On Sunday, the 12th of November, committee member Deirdre Crofts led guild members in creating wet felted Elf Booties. Under her excellent tutelage, we enjoyed seeing how quickly these tiny Christmas decorations came together. And she had thought of everything – even bringing in tiny jingle bells and ribbons for us to sew onto our boots!
There is also an informative video recording from a couple of years ago of Deirdre explaining how she created her wet and needle-felted, bee-inspired piece for the Guild’s ‘Endangered’ exhibition at Phoenix Park. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K17qpwX0osQ&t=14s
Tiny Boots
Look at all the samples that she brought in to inspire us!
Tools
There were several questions about a couple of helpful wet felting tools.
The above tool is called a ball brause, which is a sprinkler for moistening wool fibre. It can be found at DHG, Wolknoll or sometimes at garden supply shops, as it is used for watering bonsai plants.
Similarly, there were questions about the above sprinkler tops, which the guild purchased for workshops. You can find similar ones HERE. Note: they do not fit all bottles.
Also, one can always go down the DIY route and pierce holes into the lid of a plastic water bottle or use a plant mister.
Culinary Inspiration
Homemade Custard Cream Biscuits made by member Lorna Cady.
Lastly, as always, there was a yummy spread of home bakes. A shout out to Neasa Ryan for bringing her beautiful Pavlova and to Lorna Cady for her‘Great British Bake Off’ inspired Custard Cream Biscuits!
Our November Sunday Session will start earlier due to circumstances beyond our control – 10 AM.
Guild member Deirdre Crofts will show us how to make these cute elf booties. So, you have the rest of the month to make multiples of them for family and friends before the 🎄trees go up!
The guild will provide the wool roving and various sparkly bits. All you need to bring is your felting kit = a towel, bubble wrap, your chosen soap, and a basis for water.
When: Due to circumstances beyond our control, we must start a half hour earlier than usual and finish up earlier – 10 AM until 11:30. Additionally, we will enjoy our coffee break on the go – while felting.
Also, please bring a home-baked treat to share. There is the usual member contribution of 5 euros to cover the coffee/tea/hall rental.
Members who cannot attend in person can use the Zoom link that will be emailed out on Friday or Saturday. If the tech elves cooperate, the session will be recorded and will later be uploaded to our YouTube Channel.
Due to circumstances beyond our control (involving a new manager and a double booking), we have to start our November Sunday Session half an hour earlier this weekend.
It will now start promptly at 10 AM and will have to end at 11:30 AM.
Please arrive a little early so we can promptly start our session with Deirdre Crofts at 10 AM. She is teaching us how to felt Elf Booties, which will make charming Christmas decorations.
Lastly, we will have our ‘coffee break’ without a break…. On the go, so to speak….😊
Thank you, and we sincerely apologise for this unexpected inconvenience.
First up, Deirdre Crofts is coming up trumps again and will show us how to make these cute elf booties at the next session on the 12th of November.
So there’ll be plenty of time to make multiples of them for family and friends before the 🎄trees go up!
The guild will provide the wool roving and various sparkly bits. All you need to bring is your felting kit = a towel, bubble wrap, and soap.
When: Due to circumstances beyond our control, we must start a half hour earlier than usual and finish up earlier – 10 AM until 11:30. Additionally, we will enjoy our coffee break on the go – while felting.
Also, please bring a home-baked treat to share. There is a member contribution of 5 euros to cover the coffee/tea/hall rental.
Members who cannot attend in person can use the Zoom link that will be emailed out on Friday or Saturday. If the tech elves cooperate, the session will be recorded and will later be uploaded to our YouTube Channel.
December Session
On the 10th of December, guild member Sharon Wells will work with us to needlefelt a beautiful winter scene. There will be a charge of €10 for all the materials for this session. More details for later. But it could be another Christmas present ticked off the list!
Member Annika Berglund shared her felting journey at Feltmakers Ireland’s most recent Sunday Session on the 8th of October.
Online Education
As mentioned previously, Annika started her felting journey with an in-person class at the 2019 Knitting and Stitching show. However, most of her textile learning experiences have been via online study. To read about her recent experience with the Hungarian Felting Retreat, visit this previous blogpost. This is a recap of her online education. Jump to the list ofonline classes.
How Information is Accessed
Annika explained how online classes are ‘delivered’, with many of the best ones being held on the Ruzuku platform, where new topics or projects are introduced weekly or bi-weekly. Depending upon the instructor, these classes can contain short videos, photographs, and step-by-step written instructions. This method helps to break down information into bite-sized pieces. Other tutors share their teaching via recordings of longer Zoom sessions. Typically, these classes are private links on YouTube. The drawback of this method is that students may need to fast-forward through a video to search for needed steps within the instructions.
