As I was working on yesterdays 30 Minute Felt Project, I kept thinking about about felt lighting and how interesting this piece might be turned into a lampshade. I love felt in lighting. There is nothing so soft, warm and inviting as the way light travels through the wool fibres. [...]
These 30 minute felt projects are an opportunity to come to the creative table with no expectations- just a short intensive, mind-wide-open exploration...It can be easy as a craftsperson to get stuck in productions ruts, and this is an exercise to give ourselves permission to play within our medium. This [...]
I did a quick tour of the studio today to compile a list of projects started in the last two weeks that are are waiting for finishing touches....It's quite a list! As of July 1st, I had absolutely not one piece of feltwork left in studio. I haven't been able [...]
Over the last few weeks I've been playing a new studio game.....15 minute felt projects. Just once a week, as an opportunity to approach design work with a blank mental slate, no commitments to outcome and sense of fun experimentation. This is actually the third of these projects.....the mountain vessel.... [...]
I am having a delicious stretch into new work....making pieces for the felt::feutre exhibition....It is so delightful to work out ideas without too much time pressure; just exploring pure creativity. This is a technique that I teach in my Surface Design class....using slow felting wools to create nodules....and in this [...]
Last week was the last week in our Storytelling and Arts day in the studio. This was a weekly series of classes I have been running since the early Fall. So much fun! What a sweet, talented, and creative group of children! In our Spring session we studied Trickster Tales, [...]
I get a lot of emails/messages with questions about techniques and ideas, and sometimes it takes me a really long time to answer them....Usually because I want to answer thoroughly and have difficulty setting aside the time to do so. I thought I'd answer some of your questions here, [...]
The finished jacket....as I mentioned, it had been going into the reds and ochres, but on the day I dyed it, it just had to become blues and greens.... Felting, drying, stitching, fulling, then dyeing....then I added the finishing stitches. Layers of intention. I used some lovely fine silk [...]
This coat made it's first appearance in my sketchbook early in the year. Once I had opneed up some creative time this week, it positioned itself determinedly in the forefront of my attentions, allowing for no distraction. It is a felt jacket, created all in one piece, with lots of [...]
The week after getting back from FibresWest, I hosted two fibre art camps for children in the studio. It was great fun, and such a pleasure to share my passion for fibres with enthusiastic young people and get to know some of the island's children a little better. They are [...]
As usual, it's been a very busy few weeks! I've rebranded my handyed yarn and fibre company, Kattikloo, all ready for FibresWest in Vancouver last week. I still have to make all the website changes and load up the shop, now that I'm back...but it still feels like a major [...]
On every walk, I fall behind the rest of my family, camera in hand taking pictures of grasses, barks, water, frost, colours....whatever catches my eye... The images live in my hard drives...my computer and my mind, until they are ready to come to life in a new form. This cowl, [...]
Nui Shibori Scarves- Creating Texture with Felting Yarns on Silk:Shibori is a Japanese textile art form that has come to mean cloth that has been bound or compressed. This is accomplished through stitching, clamping, knotting or folding, then processed through dyeing or heating to add a new "memory" to the [...]
This is a really special project. Made for a very dear friend for her 50th birthday. The inner layer of felt holds 50 pockets. One for each year....Some of the pockets hold little tokens that reflect an element of her life...like three beads- one for each child....these inner pockets [...]
It is a bright, new, shiny year...and it is going to be fabulous! So far every day has been filled with excitement, momentum and pure pleasure! And lots of work...but in the best possible way. I have launched a new project: felt :: feutre- a celebration of feltmaking [...]
Foxglove Farm was the location of the Salt Spring Fall Felting retreat; one with a an abundance of wonderful plant materials to chose from for the eco-dyeing segment of the dyeing day of the retreat. The participants made some absolutely gorgeous eco-prints on silk. I didn't have a chance to [...]
Wow. What a golden month it has been....gold in colour and experience. This was our shimmery lake view from the cottage in Quebec where the first Fall felting retreat was hosted. Oh so busy, and the busier things are here, the less I write about it all....I know others [...]
This is my most recent in the series of scarves/wearables I've been making, inspired by the Korean art of Joomchi- a paper art form and process. The exploration has culminated in pieces that hold three aspects of surface design...all of which have a basis in geology.... a relationship between rock [...]
The last two weeks have been the most delicious, intense, creative times. My cousins/kindred spirits have been visiting from New Zealand. Family that I have only met a handful of times, often with a decade in between visits, but who travel with me always and close by! While Erica [...]
Felting with resists to create interesting surfaces....an exploration in materials...I'm enjoying tossing around in my head the language of another craft, Joomchi, while exploring this feltwork...the making of pockets.... Using different materials to create bubble and pockets....tyvek, high thread count quilting cottons, woven interfacing, non woven interfacings, cotton battings.....I [...]
I recently came across two books...images on the covers that stopped my steps and set my heart beating a little faster.... Yesterday's studio inspiration came from Joomchi and Beyond by Jiyoung Chung. It is an enticing craft form....similar to felting, but also different. I love finding a medium new [...]
Foxglove Farm, SaltSpring Island, British Columbia October 19/20/21st, 2012 10:00am-4:00pm + evenings The British Columbia retreat will be hosted at the very beautiful and charming Foxglove Farm. The farm is located on one of the original homesteads on the island, surrounded by hundreds of acres of protected forest [...]
The day started out with this...a blank canvas...perfect white simplicity.....ready for some colour play...Two layers of blue faced leicester, then two layers of Finn...BFL on the inside for a soft hand as you reach in and Finn on the outside for more durability. The finished texture is very nice....an [...]
The dates and details are set for a relaxing, revitilizing, energizing fall felting retreat - I am so looking forward to this event! The retreat will run on October 12th, 13th, and 14th, 2012. All of the details are described below, including class descriptions, location, costs....please just contact me if [...]
I'm immersing myself more and more in my creative journey...more and more into exploring feltmaking and dyeing in my own way...exercising consciousness through the process and the artistic impetus within each method....Stretching into new ideas and finding my way into my full creative potential.... playing with words that have [...]
It's been busy, busy in the studio the last few weeks....and maybe more busy in my head as I clear house and make way to fulfill my destiny (doesn't that sound grand! It just popped into my head.....You could also read.... solidify my Fall/Winter/Spring creative calendar....Shuffle the deck to [...]
Several years ago now, I had the chance to visit a place that was a sort of mecca for me....Taos, New Mexico, and more specifically, La Lana Wools.....a shop dedicated to plant dyed wools in all forms....I've been dyeing with plant dyes for 16 years now....12 years at the time [...]
This weekend I had the pleasure of meeting feltmaker and dyer Ginny Huber. We had been chatting a bit back an forth about our local, west coast dyes, and making eco-prints. This week she was visiting the area and came to Salt Spring to spend a few hours in [...]
So it's not quite tomorrow, as in when I said I was going to post the finished pictures of these.....but taking into account summer time, island time and Fiona time...I'm feeling pretty happy to be only a day out! The dye pot called for a bright poppy.....a blend of orange [...]
Oh My! I've been in and out of town....preparing for gallery shows, preparing for fiber trade shows, preparing for studio visitors.....a summer whirlwind of wool and colour.... But now I'm back....and not going to any more (far away) shows until late September, so I can settle in to an [...]
