2026

https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/classes/3d-multi-part-resist/

 

Registration for the expanded 3D Resist, aka a Book Resist, workshop is now open.

Registration for the expanded 3D Resist, aka a Book Resist, workshop is now open.

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Registration for the expanded 3D resist, aka a book resist, opens today, September 5, 2026. The class runs from September 26 to Oct 31 2026.  Cost: $75 Canadian, approx. $54 US, $46 Euro, $39 Pounds, $75 Aus, $90 NZ.

This is now a two part course. The first part will show you how to make, assemble and use a 3d book resist. It will guide you step by step from building the multi-part resist to the finished piece and give you the skills to continue on to more fun with sculptures.

The second part of this course will be on design and testing.  This will save you fibre, time, and frustration when things don’t go the way you thought they would. It will show you how to test different shapes and cutting methods without making multiple felt samples. You will be able to assemble and test the concept, testing multiple assembly and cutting techniques. Then you will be able to move on to making a felt piece with confidence.

Here is a link to the materials list. You probably already have most of it. Material List for 3D resist workshop

Please join me for this expanded workshop and have fun learning some new skills.

Register here: https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/classes/3d-multi-part-resist/

 

Here are some pieces other students have made:

Renee 3D with balloon
Fay Starfish
Fay, Red six-leafed book resist vessel

 

 

 

Making a Blue Bird Feeder

Making a Blue Bird Feeder

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The Ottawa Valley Weavers’ and Spinners’ Guild has an annual Sale and Exhibition. Every year there is a theme for the Exhibition.   This year and the next two years.  we are doing a section of the colour wheel. This year we are doing the blue section. We are taking it to the secondary colour on each side to give people the most scope to work with.

Wendy, the Coordinator of the Exhibition, also asked people to let her know if the piece was done in a class or was a class we teach. So, I made a blue bird feeder. It is a fun class. It is always more fun if it doesn’t have to fit anyone at the end.

I like to do a gourd shape, and with the blue theme, I used 4 shades of blue.

 

Then I picked out some of my blue handspun that has some sparkle in it. I created an all over random design that wrapped around onto the other side.

Then fixed the front so I could cut the hole without cutting the design.

You can see some of the yarn above the hole shifted while I was rolling. Impatience getting the better of me again. I may try to shift them a little with a felting needle.

these to great outside. My mother-in-law’s feeder was hanging outside for 3 years before the rope hanger broke. It was purple with orange locks. After 3 years, it was bluish grey from the sun. The chickadees in particular liked it.

Small Spiral Attempt 2

Small Spiral Attempt 2

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After the last less than successful attempt at making a small spiral, I thought I would try some prefelt. Here is the link to the last attempt. Small spiral fail

I have 2 kinds of prefelt. One is thin and almost transparent. The other is thick, and you can peel it into two layers if you want to.

I cut 3 circles from both types of prefelt. I also cut holes in the centres and a slit. You can really see the difference in thickness in this picture of the circles stacked together.

The green is very thin, so I just overlapped the ends of each circle and gave it a few jabs with my felting needle to hold it in place

The white is quite thick, so I split the ends, then cut one side off. I then overlapped the ends and needled them a little so they would stay in place.

I wet them and inserted the resists between the layers.

Then I tubbed them both for 5 min on each side.

5 min on each side seemed to be enough. They were stuck together and feeling more solid. They had shrunk a tiny bit.

I gently rolled them in my hands so they would full. I kept checking them. I didn’t want to turn them into felt balls or snakes.

They both had good shrinkage. I was worried about the hole in the centre getting too big, but they stayed about the same ratio to the outside circle.

 

They both turned out quite well.

 

I let them dry flat, and they hang about the same dry as wet. If I weighted them, they would stretch longer, but I like them like this.

My plan had been to add them to a beaded stick keychain like the ones with the sheep.

When I tried to add them to a beeded stick, they wanted to stick in between the beads, making it hard to get a nice spiral. I may try them without the beads, but I am wondering if I got some of just the keychain end part; they might just hang free with maybe a curly lock on the end.

