WHAT IS IT ABOUT FELTED HATS?

'Cone Flower' ~ wet felted with merino wool

'Cone Flower' ~ top

Harriet's White Cone Flowers ~ Photo by Harriet DeBoer

I know there are lots of things I could make with felt...but I simply love making hats.  I do make the occasional bag or pair of arm warmers, yet given a choice, I would almost always choose to make a hat.  In fact, I can't stop making hats!  My friend Harriet makes gardens and they are the most beautiful gardens on earth.  Her white flowers always make me think of Gertrude Jekyll's famous white garden.  When I saw this photo of Harriet's white cone flowers, I was immediately inspired to make a hat.  Felted hats are so useful, pretty and unique.  I'm sure a girl could never have too many!  Whoever wears this hat will be reminded of the beauty of the summer garden all winter long.  She will be warm too.

There are only about seven weeks until the 'Maker's Hand' show on November 1st, 2nd and 3rd.  How can it almost be November again so soon?  It already feels like fall this first week of September.  So much to do and so little time!  My hat making partner Carol and I have to finish getting our booth ready for the show and we are both making hats like crazy right now.  I hope to have time for another Blog post in October right before the show.   

'Cone Flower' ~ inspired by Harriet's garden

Here are some photos of more new hats which are made from colours I would not normally choose. Challenging myself to select different colours over the last two months has been a good thing and I was able to make eight hats before reaching for the purple roving again. I bought some lovely hand dyed pink merino last month and it is beckoning me. Soon. One thing I learned from all this colour selecting is that black is a good colour and it works well with other colours in a very dramatic way. I want to use more black but it won't come naturally to me. It's going to be a push.

'Checkers' ~ nuno felted with merino wool
and silk chiffon gauze

'Checkers' ~ top

Fibres for 'Checkers' laid out on the silk chiffon gauze
with the polystyrene resist pattern on top.

'Bohemian Rhapsody' ~ wet felted with merino wool

'Bohemian Rhapsody' ~ top

'Bohemian Rhapsody' ~ love!

'Tree Spirit' ~ wet felted merino wool and soy silk

'Tree Spirit ~ top

Marking the head hole on the wet, partially felted fibres.
I use a juice container lid to make the mark.

After cutting the head hole 5 inches in diameter ~ not
bigger as it will continue to strectch as the
felting continues

'Grape Crush' ~ wet felted merino and silk.
It's really purple (I mean really purple!)
 but the camera makes it look blue?

'Grape Crush' ~ side view

In July I took my second felting workshop with Monika Aebischer at Loyalist College in Belleville. She is a wonderful teacher and you can read about her in my post from last year (September 11, 2012 ~ "Summer Felting Workshops"). This year I was joined by four great friends ~ Carol, Mags, Sandra and Lois ~ and we worked hard, for five full days but we all loved the class.  We enjoyed meeting our classmates Debbie, Lynn, Anne, Mary Beth and Jo who were all an absolute pleasure to spend the week with.  Lynn has a yarn shop in Orillia called "The Purple Sock".  I think we all agreed that Monika knows felting and as you can see from this photo...she also knows how to have fun!  Below are some of the things made in the class.

Monika wearing my felted beads and
why we had so much fun!

Nuno felted arm warmers made with merino
wool, silk and chiffon gauze



Felted wrist warmers ~ made with merino
wool and black silk

Felted Bag ~ made from gotland wool,
merino wool and silk
with a pocket on the front

Bag from the back

Two pockets inside!

Laying out the grey gotland fibre for the bag

Wetting out the fibres. 

Mags learning to felt and loving it!
The classroom was huge and we each had our own
work station with lots of room.

Carol with Sandra and Lois in the back ground
working on their bags.

Mags and her vessel that became
the perfect chapeau!

Carol's beautiful bag, book, bracelets and flowers
 along with other students work

Mags made these lovely things. Can you tell she is
partial to certain colours (like me, except I'm partial to pink
which horrifies her!!) ?

Class projects (my stuff in the middle)

A few weeks ago while I was working at Rosehaven Yarn Store rosehavenyarn.com  in Picton, a group of knitting and rug hooking ladies from the Westport area dropped in to shop.  As they explored the shop adding lots of lovely new yarns to their purchases one of them mentioned she needed the yarns for her sable.  What's that I asked ???  SABLE...stands for... Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy!  I'm still laughing.  What fibreholic can't relate to that.  So finally, here is what I do (when I'm not felting) with some of the yarns from my SABLE. 

Fingerless gloves ~ hand knit merino and silk

Wrist warmers ~ hand knit merino and silk nubs

Fingerless gloves ~ hand knit merino and silk



Wrist warmers ~ hand knit from pure
beautiful wool