This weekend the weather here was dreadful – high winds and driving rain, a typical British summer. But was I downhearted? No I was not, because I spent two days felting. I went to Aberystwyth Arts Centre to attend course by the fabulous Ruth Packham, learning to combine wet and dry felting. It was a lovely informal course, with everyone choosing a plant or flower to make and Ruth helping us to work out how to achieve our goal. All the wool we used was British and some came from the Cambrian Mountains, making it very local.
Arranged, to coincide with an art exhibition entitled Flora, the course focused on making plants and flowers in felt. In fact, we didn’t exactly stick to the remit, so as well plants, between us we also made a caterpillar, a dragonfly and some coral. I really didn’t want to make a flower, so I chose to focus on something smaller, taking my inspiration from the capsules produced by mosses:
and look at all this that the other participants did…
We also each took home a porcelain flower from the Flora exhibition. For one of the exhibits, visitors are asked to record their first flower memory on a small card, and then to exchange the memory for a ceramic flower. The idea is that this particular exhibit changes over time from a collection of flowers to to a collection of memories… isn’t that lovely? The artist responsible is Clare Twomey:
The Snail of Happiness 
katechiconi
/ August 22, 2016You HAVE had fun, and such gorgeous results!
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 22, 2016You know I dithered about booking a two-day course that was really quite so frivolous, but it was really good fun. I’m thinking of mounting the capsules on a piece of driftwood, as suggested by Ruth.
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katechiconi
/ August 22, 2016That sounds like a great way of displaying them. And everyone deserves a little frivolity from time to time…
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Pat
/ August 22, 2016The mosses were a fantastic idea, looking forward to seeing the finished piece. Courses like this can be a great source for new ideas. Glad you enjoyed it.
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 22, 2016I need to do a bit of beach-combing as I haven’t got any suitable driftwood.
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Ann
/ August 22, 2016That looked so much fun, and all the results were fab. 🙂
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 22, 2016It was – it’s nice to go on a course just for fun
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nanacathy2
/ August 22, 2016The dragonfly is lovely
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 22, 2016The lady who made it had never done any felting before!
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coppicelearner
/ August 22, 2016Glad you treated yourself. Fun matters!
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 22, 2016That’s so true – an easy to forget when we get caught up with ‘important’ things.
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thecontentedcrafter
/ August 22, 2016What a great weekend! This is felting taken a step further – love it!!
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 22, 2016I got lots of inspiration… always a valuable outcome from a course… as well as the techniques learned
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anne54
/ August 23, 2016This is very inspiring, and makes me think that I need (rather than just want!) to do a course like this! I love your mosses. And I love the idea of the flower exhibit. What a wonderful way to have people interact with art.
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 23, 2016I’m very inspired by seeing what it is possible to achieve with some creative use of different felting techniques.
Oh, and the flower exhibit was lovely… and it was amazing to see how many people had participated and been able to take away their own little piece of it
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crawcraftsbeasties
/ August 26, 2016What a great day out.. and I loved looking at the pieces you all made. I really liked your idea of making moss capsules, too… They look brilliant in felt!
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 26, 2016I think some of the other participants were initially amazed by my strange choice, but they all came round in the end!
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Born To Organize
/ August 29, 2016What a fun class! I would love to spend a weekend learning more felting techniques. Your creations are lovely and whimsical. Have fun searching for the perfect piece of driftwood. You’ll know when you’ve spotted the perfect one.
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The Snail of Happiness
/ September 1, 2016It was really good to take time away from chores and the computer and just do something creative!
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Born To Organize
/ September 1, 2016It’s amazing how rejuvenating that can be.
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