Felted bag class

Felted bag class

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Last time you saw the bag I was making, as a sample for this class. The class was at https://www.forestcovefarm.ca/. It was lovely. It was outside, and it was quite hot, but not as hot as the next week. There were a couple of pop-up tents and lots of trees for shade. There is also their store that is air-conditioned, so we could cool down if needed.

Most of the pictures are quite blurry. I am having trouble with my camera not focusing. Near the end of the day, I did find out that if I zoomed out to .9 it would focus, so the final shots are better. I have been to the Apple store, and they are ordering me a new camera.

It was a great group, with a wide range in ages from late teens to retired.

Adding the colour to the ropes took longer than expected, but I was glad I made the cores for them.

Corinne sent me a few pictures of the day, so here I am teaching.

Here are the blurry shots of everyone’s bags before felting.

I seem to have missed one. There should be 8.

Last night Corinne from Forest Cove sent me a few pictures. She had a shot of the bag I missed.

 

After much rubbing and rolling and them all thinking nothing was happening, I had them check the bags against the resists, and they were very surprised at how much they had shrunk. This gave some more energy, and they were able to finish the fulling. I only managed 3 pictures of the finished bag. Everyone was in a hurry to pop into the store and get cool and do some shopping.

The grey and purple one was much better in person. And I suspect that the purple will show much more when it is dry. I am hoping some people will send me pictures of thier dry and finished bags. They had to add the handles after they were dry. I did get one, but my email seems to have eaten it. I sent them home with instructions on blocking them and drying them and some tips on blocking them more with a steam iron if they want to.

Everyone seemed happy, so I am happy. I think I will switch to a bag with a slit handle next time, as the rope handle took longer than expected. By my next blog post, I should have a new camera in my phone. Hopefully that means I will take better pictures.

Canada Day and Prepping for a Bag Class.

Canada Day and Prepping for a Bag Class.

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This last week, I have been preparing for a bag class I am teaching.  This is a beginner class, so they will be making rope handles. The ropes will then go through holes in the bag and be tied with a knot. This is a nice style and fairly easy, so they can concentrate on the bag part.

Please excuse the pictures; I adjusted them as best I could. The light bounce from the fluorescent lights on the white wool and the plastic was terrible.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time on the ropes. To that end, I have been making snakes to act as the inside of thier ropes. I use a pretty standard layout, a row of wool singled across and then a line of wool at 90 degrees at the near side to roll around.

I roll it up dry and work it dry for a while to shrink it before adding water. If I go slow and gentle, I can get a nice, smooth snake. In this case, I am not being that careful because they will all get a final layer of coloured wool to match thier bags.

Adding a final layer of colour around the finished but wet ropes worked really well. The final layer was easy to wrap tightly around the core. I didn’t have to worry about “cracks” or “fissures” forming if I rolled a little too fast or not quite round enough.  I think I will do that from now on, as it gave a nice, tight, smooth finish.

What I want to know is, does anyone know of a faster and or easier way to make ropes? They always take longer than you think they will, and if you’re doing more than a few, they are hard on your hands, or at least on my hands. I found ways to make small balls and large balls, but nothing on ropes. Any hints or ideas?

 

Small Spiral Fail

Small Spiral Fail

Comments 14 comments

I want to make some small spirals that will work on the stick-type keychain/bag charm things I have. I did them with some sheep I had last year.

I have a T-shirt that says; Hold on, Let Me Overthink This. And this is where I am starting with this project. I took Helen’s Spiral course last year, and it was amazing. If you have a chance, you should take it. I want to scale this down to end up about a 3-inch drop on the spiral. So I am starting by thinking this is going to be really hard to do, so naturally it is.

I started by making an underlay spiral to use as a template and resist.

