October news

I've been busy playing Grandma to Emma and Day Staff to Lydia while she recovers from her near fatal bout of pneumonia this spring. So felting has taken a back seat but knitting has been therapy. Liza the samoyed has been on duty and is presently playing in the snow at Kinglake, her first encounter with the stuff and apparently thinks she is in heaven! She now knows she is a snow dog....

I will be attending a half day felting workshop at the Butterfly Studio in Christmas Hills on Thursday the 28th, which should be interesting. And I am scheduled to teach an introduction to felting workshop at Rushworth on the 30th, if we get sufficient enrolments. The Christmas Hills workshop should kickstart my creativity after being turned off for the past month or so.

Laurieton Riverwalk Market

I was fortunate to have a stall at the Laurieton Market in August. This is a lovely venue and is a walking dog show! Liza the samoyed made lots of new friends, but my stall was almost demolished when a visiting Alaskan Mamalute tried to take Liza's favourite teddy.

Met lots of nice people, and met a lovely lady named Robyn who has a stall selling her handmade glass jewellery. She not only bought a felt hat, but gave me a pair of her beautiful glass earrings.

I look forward to meeting her again next year. Will add her contact details for you shortly. Here she is in her new hat, working hard at promoting my work......

rain and a bad head

No I haven't been drinking! But I did manage to crack my head on an unseen tree branch while walking near the beach this morning. I made a lovely pattern in the sand, and the red trails were incredibly artistic. They also decorated my clothes in a unique manner. Still, it's nice to have something to show for a war wound, I just hope it is not a permanent fixture. As for the rain, it will probably dampen things considerably at the Glenreagh Timber Festival, and I won't be attending having spent today getting myself back together, waiting to see the doctor, and generally feeling sorry for myself. So it's back to laid back holiday mode rather than hyped up market sales lady.

I'm away...

At Coffs Harbour, staying by a beautiful beach about 10 km north of town. This is Sapphire Beach, or more correctly, North Sapphire. I have taken the caravan for its latest test drive, and am finding out what I do and don't like about it. I have had lovely weather for 2 weeks, but now the rain has been downing for nearly 24 hours. I made some felt hats, but they don't dry due to the humidity. They are just simple brimmed hats, which I had planned to sell at the Glenreagh Timber Festival on Saturday. But now it all depends on the rain. Liza the samoyed has been very good for the three weeks we have been away, even when shut up in the van due to the rain. But we just managed to have a walk/run on the beach, as the rain stopped for about an hour, and is raining again now.

last Wednesday, I was invited to attend a local craft group, which led to the invitation to the Timber Festival. I met a nice group of around 25 ladies in the town of Glenreagh, in the local hall. This group has been going for 22 years now, and seem to have had a go at everything. I wore a new felt hat I had made up here. It attracted a lot of compliments, but there don't seem to be any real felters among the group, but a few have had a go. This is sub-tropical, so not sheep country, so it is not surprising they are not wool=focussed. But everyone is wearing nice creative knitted scarves, so that was interesting.

A gift for a lady

What do you give a lady to celebrate her 40th birthday? I decided to make a bag. I used a batt from North East Yarns as the basis, added orange and yellow fibre from First Edition Fibres, embellished with some multi coloured wool and felted away. The handle is knitted from matching yarn, and the flap is decorated with a coordinating felt flower. I really liked it, and I hope Melanie does too.....

Retail Outlets

After long consideration, lots of kilometres, and lots of hat making, I now have three retail outlets stocking my knitting and felting.

Day Spring Gallery, Camp Street, Beechworth
Hidden Talents Craft Gallery, Yarra Glen
Eildon Village Craft Shop, Eildon

Winter and surviving the cold

I've finally bitten the bullet and realised I can't manage to drive all the way to Mission Beach this winter. but northern NSW seems possible and the Valla Beach market looks good. Liza the samoyed, the kayak, the caravan and I could be quite happy on these lovely beaches.

Sculpture for the Head with Anita Larkin

Have completed the workshop with Anita Larkin, who has a very different approach to hat making from the method I use. Anita makes much thicker felt, many more layers, so her hats are quite rigid, allowing her to produce complex scuptural shapes. Anita also taught a rather tricky (for me) way of creating holes, which are three dimensional and quite different from the ones I make. Here are my two hats from the workshop

Grampians Texture 2010

I'm back from the two day workshop with Anita Larkin in Halls Gap. Anita is a sculptor as well as a feltmaker and the influence on her work is obvious. I made two hats, which are much thicker and more sculptural than my usual work. It was difficult to remember to do things Anita's way rather than mine, as Anita has a very different approach to making felt.

So this new venture has taken me back to the days when the colours of the Australian Bush were my inspiration and palette. In fact, I am enjoying a break from my usual bright tropical colours. There are a few more bags in productions, more conventional in shape, but the photos aren't ready so I will show you the back of the gumnut pouch...

I truly have been busy...

celebrating Christmas, New Year, catching up with friends and family, hanging out with the granddaughter, trying out the new caravan, but not being very creative...

till now. I had a beautiful natural wool batt from North East Yarns, hoarded away till I could think what to do with it. Then by trial and error, experimentation and Designing on First Principles, I created this gorgeous little bag that looks like a gumnut, but which I call my Possum Pouch Bag, as I can just picture an orphaned baby posssum snuggling down and occasionally peeking out!