Avanced Pod Workshop…..

Today I joined 8 other felting enthusiasts at the Village Hall in Hutton Buscle near Scarborough for Jenny Peppers “Avanced Pods” workshop.  I love Jenny’s classes, she’s a great tutor and explains/demonstrates every step very clearly as we work through our creations.

Two examples of Jenny's work displayed with the shells which were her inspiration.

Two examples of Jenny’s work displayed with the shells which were her inspiration.

We all started out with the same size/shape resist and selected our colours from the huge stash of Merino wool on offer.  We began by making a sheet of prefect using three different colours and this would be used to make “craters” in our pods.  Working with our prefelts and resists we started with our inner layer and worked outwards, layering our wool tops before adding the spikes and tails.

The resist is wrapped in white Merino and the spikes attached at either end.

My resist is wrapped in white Merino and the spikes attached at either end.

My top craters and embellishments are added

The top craters and embellishments are added to my piece.

The next stage was to place our outer craters where we wanted them and add silks, wools, snippets of prefelt, etc as embellishment before felting our spikes.

After lots of rubbing the dreaded rolling begins……and Jenny sees to it that her students don’t skint on the rolling!

Rolling, rolling and more rolling.....

Rolling, rolling and more rolling…..

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Once again the company was great and day past very quickly with Jenny on hand to encourage, inform and see to it that we all manage to complete our work on time.

Two of the ladies had to leave early and unfortunately I didn’t get pictures of their finished work but here are the other seven.

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Detail of my finished pod.

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Spiky Vessels Workshop…

Eight of the finished vessels displayed on a window ledge. looking particularly alien-like

A few of the awesome finished vessels!

Several months ago I discovered a website showcasing the fabulous work of a lady called Jenny Pepper.  I was very excited to see that Jenny holds workshops, not a million miles away, and immediately got myself booked onto two of them.  Earlier this month I rode up to Scarborough to attend Jenny’s ‘Spiky Vessels’ Workshop which was being held in the beautiful village of Hutton Buscel, just a few miles outside of Scarborough.

The fibres have been laid for the basic vessels and now the spikes and craters are being added.

Hard at work applying the spikes and craters.

The workshop was fun, informative and very inspiring.  Jenny demonstrated various techniques for creating spikes, holes, craters and frills to add to a 3-D vessel.  The day was very well structured but at the same time the session was quite relaxed and we were encouraged to work at our own pace rather than trying to keep up with each other – great for me as I always seem to be the last to finish!  It  was fascinating to learn how useful ‘pre-felt’ can be and since coming home I have made myself quite a supply of it in various colours ready for future projects.  The pieces we made were really designed to be ‘samples’ but I think we all came to see them as more than this once they were finished….they seem to have an alien quality and every one of them was unique.

Adding the frill to the vessel

My vessel in the making

It was a great day all round and lovely to meet the other felters.  I am looking forward to meeting up with many of them again at Jenny’s ‘Multiple Resist Workshop in July.

My finished 3D vessel complete with spikes, holes and craters

My finished vessel