Depending upon the teacher, classes can be for a few hours or for several weeks.
In some of the courses, students can upload photographs of their felted assignments. Seeing the work, the teacher and the other students in the class can offer feedback. Other students’ comments were an aspect that Annika appreciated through the isolation of 2020. Annika says, “When you did a course, {it} saved my sanity”.
Additionally, being a part of the worldwide felting community was a benefit of some of the courses. Lastly, courses offer one the opportunity to play!
Pam de Groot
The first online class that Annika took was taught by Pam de Groot, an Australian feltmaker.
Pam offers two online courses. Annika greatly enjoyed ‘Surface, Form and Space’. It focuses on different types of differential shrinkage with each assignment. Pam’s other class, ‘Textures and Dimensions’, is more project-based, with multiple techniques in each project. Students create three three-dimensional sculptures: The Splash, The Spiral, and the Twistie. Annika’s Spiral project is the large white ‘seashell’ in the photograph below. While the teal-coloured, star-fish shape is from Pam’s other class.
A medley of felted objects from Annika’s two Pam de Groot classes.
In May, at the AGM, guild member Ramona Farrelly won a bursary to attend a workshop of her choice. She chose Pam’s first class. You can read about Ramona’s experience on our blog.
Fiona Duthie
The next bunch of classes that Annika took were taught by the Canadian feltmaker Fiona Duthie. Fiona’s classes are so popular that they fill up. Hence, Annika could only get a spot in the ‘Over the Edge’ class. However, this eight-week class proved to be quite useful. As Annika says, it “was actually a really good one to do, because {there are} a lot of techniques in the one course and because of all these different ways to edge work, will teach you a lot of different felting techniques that you can use in the middle as well.”
The next class that Annika took with Fiona Duthie was her ‘Raised Surfaces’ class. She found this class highly rewarding. She explained, “Once you start to attach things to the surface, you get much more lively stuff. And once you can do this, … then you can make a hat, or you can make a wall piece. So consider the techniques on their own, and then figure out how they fit with what you want to make…”
Another class that Annika took with Fiona was the ‘Fibre + Paper’ course. This class required gentle feltmaking, with students trying to coax wool through various types of fine papers, including mulberry. However, one of the benefits of working with paper is that it allows crisp mark-making. It also makes the felt stiffer so you can do more sculptural shaping. {In the past, Fiona has offered a related course where students learned how to create paper lampshades.}
Annika also took Fiona’s ‘Surface Design Online Class’, which focussed on texture on flat surfaces. Note how Annika’s careful recordkeeping on her samples.
A Free Fiona Class
If students want to experience a Fiona Duthie class before first purchasing one, there is always her free online tutorial for a ‘Vessel with a Vessel’. This tutorial inspired the guild’s ‘Basic & Beyond’ class, which Annika taught at the beginning of 2023.
Mandy Nash
In this class with Mandy Nash, students learned how to make two felted fish during a live seven-hour Zoom workshop, which is now available as a recorded class. Mandy is UK-based and currently the president of the International Feltmakers Association. In 2022, she taught an in-person felted bag workshop to the Guild.
Eva Camacho
Annika particularly enjoyed learning from tutor Eva Camacho, a US-based feltmaker who is originally from Spain. Annika shared pieces from two of Eva’s classes. In one class, students used the Korean technique of ‘Joomchi’ to make projects out of mulberry bark. Annika explained, “Basically, Korean peasants couldn’t afford fabric, so they took mulberry paper and layered it.” The results were used for clothing and purses. The process is similar to feltmaking! She also took another class with Eva where students focussed on embroidering Joomchi.
Kristy Kun
Kristy Kun is a US-based feltmaker who includes the supplies in the cost of her courses. As Kristy mails the supplies, Annika advises to keep this in mind when enrolling as there can be delays due to international mail. In these classes, Annika learned how to combine thick prefelt with thin cheesecloth fabric. She further explained the types of cheesecloth: it comes in a range of 90 to 10, with 90 being the densest. The loosest weave that she can find in Ireland is grade 50. She added that you can use cheesecloth for Nuno felting; it doesn’t need to be expensive silk fabric.
HERE is an article about the different grades of cheesecloth.
Molly Williams
Annika learned about sculpting a woollen figure around a metal armature in UK-based Molly Williams‘ class. Annika shared how the metal goes through the base, which she made from ceramics.
The Felting and Fiber Studio
The Felting and FIber Studio is an international collective of felt and fibre artists with an active blog (which frequently includes needle felting). They also have a selection of online classes.
In ‘Nuno Felting with Paper Fabric Lamination’, Annika learned how to use an acrylic medium to ‘print’ onto fabric. She was especially interested in the textures the acrylic medium created.
