There was a very good turnout this month for the talk on Felting for Christmas. We welcomed our speaker Raya Brown of Magic Wool Studio who came all the way from Kidderminster to show us how to make a lovely felted and appliquéd table centre for Christmas.
This was quite a long process involving laying various threads as an initial structure then adding wool “tops” to a depth of 4-5 mm. As the felting process shrinks the item by at least 30% it has, of course, to be made bigger than the finished item.
The felting process involved lots of soapy water and various surprising tools including an electric orbital sander with bubble wrap replacing the sandpaper. Underneath a waterproof layer of hard plastic, textured drawer lining was used (available from Lakeland Plastics and Amazon). All this helped with the agitation needed to give a good felting.
Various members of the club helped out and tried their hand at the process.
It took time to dry, blotting it with towels and then a variety of pre-felted pieces were added, including holly leaves and a red poinsettia to make a holder for a Christmas candle in a small glass container.
The finished item. looked absolutely wonderful.
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Raya also brought along various samples of her work and some items for sale.
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We would like to thank Raya for a wonderful inspiring evening.
At the end of the evening, we also had a collection of the hats members made for charity with the gingery coloured yarn won at the Guild annual meeting. And also, for the show and tell, Barbara brought along an adorable pink baby cardigan with little prams on the pocket.
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