The juried group exhibition, ‘Bountiful’, is in its final week of showing. Catch it at the Phoenix Park Visitors’ Centre in Dublin, Ireland. See how the beauty and versatility of feltmaking. Pieces include sculptures, wall pieces, and wearables. There is artwork for sale, along with our recently launched book, ‘Exploring Irish Wool for Feltmaking’.
Hours: 10 AM until 4 PM.
The exhibition ends at 3:30 PM on Sunday, October 29th.
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In our Sunday, September Session, Feltmakers Ireland guild member Annika Berglund shared a sample from the Felting and Fiber Studio’s Nuno Felting with Paper Lamination class.
A Forum
Plus, the Felting and Fiber Studio has a Community Forum with quarterly feltmaking challenges. It is also an excellent place to ask questions and research topics related to felting.
Feltmakers Ireland member Hélène Dooley is also a Felting and Fiber Studio member. Recently, she wrote a blog post for them about all the felt-related activities that happened in Ireland! And what a busy month September was!
From Feltmakers Ireland’s September Sunday Session
Feltmakers Ireland founder Elizabeth Bonnar and her granddaughter at our September Sunday Session.
There was Sculpture in Context at the National Botanic Gardens, our September Sunday Session, where we created felted flowers to go on a Floral Tapestry to celebrate our 20th Anniversary, the opening of our juried group exhibition, ‘Bountiful’ at the Phoenix Park Visitors’ Centre, and finally, the official launch of our new book, “Exploring Irish Wool for Feltmaking”.
Today, on the 30th of September, art enthusiasts and admirers of the exquisite craft of felting will gather at the Phoenix Park Visitors Centre in Dublin, Ireland. Feltmakers Ireland’s highly anticipated juried exhibition is set to open its doors to the public at 3 PM.
The exhibition showcases a stunning array of felted artworks that push the boundaries of this ancient textile art form.
As a sneak peek into what promises to be an awe-inspiring show, we bring you exclusive glimpses from four diverse pieces that will be featured in this remarkable exhibition.
Photo 1 – Breda Fay’s wall piece, ‘Torthuil’.
Photo 2 – Valerie OCeallaigh’s ‘Bountiful Love’.
Photo 3 – Adrienne Dempsey’s ‘Where the Wild Things Grow’.
Our exhibition will be opened by Pippa Hackett, Sheep Farmer and Irish Minister for Land Use and Biodiversity. She has kindly written the foreword to our ‘wool project book’, ‘Exploring Irish Wool for Feltmaking’. Copies of the book will be available during the opening and throughout the exhibition.
In one day, Feltmakers Ireland’s juried exhibition, ‘Bountiful’, will open. The event will be introduced by Pippa Hackett, sheep farmer and Minister of State and the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine.
In addition to our members’ wet and needle-felted creations, copies of our recently published book, ‘Exploring Irish Wool for Feltmaking’will be available.
Lastly, as part of the celebration of our founding twenty years ago, we will unveil our collaborative Floral Tapestry.
In the meantime, here are snippets of two members’ pieces.
Photo 1 – Hélène Dooley’s ‘Visualising the Beauty of the Sunflower Field’.
In three days’ time – Saturday, the 30th – our juried exhibition, ‘Bountiful‘, will open at the Phoenix Park Visitors Centre in Dublin. Pippa Hackett (Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine) will be there to officially open.
We will have the unveiling of our wonderful 20th Anniversary Flower Tapestry on Saturday, too. Thank you to all the members who helped create the abundance of beautiful flowers.
Additionally, our book will officially launch – ‘Exploring Irish Wool for Feltmaking’. So, it’ll be a wonderful day of celebrating our guild and our talents.
In the meantime, here are two close-ups of pieces that will be in the show.
Karena has three other pieces in an upcoming exhibition in Brussels! These artworks will be shown at the ‘Dear PrEUdence: A Positive Headspace in the EU’ exhibition. It will be held at the European Parliament in Brussels from the 10th through the 13th of October.
Feltmakers Ireland’s juried exhibition opens this Saturday at 3 PM. We are celebrating the 20th Anniversary of our founding with a show with the theme of ‘Bountiful.’
To whet your appetite, here is a peek at two of the pieces that can be seen at the Phoenix Park Visitors Centre gallery.
First piece –
Detail of a piece by Sharon Wells – ‘Kerry’.
Second piece –
Detail of a piece by Aisling Hassett – ‘Seeds of Life’.
The exhibition runs through the 29th of October and is free to visit.
Feltmakers Ireland is excited to announce that on the 30th of September at 3 PM, Pippa Hackett, Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, will open our group exhibition, ‘Bountiful’.
This juried art exhibition will be held in the beautiful Phoenix Park Visitors Centre from the 30th of September through the 29th of October, from 10 AM until 4 PM.
There are over 35 pieces by 28 guild members in the show. In addition, we will unveil our collectively created Floral Tapestry to celebrate our 20th Anniversary. Copies of our book, ‘Exploring Irish Wool for Feltmaking’, will also be available.
Members who have a piece in the show, please contact us about invigilating. All members are welcome to help by volunteering for the show. Bring a small ‘felty’ project to work on because it will truly interest visitors.
More pink, yellow, and/or white felted flowers are needed for our Floral Tapestry Project.
Feltmakers Ireland needs your help: We need more pink, yellow, and/or white felted flowers for our Floral Tapestry Project.
Any variety of pink with splashes of white, yellow, purple or green would be great. Any style and roughly 20cm in diameter.
This will be displayed at our upcoming exhibition, ‘Bountiful’, at the Phoenix Park Visitor’s Centre and is part of our 20th Anniversary celebration of our guild being founded by Elizabeth Bonnar twenty years ago!
So, please roll up your sleeves and get felting!
When completed, please contact guild member Deirdre Crofts, who generously chairs this project. She will add them to our tapestry.
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.
Feltmakers Ireland 
