Felting with Elizabeth Armstrong

Earlier this year I did in a one day beginner wet felting class with felter extraordinaire Elizabeth Armstrong. It was such an enjoyable day and Elizabeth is a lovely patient teacher. We were surrounded with a riot of colour in the classroom with many of Elizabeth's projects decorating the room.

She suggested that we take photos so we could remember what we did. We were allowed to pick any colour background and I chose green. She gave suggestions and instructed us on what to do.

I wasn't going to make it into anything; it was just a  learning experience for me and I tried to add as much as I could.
It was hard to photograph the piece because it was quite wide, so here it is on an angle.

After making the background and then covering it with all sorts of wool shapes and fabric and threads we had to wet felt our pieces. After adding soapy water, we rolled and rolled and rolled until at last we could open out our felted pieces and then wash all the soap out.

Felting complete

It was amazing to see all those shapes become one piece of fabric. I don't particularly like it but remember I was just trying to see how it all worked.

I bought Elizabeth's book because I knew that I would forget how to do it.

Felt Happy by Elizabeth Armstrong

I also bought some wool supplies from her.

Not long after the class I started to mind my granddaughter during the week and I haven't done any more wet felting.
Recently I felt inspired to dust of my Embellisher machine and try some needle felting which is a dry felting technique. I am trying to do some landscape style felting and so far I am quite happy.

Needle felting a landscape

An Embellisher machine looks like a sewing machine but it uses no thread, it has a group of barbed needles and felts wool fabrics together. It gives a different look to wet felting and it is not as hard on your arms and hands as wet felting is.

I would still like to try wet felting again though. I could become addicted to felting, I love the effects and I would love to do another class with Elizabeth Armstrong.

Bye for now,
Linda