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| July 28, 2011 |
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
Bright Lights: Felted Fun Indeed!
Two weeks ago I taught my first Bright Lights class, "Felted Fun: Transforming Wool Into Fabric." To be perfectly honest, I was severely dreading teaching this class the few days before it started. Not only have I been spoiled by getting to arrange my own schedule every day and not having to be ANYWHERE by 8:30 in the morning, but thinking about having 17 post 3rd- through 5th-graders rely on me and having to make a sometimes monotonous activity super fun for 3 hours each day for an entire week was a bit overwhelming.
But I was very lucky. I had two AMAZING assistants to help during the class. I used a colleague's suggestion of teaching Kumihimo on the first day so that kids would have an activity to fall back on if they got bored, and most students probably would have been happy to work on this the entire time. Best of all, they didn't think anything was monotonous! Maybe a few students were bored with rolling nuno felt on the last day, but they were still respectful and did their best to work through the boredom. I really shouldn't have worried, because felt is so exciting by itself, I didn't have to do much to make it fun, aside from kool-aid dyeing bright colors and encouraging creative ideas.
Below are some images of the projects students created throughout the week. I'm so proud of what they were able to accomplish in such a short amount of time!
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Sunday, July 17, 2011
July 8-10
I'm behind on my calendar project already, and it's only halfway through the month! I spent all of last week at Bright Lights teaching 17 kiddos how to make felt, and each day I was too tired to fully complete my own felt. But I was able to felt 6 pieces yesterday and I should be caught up soon! In the meantime, here are three from a week ago:
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| July 8, 2011 |
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| July 9, 2011 |
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| July 10,2011 |
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Congrats to the Happy Couple!
This guest book was a fun one to make. The bride wanted both a sign-in book and notecards for guests to write love notes to the couple on, so we came up with a way to combine the two. The notecards are made of pigmented handmade abaca paper and have their own box to fit inside. The sign-in book is made of matching grey handmade abaca, Coptic stitched with two colors of linen thread. The notecard box is stitched inside a felted cover, which also has a slot for the sign-in book to slide in and out of.
This month I'll be working on a matching photo album, and can't wait to start working on it!
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Friday, July 1, 2011
The Calendar Project
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| July 1, 2011 |
June has been the craziest month for me. I left a part-time job, attended a weeklong conference/workshop in Minneapolis, prepared for and sat at booths to sell my books at two different venues, and prepared at least 4 lesson plans for upcoming classes. After most of it was over, I gave myself a week to recover and not feel guilty for avoiding work--which turned into something more like two weeks because I'm terrible at transitions and can't decide where to start in figuring out my new daily schedule.
So I've come up with a new plan to give me some structure and force me to get to the studio. As I was reading through some old March journal entries, I came across a list of how I could describe my current life, and was drawn to #5: "chaos organized into the grid of a calendar." Immediately this project came to mind. Each day I will make one felted sample as part of my goal to better acquaint myself with different types of wool and layering of silk and how various elements behave when felted together. I'll wrap each sample around a 6 x 6 inch wooden frame and eventually arrange the squares into the shape of a July calendar. My goal is to do this for the entire month, but I already have visions of what a room would look like with 365 of these pieces hanging on the wall. I'm sure some days I'll get lazy and do none, some days I'll do 3, but my aim is to not have high expectations for each sample--not everything needs to be a masterpiece, but it does need to be made to spur on knowledge of the material and trigger more creative ideas. Wish me luck!
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| The first three days. Can you imagine what 31 grouped together will look like? |
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