City & Guilds has withdrawn its Design and Craft Approved schemes under which our successful suite of Felt courses were delivered. City & Guilds invited us to join their Accredited department and worked closely with us to invest our knowledge as makers and educators into our own programmes so that we can continue to deliver the breadth and depth of craft and design subjects. Accreditation means that our participants will receive a certificate from City & Guilds in partnership with ArtyBird.
We have been recognised by City & Guilds for the quality of the delivery of our felt programmes through their Medals for Excellence, students being awarded 3 years in a row and tutor, Kate Horner, being awarded one for her teaching.
Please check out our website for the list of our programmes that offer 5 years of training to create professional felt makers. All our felt programmes can be taken on-line as well as attending at our dedicated centre in Carnforth Lancashire. They are also delivered at our centre ArtyBird Australia.
You can view ArtyBird Australia’s links with the Gentle Roller, featured in this month’s Felt Matters, on YouTube. We have purchased one from the first batch to be made and it will be delivered to the UK at the end of March. We are very excited by this machine that continues to show its versatility in the way it emulates the hand rolling technique and myself and my students will test it fully, making regular reports on our findings.