Gladys Paulus
Dutch-Indonesian and based in the UK, Gladys Paulus only teaches in person a few times a year, and these classes fill up quickly. Annika is on the waiting list for a class that is next year. In the meantime, she took two classes with Gladys. Her first class was ‘The Lotus’, and the second was ‘Horns’ – where students made a straight and a curved one.
Annika highly recommends Gladys, “Well, she teaches you good felting. Where you can see the difference when you haven’t quite felted it enough, and when you felted it enough, that it takes shapes.”
Some of the above teachers sell their finished products, supplies, and online workshops via their websites. Other tutors may need to be contacted directly for further information. Some of the teachers who teach online have recorded classes that are available year-round, while others have ones with specific availability. Several of the tutors teach additional classes which are not included below. Visit the links to be inspired and learn!
Links are grouped and in the approximate order of when mentioned during Annika’s presentation.
Classes that Annika took in person as part of Felting Camp
If you have experienced other online felting-related courses that you have enjoyed, let us know. We will collect this information for a future post. – feltmakersIE@gmail.com
Annika Berglund showing us the details of her felted necklace.
On Sunday, the 8th of October, Feltmakers Ireland member Annika Berglund shared her experiences with her recent in-person classes at the seven-day Hungarian Felt Camp, with five tutors AND her many experiences with studying felting via online courses.
Initially, Annika created her artwork out of totally different materials. She worked in ceramics, bronze, and glass. Seeking a more sustainable and less energy-hungry media, she tried textiles Dublin Knitting and Stitching Show in 2019. This was where she took her first feltmaking workshop. After discovering felt, she then proceeded to take many online classes. Her trip to Hungary was an opportunity to return to learning in person.
Scroll down to the bottom to see the links to the Hungarian tutors and the online felting classes.
Hungarian Felting Camp
The guild members enjoyed seeing each of the pieces that Annika created during the retreat. She would hold them up, and then we passed them around the room.
She cautioned that it was a full-on program, with most projects taking more time than allotted. Most of the projects could have been done over two days! Fortunately, Annika could complete her projects by continuing in the evenings. The one exception to this was the pillow project taught by Bea Németh.
There were three groups of students, with around ten students per group. Two of the groups were English speakers, and one of them had German speakers. Annika’s group was impacted by Covid-19, with more participants becoming ill daily. Interestingly, two students were only mildly affected by the virus. They managed to follow along, working outdoors and receiving their instructions via WhatsApp. The wonders of technology!
The cost of the seven-day workshop was around 1,375 euros, which included tuition, room, board, and transport from Budapest. The class was held in the village of Nagybörzsöny.
Necklace Project – Anikó Boros
Annika’s favourite class was creating a felted fuschia necklace with Anikó Boros (BaribonHU). She really appreciated the new feltmaking perspective and eye for detail that this teacher brought to the class.
{See above for a photo of Annika sharing this project.}
Pillow Project – Bea Németh
Annika sharing the pillow that she made in Bea Németh’s class.
Interestingly, the students worked together on a giant rug, each person decorating her own square, which they then felted and fulled collectively. After the wool became properly felted, the large piece was cut up, and each part returned to its’ designer. Then, they learned how to use an ingenious cord-making machine and, finally, how to assemble and sew their cushions.
Felted Bag with Prefelts – Gabriella Kovács
Annika sharing her felted bag.
Taught by Gabriella Kovács, this class was billed as being for ‘lazy felters’. In this class, the students use manufactured prefelts. There was no laying of wool roving. Interestingly, the students learned how to create a bag so that the lining was integral to the layout.
Doorway Guardian – Márti Csille
Annika sharing her Doorway Guardian
In this class, the students learned how to make a modern version of the traditional tumars, which is an amulet-like embroidered felt to keep evil away and is hung in the entrance area of the yurt. Annika explored new colour combinations in this piece.
Nunofelted Scarf – Nadia Szabó
Annika sharing her nunofelted scarf
With this class, Annika strove to create exceptionally clean lines to her geometric pattern with her wool layout. The silk was dyed afterwards.
Some of the teachers sell their finished products and online workshops via their websites. Other tutors may need to be contacted directly for further information. Some of the teachers who teach online have recorded classes that are available year-round, while others have ones with specific availability. Several of the tutors teach additional classes which are not included below. Visit the links to be inspired and learn!
Links are in the approximate order of when mentioned during Annika’s presentation.
If you have experienced other online felting-related courses that you have enjoyed, let us know. We will collect this information for a future post. – feltmakersIE@gmail.com
This Sunday, the 8th of October, from 10:30-12:30, Feltmakers Ireland member Annika Berglund will share her experiences at the Hungarian Felting retreat and other online felting classes that she has taken.
