Winter is here, Feltmaking is almost full time.

Good afternoon to you all

Last week, I went to a FeltWEST Toss and Tell day in Menora, which is in Perth. I had a three day weekend off, and since it fell on the third Saturday of the month, when the Toss and Tell days are conducted, I felt that I could at last go. I haven't been all year, and I enjoyed the day.

I made another wall hanging, mainly reds, blacks and I am embellishing it with a gold stitch. It is very very fine, which is how I like to make my felt, backed with silk chiffon which I had dyed in a tomato red about this time last year. I knew it would come in handy for something. I also had some bits of silk cocoons, and other silk products which all went into making the piece.

My daughter has also organised me to make a pair of leggings to go onto a pair of ugg boots, so I made the felt and am in the process of connecting the two. I once bought her a pair long ago, that another WA feltmaker had made, when I was just starting out on my feltmaking journey. I hope that they turn out, as I have not done that before, but then how hard can it be???

Coming up in the School Holidays, I will be taking a week off work, so that I can take my 15 year old granddaughter, Rushdinah, to Albany for a few days of Whale Watching. I really wanted to go to Monkey Mia and for us to swim with the Dolphins, but alas, all the accommodation was fully booked out, so had to re assess the plans.

Being 15, she cannot go anywhere without a mobile phone, but one rule that I have set is that the phone does not even come on the holiday with us. I have had her for a holiday before, since she got the phone, and it was glued to her ear for most of the time, so this time, big bag grandma has banned it.

Well, typing this is taking up good feltmaking time, so I should love and leave you all.

Felting in the countryside

When a fellow felter cried "Help", I decided that it was worth it to go on a trip out to the wheatbelt and visit Carol in Quairading and give her any help that she may need as a relatively new feltmaker.

We had a lovely time, even if it was a little cold in her studio, and her very sweet husband pandered to our every whim, by being a regular "gopher" and chief cook and bottlewasher. I stayed for a couple of nights with them, all the while creating our little samples and repairing some of her mistakes that she wanted corrected.

I even took an extra day off work so that my enjoyable time spent with Carol and Allan would not come to an end too quickly. I can see more visits there in the future. I used to live in the wheatbelt about 60kms from Quairading, so it was nice to be back in the lovely quiet peaceful surroundings near to where I spent the happy years whilst growing up.

Since coming back home, work has taken up a lot of my time, but I have managed to get in a little bit of felting in the meantime. Using some felt previously made (UFO's), I decided that it was worth doing some wall hangings. These were done mainly using my Huskystar Embellisher on two of them. Only one is pictured here, which I have titled Circles. The other image is a piece that I made after doing a workshop with Fiona Wright, using a piece of Shibori'd silk that was given to me whilst travelling in USA, by one of my many students that I taught in Brownfield, Maine.

Cheers

Jaruleeli (Julie)