Today saw me driving down to Colemans Craft Warehouse in Rushden, Northamptonshire to deliver a beginners workshop in Wet Felting. Colemans is a large out of town, retail outlet crammed with all manner of crafting equipment and materials including card making, stamping, fabrics, Felting, beading, knitting, etc. There is a cafe area on the ground floor while the spacious, well lit workshop area is on the mezzanine above the sales floor.
There were nine ladies taking part in the workshop and for all of them this would be their first introduction to Wet Felting. We began by discussing the basics of creating a piece of flat felt and everyone made an abstract sample using Merino fibres and adding snippets of yarn, fabric and silks.
Above are the pieces prior to Felting (apologies for the one that’s missing) and below are the pieces after Felting.
After lunch the ladies were given a choice. They could either make a picture, using the skills they had learnt earlier, or they could learn another laying out technique and make a flower. It was quite spooky how one side of the table chose the picture while the other side chose the flower…..I hadn’t realised the split until I looked at this photo!
The results were wonderful…..
The ladies all said how much they had enjoyed the day and all of them are keen to do more Wet Felting which is terrific to hear. Colemans have invited me back to do another Wet Felting workshop for them on Saturday 14th April so I’m looking forward to seeing some familiar faces and hopefully some new ones too. Next time we will be creating felted landscapes and learning how to incorporate pre felts in our work.
Many thanks to Jo and the staff at Colemans for making me welcome and to my enthusiastic students!
Lincs In Stitches 
Wish I could have been there. Would love to try my hand at felting. It looks like it is great fun with lovely results
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You should give it a try, it’s a wonderful medium to work in.
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they look fantastic! i’ve done a tiny amount of wet felting, i’d be interested in learning about pre-felts, i’ll have to check their website as Northampton isn’t that far from me.
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I can’t find any mention of forthcoming workshops on their site or Facebook page…only demo days. Might be best to give them a ring to find out more. Would be great to see you there if you can make it.
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Lovely results! It’s nice you gave a choice as how to proceed. It’s interesting to see the division. You have to feel good as the teacher that first timers made such beautiful pictures,
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Yes, it’s very rewarding when students produce such good work and I do try to give as much freedom as poss when Im teaching.
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What a lovely place to hold a workshop! The ladies genuinely look very pleased with their felting – as they should be! Fantastic results.
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Thanks Annie & Lynn, I hope the ladies read these comments….we can be too critical of own work sometimes and it’s wonderful to get positive feedback on your work at such an early stage.
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Another worth while day sharing the joy of wet felting with new ladies! They produced some wonderful pieces and you can clearly see the enthusiasm and enjoyment of the day. Nice space for the class too. I am sure at the next class you will see some of these ladies eager to progress.
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Yes Tracey, we may have some potential IFA Members in the making and the workshop space is ideal.
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I love to see the beautiful pieces and the happy faces!
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Me too Rosa, it’s very satisfying when you get to work with such a positive group of ladies. Apparently the folk down on the sales floor were passing comments on the laughter coming from upstairs and wondering what on Earth we were doing!
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I truly think sales people might need a little felting too! 😀
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Oh they would love it!
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