January Retreat

Handspun art yarn that I made on the retreat, I'm loving felting with this!

Oh, what a great time I had at my friend's fiber retreat in Northeast Ohio!  As always, we learned so much from each other, ate lots of great food, drank good wine, felted, spun, carded, laughed, and just had a lot of fun.  

We came with varying skills and experience, and each of us had something to teach.  One of the best things about working together like this is that you always learn so much from other's teaching, and felting styles.  Felting can be accomplished in so many different ways, each person has their own bag of tricks!  That's one of the things I love about it, there is no ONE way to make felt.  (Here are flowers that we made from mostly alpaca fiber).

Madeline, whom I had never met before, is just learning fibery stuff, but she plunged right in and did beautifully with her projects.  She's also a hilarious storyteller and amazing Italian cook, and we enjoyed her famous meatballs and sauce.

 Both Madeline and Mary taught us how to do Japanese braided cords using a KumiLoom.  It was great fun, and offers many possibilities!  I always advice newer alpaca people to take any opportunity they can to learn from Mary, she's a wonderful and thorough teacher.

Here, Donna is working on a wine cozy. Mary taught us some great techniques for making really firm, hard felt and I look forward to using these methods in the future.

Here is my finished wine cozy.  I seem to be a bit stuck on these colors!

Cheryl is a great host, and as always it was wonderful staying in her beautiful home.  It was also refreshing to look out and see the snow-covered landscape, since we've barely had any winter weather here in Kentucky.

Cheryl and I devised a method to drink wine and felt at the same time.  From the response this photo got on Facebook, we need to patent the technique since this photo was extremely popular among felters and was shared around the world!

Donna showed us some fun techniques for embellishing with craters/appendages, and I was happy with how my new iPad sleeve turned out.  

Unfortunately, Donna didn't realize that she was using superwash merino for her cover (superwash means that the scales, necessary for felting/shrinking, have been removed through a chemical process).  It was apparently mislabeled, and there is no way to tell by looking at wool if it is superwash.  That was a tough lesson, as she had worked hard on the layout and it had seemed to be felting!  Live and learn :)

There was no salvaging this, it just wouldn't felt...

We proudly gathered our samples and projects for photos before I left, not bad for 3-4 days!

There were many other things taught and learned, as well as sources and ideas shared, and I've been especially productive since returning.  I have lots of new things to post, (a hat, fingerless gloves, mittens, a wall piece and a scarf) so check back soon!  Thanks to all of my NE Ohio friends for such a fun time :)

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