Back in February my phone rang, and it was a call from a fellow Feltmaker, who I have always enjoyed working with in CRAFTed over the years but we never actually worked together. She told me she had received funding as part of the Keep Well campaing and wanted to get a group of like-minded felters together for a collaborative project.

I was feeling the post Christmas lockdown and told her that I felt I was creatively stuck in a rut and would be delighted to get on board and do a collaborative project.

Nikki put our dream team together.  The idea was that we would each present an hour-long workshop working on different stages of the felting process to create stained glass effect felt pieces which would be exhibited later in the year. Niki went about advertising the free workshops and they were oversubscribed in a day leading to further workshops.

Caolfhionn got the tough job of hosting the first workshop which shows how to create prefelts and blending colours to create your fabric for your picture. Niki did the design layout for our work and I got the job to do the stained glass effect dry felting work.

Each class had 35 participants and we did three classes each to facilitate the large numbers in our groups. We also supported each other during the workshops which was fantastic and made it a lot easier.

I was delighted to find that Breda Fay who was a long-time student of mine when I did workshops in Johnstown Craftspun yarns is now the treasurer of Feltmakers Ireland and she was attending the three-part workshop. It was great to see familiar faces on the screen. The best part about the project was the collaborative process and having the support of fellow felt makers and being able to bounce ideas off each other.

We have set up further classes in May and August this year which will be either online of face to face, depending on where we are.

We also have an exhibition to look forward to: online in August and physical in October and we look forward to inviting back participants to celebrate their feltmaking.