The spiral was small, as I said, so I had to cut my fibre as it was far too long for one of the layers. Can you hear the spinners screaming NOOOO in the background? LOL Also, I was being supervised by Jan’s Llama

After much fiddling, it was sturdy enough to be removed from the resist. I worked on it more, but the layout was not good, and there were thin spots and narrow spots.

All in all, a sad looking spiral.

Next, I  made some prefelt to try.

I tried to stretch and shape it around the resist. I already knew this was not going to work well. Wet felted prefelt does not have the stretch of commercial needle felted prefelt. But I kept going anyway.

 

This one is better, but although it’s hard to see, the middle of the spiral is very lumpy.

Here they are flat side by side. You can see the pumpy parts of the pink better here.

 

Oh well, it was fun trying. My friend Hether decided they were just what she needed for her bike.

 

Medieval Spinning

Medieval Spinning

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I took a Class in Medieval spinning with a distaff last Thursday. I originally signed up for the class before the COVID-19 lockdown.  So I have been waiting a while to do this class.  This was a 2-hour evening class.  We were learning 2 things at once. How to spin in hand and how to use a distaff. Our teacher Judy said it’s like patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time.

First, we got some distaffs to dress. This means we had to tie the fiberbatts to a stick. Judy had a couple of nice wooden ones, but mostly we had forked branches she had taken the bark off.

Judy brought several spindles with different whorls. The whorl is the disk that adds weight, so the spindle spins better. The whorls are removable. Once you have some yarn built up on your spindle, you can remove the whorl.

First, we practised twirling the spindle with the leader.  You have to make a half hitch on the end of the spindle and then twirl it.

Judy showing us how to twirl our spindle

Lucie is seeing if it is easier standing up.

Then we practised the drafting and the twirling at the same time. milking cow motion on the right and twirling on the right. This is the patting your head and rubbing your tummy part. The only thing we had to bring to class was a belt to stick the distaff in. I do not own a belt, so I got some bailer twine and braided myself a belt for the night. You can see this great fashion piece below.

Then we started spinning. It’s hard to know where to look, at the hand that’s trying to twirl correctly or at the hand trying to draft the fibre down from the distaff.

Here I am winding on. The idea is to make a football (rugby ball) shaped cob on the spindle.

Here’s a close-up of twirling and short suspension. You can let it drop a bit on the last twerl before winding on. Usually, you need to keep it in-hand so you can twirl it again.

Here is what I managed to make by the end of the class. It’s lumpy and thick and thin just like the yarn I made when I first started spinning. I was just starting to wind off when I remembered to take a picture. I haven’t decided if I will ply it or not. First, I have to find my spindles.  I’ve seen them recently in their little case. Of course, I couldn’t find them before the class. I will find them again when I am looking for something else. I hope I will be smart enough to grab them and not think I will remember where they are.

A class and this and that.

A class and this and that.

Comments 18 comments

I taught a Nunofelt Scarf class a couple of weekends ago. I had a fun group of ladies who were really interested in learning this technique.

Here are a couple of pictures of the setup with the ladies working on thier layout. They used hand-dyed silk blanks and Merino wool. Then there were lots of extras for them to add, lots more merino in many colours,  handspun yarn, speciality wools and several types of silk, silk top, silk hankies and silk throwsters’ waist. A few brought some of thier own alpaca too.

and the scarves they were working on.

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And then we were too busy enjoying the felting for me to remember to take more pictures. Well, I thought I took more pictures, but I guess I didn’t do it properly.

I had two ladies who had to leave early as they had a long drive. They worked diligently to be done before they had to leave. They did a great job, and I hope to see them again.

 

Here are the other 6 ladies and thier finished scarves. I am pretty sure they had a good time.

After that fun I had to get to work myself. I had to resupply The Log Farm store. They sold the last of everything during Sugar Bush. I have been busy making Dryer Balls and Felted Soap

 

 

Next are some drop spindle kits.

All 3 of these are fairly easy to put together and sell well at a relatively low price point. What do you make and sell in this price category? I have been thinking that cards with pictures of my felt might be a good idea.