Learning to felt!

I just had to pop in quickly to tell you what fun I had this week on a course run by Gillian Harris at www. gilliangladrag.co.uk .  I booked at the beginning of the year and this was the first course I could get on to as she gets very busy.  But I have to say it was SO worth it.  Gillian has a beautiful studio at the back of her house in the garden, full of fun felted things and querky art pieces all highly colourful and bright.  We watched Gill show us the first steps to felting a felted bag from scratch and before you know it there we were with our templates busy designing the outside and the inside of our bags (or tea cosies, you have a choice!) and choosing from her huge yarn stack.  The whole process is labour intensive but I found it quite therapeutic.  There was much rubbing the wool/felt with soapy hands with a layer of net curtain in between. We had lunch in the garden - delicious baked camembert cheese and crudites, quiche and salad, followed by carrot and orange cake and then it was back to rinsing, rinsing, rolling with a bamboo blind and more rinsing and then finally we got to see how it all turned out and to get on a make some handles.  It was a busy day - on the go the whole time -but so productive and I was SO pleased with the result.  I highly recommend it if you are in the area and even if you are not there is, apparently, a delightful b & b nearby which two people who were on the course with me (who came from Scotland!) were staying at and they said it was just great.  And, yes, I did buy the kit and the book so I can make more like the one below - well I just couldn't say no to that could I??????

Even the inside has a design, although the photo is very fuzzy (sorry about this!).

I am hoping to post more regularly again very soon.  Lots of things to show and tell!