Fiber Arts Guild meeting tomorrow

I have not done any needle felting for a long time. A lo-o-ong time.



I made this dog at a public workshop my fiber arts guild held. It was the first guild meeting I ever went to, and the first (and so far, only) needle felting I've ever done. It was a blast! But I was working full time, and didn't really think of myself as a fiber artist. Joining the guild was going to be a treat I gave myself.

Then, the dot com bubble burst, and my office-furniture database job went with it. Suddenly I was a stay-at-home mom with completely different pressures and demands on my time. Now instead of needing a fiber arts outlet to escape from my brain-numbing job, I needed a fiber arts outlet to talk with adult women!

We are talking about using the upcoming year to explore needle felting. I look at my dog, and I think I am going to enjoy this year.

One of the things the woman who taught the needle-felting workshop showed us was a gorgeous lace-knitted shawl -- sound familiar? She described herself as a complete klutz, and said that one of her worries was always that she would catch the shawl on something and give it a good pull, and hours of work would be toast. So what she had done was knitted the shawl, and then felted it onto a beautiful swath of burgundy wool felt! The light-colored lace was blocked and needle-felted onto the darker felt. It was gorgeous, and more important for her, it was completely stable and un-catch-able.