Royal Easter Show 2013

All the entries were excellent, so it is with pleasure that we congratulate Melinda, Barbara

and Eleanor on their success. The pictures  illustrate the very high standards that all the beautiful
articles were competing against.There is something very special about a purple lizard!

 

Anita Larkin Workshop

Anita Larkin       Stacking Resists workshop

A workshop hosted by The Illawarra Feltmakers 

Date: 9th and 10th March 2013

9:30am to 4pm 

Shellcove Community Centre, Shellharbour

Stacking resists beside, as well as on top of each other, allows the felter a multitude of

possibilities for making innovative forms in 3 dimensions. Using resists in this way enables

intricate, complicated, and unusual shapes within your felting projects. This class will begin

with 2 small experiments on day 1, felting resists together in various ways to produce

shapes such as segmented seedpods, multi-chambered vessels and imaginary animals.

Students will then have the opportunity to further explore and develop their own projects

using these two methods on the second day. This can be a small wearable, sculptural

vessel, or sculpture. You will be amazed at the possibilities when stacking resists.

Members $200 /non members $250

For an enrolment form for this course, e-mail

theillawarrafeltmaker@westnet.com.au or phone (02) 42440371. 

Pictured below is Anita and two of examples what stacking resists can achive

 

Kiama Show 2013

In what is becoming a traditional start for our New Year activities, The Illawarra Feltmakers were at the Kiama Show in January.  As always, our aim is to introduce felt making to children, even grown up children for that matter. We demonstrated felt ball making to the joy of many children. A big thank you to our demonstrators, who enjoy sharing felt ball making.

Not to be forgotten is the competition aspect of the show. We had several of our members submit entries, in the felting categories. As we sponsor one of the awards, it would was wonderful to see The Illawarra Feltmakers representation. Congratulations to Robyn& Bo who took home first prizes.

We’ve many talented members and shows such as Kiama Agricultural Show are a wonderful way to bring your work to the attention of the wider community.

Photos of the Spinning Weaving & Felting in the Pavilion

 

Wearable Art & Viva la Gong

Greetings to All,

The Illawarra Feltmakers Inc have won the Red Point Wearable Art Award for 2012 with an entry titled Gallygaskin - all felted of course!

The Wearable Art Showcase took place last Friday evening and was part of the Viva la Gong celebrations. 
Gallygaskin was a creation inspired by the pantaloons worn by gentlemen in centuries past.

Andria was our very accommodating model.

Two members, who only joined the group this year, also had entries in the Accessory Showcase section. Our "Robyns" are great examples of what imagination, a little bit of experience and some daring can achieve. Have a look at the photos to see "Gallygaskin",  Robyn H "A Bird in the Hand" and Robyn M "Meeting on the Lily Pad hat".

Congratulations and a big thank you to all involved in Wearable Art Awards.

While "Gallygaskin" did us proud, .

The Red Point Art deserves an award too for such a wonderful evening of fun and great entertainment. It was an inspiring program with something for everyone.We wish to say thank you for making it possible, for giving the people of the Illawarra a creative focus and for that all important ingredient  - plain good fun. 
We appreciate all that has obviously gone into arranging such a show.

Viva la Gong
Thank you must also go to those who rallied on Saturday to be at McCabe Park for the Viva la Gong festivities. We had our tent and the new banner in the Creative Hub right next to the Wishing Tree. We couldn't have wished for better, as it brought the children to our ball making table in droves. Ball making work was made easy with so many helpers coming along. So thank you to Diana, Marianne, June, Simone, Robyn H ,Rachel, Anita and Barbara for your assistance we really appreciated everyone’s effort.

International Felt Day

The Illawarra Feltmakers celebrated international felt day with a group project in the theme of Fire.

Exhibition & Workshop

A big thank you to everyone who made our exhibition possible & attended.

In conjunction with the exhibition we ran a vest workshop with Phyllis Hoffman all attendees completed a beautiful vest

The Illawarra Feltmakers Exhibition

The Illawarra Feltmakers would like to invite you to our exhibition.
We will have a special guest to officially open the exhibition at 6.00pm on the 13th July.
Hope to see you

Workshop with Marjolein Dallinga

Form in felt/ Felt in form Workshop with

Marjolein Dallinga

On 24 & 25^th April, ten of our members gathered at the Werri Beach Progress Hall to be inspired by Marjolein’s approach to using coloured wool and textiles, loose fibres and threads in the felted form.

We were assured that there was no compulsion to produce an object by workshop’s end. Rather we were on a journey, a process of experimentation and discovery. Marjolein encouraged us to use our emotions and memories as the basis for colour choices in our first project. So we laid out many layers of different coloured wool fibre interlaced with pieces of fabric, fibre and threads. At times this was a challenge for those who felt a need to know where this was heading. For others it was a chance to throw off the shackles and just go wild with colour and texture.

When all this was complete, the mystery deepened as we were instructed to gather sections, knot them securely and wait for it to dry. Then two hours or so of cutting will reveal all, reassured Marjolein. That we had to do at home as time was running out.

Our second project was to create a small 3D object based on a design of our own choosing. Here Marjolein demonstrated the benefits of very fine layers using variegated colours. By day’s end we all had something to show for our efforts.

It was a great chance to learn new techniques and Marjolein was most generous in sharing her knowledge and experience.

Below is a photo of the group hard at work, some of our finished creations and our President, Anita with Marjolein.

Wool Day Canberra

We had a fun day at the Bus Depot Markets Wool day.
Meet lovely people & picked up some  wooly felting supplies.

Our feltmakers stall- heaps of hats

Royal Easter Show 2012

The Sydney Easter Show Arts and Craft show has the “Fabulous Fibres” display.
Fabulous Fibres is coordinated as a joint effort of the Royal Agricultural Society and the following groups Hand Weavers and Spinners Guild of NSW, Knitters Guild NSW & NSW Machine Knitters Assoc. The Illawarra Feltmakers contributed items to the display.
                 

Melinda & Eleanor do felt demos at the Easter Show

Some of our members had exhibits at the easter show.

The results for the 2012 Royal Easter Show has great excitement for two of our members. Melinda Binkins has received six awards for her felted entries - three 1st prizes, two second prizes and Winner of Best Exhibition - Felting Classes. 

Also Barbara Wyles has received recognition for her knitting and spinning by being awarded two 1st prizes, a third and two Highly Commendeds. 

Great news and so well deserved.