Felt Consulting

 I’ve been having some fun this last week/weekend doing some felt consultancy work for Pollika.
Pollika are a fibre company based in Vancouver who are the North American distributors for many European brands, including De Witte Engel and Painters Threads. I’ve been working with them to develop felting kits for beginners….kits for yarn shops that give textile people something new to try. 

 The latest kits are on making felt jewelry. I loaded them with great techniques while covering the basics, keeping in mind these are people just trying felting, maybe for the first time. This new kit will be launched at The National Needlearts Association trade show in San Diego this January. the TNNA shows are amazing- yarn and fibre shops from all over North America attend to find new products to share with their customers. I went one year with Pollika, to demonstrate feltmaking in the booth. Lots of fun…

  I had a funny moment this week while editing my pictures. I had to photoshop clean my nails, because I’d forgotten to clean them before shooting, and they were just a little too dirty to be presentable-how does that happen…..ah well…a little PS manicure and we’re all set….

And another sample in a warm colourway. There will probably be 6 colourways in total. Now that the instructions are all written and photos taken and off with the graphic designers, I can relax a bit and spend some time making inspiration samples for the show.  Small projects like this make a refreshing change and I love having a bit of embroidery to do in the evenings. 

 I might use the jewelry pieces as a jumping off point to create this years ornament. I didn’t think I was going to design one this year, but now the flame is alight and I’m ready to felt and stitch….after I get my last orders done this week and in the mail…by Wednesday!

This was a cover of the instructions for our first kit, released back in June. These are now available in yarns shops across Canada and the US.  That’s pretty exciting…to create something that invites people to try something new, to have fun making something beautiful, and maybe to plant the seed of a new passion.   I have some more great plans for Pollika….maybe one more kit for January release and then a set for next May.

Back to work!
Warm wishes,
Fiona