Fibre Summer Fun

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ByCarolynMB
It’s been a busy August with a wet felting workshop and a birthday trip to Vermont (my birthday trip from my husband).
We stayed in a lovely old Victorian B&B in Shelburne VT just down the road from the Shelburne Museum which is more like our Upper Canada Village or Black Creek Pioneer Village in it’s lay out and buildings. Though it doesn’t have re-enactors in costume it’s buildings and installations are filled with furniture, art and artifacts collected over the past several decades.

In their Hat & Fragrance Textile building is currently an exhibit of hooked rug art by Patty Yoder…I took pictures of the ones with sheep.

This is a quote from Patty Yoder:

“I am in love with wool. I love to bury my hands in the living wool of our beloved Border Leicester sheep. I love the feel and smell of new sheared wool when I gather it into bags as our shearer does his work. I love the yarn produced from each individual fleece. But most of all I love the glorious pieces of dyed wool fabric stacked by colour waiting for the perfect spot in a hooked rug that I will create.”

There was a lot of art in Burlington, shops & galleries where we viewed and shopped for something to remind us of your weekend by local artists. I also got a beautiful pair of earrings which were hand made in Quatemala using Swarovski crystals, beads and such. 
“Firefly provides employment and training in comfortable working conditions and fair wages to the indigenous people of Santiago Atitlan, in Guatemala. The workshop employs over 80 skilled artisans, both men and women. The indigenous people of the village are very skilled in their traditional arts; the women weave on the backstrap loom and are skilled in embroidery, the men weave on foot looms and are skilled in making fishing nets.
The workshop is spacious and filled with skylights and windows; every artisan has their own worktable and light. It is built around a plant and flower filled courtyard, with the ever-vigilant terriers, Ricky and Rocky around to greet the workers and roam the gardens”.
Necklace.
Well, then it was time to come home and get back to work. I had a felting workshop on August 21st with ten women. Three of them stayed at my place and we all met for a day of wet fun. This is a shot of the room full of busy creators. This was a workshop of just fun creating, no heavy expectations but to complete an item. I had two women making hats and….. 

 ….one making jewellery blanks. These had silver findings worked into the ends and Sandra will embellish these. I hope to see them at the Thousand Islands Christmas show in November….I’ll be there too.

Here is a lovely hat made using roving, this young woman had never worked with roving or fibre before so I was very proud of her accomplishment!
A vest back.
The Gang!

Marie’s vest…she had buttons already made to match!
I did some work and find I love making hats but need lots more practice working with roving.
I also dyed some silk and hope I can reproduce this kind of patterning again! It just came out like this and I didn’t tie it….now to figure out where I will use it.

Next is a felted hat workshop with a private group of fun women…..

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