By Annika Berglund
The Joy of Learning
When I was asked to do a Sunday session about my recent Felting Retreat adventure, I was a little worried that it might not be enough for the two hours available. I had a little think and decided to do a talk about online felting courses in general and the Hungarian retreat in more detail.
I used to work in ceramics, glass, and bronze but was looking to change to some form of textiles in late 2019 and early 2020, mainly to find less energy-hungry means of expression. I started with a number of short workshops at the 2019 Dublin Knit and Stitch, of which the felting one was probably my favourite. Luckily, the 2020 Basic and Beyond happened soon after, which further whetted my appetite.
Online Education
Then came Covid, and I discovered a wealth of Felting courses available online. These courses give access to some of the best teachers in the world, and open the door to a wealth of new techniques and ideas, no matter your experience and level of felting. Having this window onto a bigger world of the craft and global community of felting has meant a lot to me, especially during the lockdown, but also since then, and I am hoping to share some of my best experiences and answer any questions in relation to online learning.
Felting in Hungary
The seven-day Felting Retreat I attended in September featured five excellent teachers, my absolute favourite being Anikó Boros (Baribon), teaching her fabulous finely felted fuschia necklace. {https://baribon.hu/ }
The other 4 courses were:
Making a large rug together and then cutting it up to make individual pillows with Bea Németh. { https://www.facebook.com/beanemez }
So, come along to the CIE Hall/Inchicore Sports and Social Club, for this Sunday Session of Feltmakers Ireland and learn about Annika’s experiences with feltmaking in Hungary and online.
On Sunday, the 10th of September, 2023, 24 members of the Feltmakers Ireland guild gathered to celebrate our 20th anniversary. Founded by Elizabeth Bonnar in 2003, the guild is connected by our interest in transforming sheep wool into felted creations.
Our completed tapestry will be exhibited at our upcoming annual juried exhibition, which will be held at the Phoenix Park Visitors Centre in October 2023.
The 2023-2024 Committee with founder Elizabeth Bonnar (third from the left) –
Committee Members, left to right: Adrienne Dempsey, Marian Fagan, Guild founder Elizabeth Bonnar, Lorna Cady, Deirdre Crofts, Juliane Gorman, Deirdre Carroll, Elizabeth Redding, and Fiona Leech. Missing – Annika Berglund as she was travelling. Photograph by Helene Dooley.Deirdre Crofts – organiser of our Flower Tapestry event.
As part of our celebration, we ‘combined hands’ to create a giant ‘tapestry’ out of felted flowers. Organiser, artist, and teacher-extraordinaire Deirdre Crofts designed five differentflowers for members to create: the Anemone, the Dahlia, the Daisy, the Lily, and the Pansy.
(See the bottom of the page for links to download).
Members sat together and created the above five flower styles. Some members created their own fantasy flowers, so there is a lovely mix of styles.
A Selection of Photographs from the Day
And like any party, there was a delicious spread of sandwiches (including vegetarian and gluten-free), endless tea and coffee, and those famous home-bakes, which our Membership Secretary, Fiona Leech, so artfully displayed!
So many tasty sandwiches!
Membership coordinator, Fiona Leech, keeps us hydrated & fed.
Many thanks to Deirdre Crofts for organising such a splendid event. Additional thanks to the other Committee members who helped sort our supplies, set up the wool kits, and share their flowermaking knowledge. Our gorgeously colourful Merino wool was purchased from Feltmakers Ireland member Leiko Uchiyama.
This Sunday, on the 10th of September, we will create a wonderful floral tapestry to commemorate Feltmaker’s 20th anniversary. The more flowers we have, the bigger it will be. It will become a travelling celebration wherever we go for years to come!
If you like, bring along already felted pink and/or white flowers to contribute to our Guild’s tapestry. The more the merrier!
Come along. It’ll be a 3-hour session this time. Bring the usual felting equipment that you use. Fibre will be provided, but you’re welcome to bring any fibre of your own in the pinkish range. Bring some home bakes to share, of course.
Next Sunday, on the 10th of September, we will create a wonderful floral tapestry to commemorate Feltmaker’s 20th anniversary. The more flowers we have, the bigger it will be. It will become a travelling celebration wherever we go for years to come!
Bring along already felted pink and/or white flowers to contribute to our Guild’s tapestry if you like. The more the merrier!
Come along. It’ll be a 3-hour session this time. Bring the usual felting equipment that you use. Fibre will be provided, but you’re welcome to bring any fibre of your own in the pinkish range. We will supply the bubble wrap and resists, too.
Feltmakers Ireland 
