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I thoroughly enjoyed doing last years IFA felt swap and treasure my beautiful butterfly brooch made by Clare. I was keen, therefore, to take part again this year. However, I didn’t suspect how much it was going to absorb my attention!
A couple of years ago I did a wonderful online course with Deb Koesters creating Nuno-felted jewellery. This gave me a starting point to develop my ideas. I am also a keen recycler and don’t like to throw much away; so, I not only created some fresh Nuno felt using some of my hand painted silk (from yet another fantastic online course this time from Zsófia Marx and Ellen Bakker) but I also cut up a couple of hats that I had previously made and was no longer satisfied with. These hats gave me wonderful found shapes and designs, which would have been harder to create from scratch. I also wet-felted some needle-felted samples from landscape ideas and created a different effect for more bracelets.
Now I was getting seriously caught up in it all! Each time I thought I had my swap bracelet done for my partner, Pat, another idea came along and demanded to be developed!
I am slowing up a bit now! And I am enjoying the process of embellishing these pieces, usually using simple embroidery stitches such as long stitch and french knots. I must watch Annemie Konene’s bracelet course and see if I can broaden my repertoire. I have also enjoyed searching through long-neglected boxes for different fastenings: so far, I have found a variety of ring and bar clasps, magnetic fasteners that were too small for bags, and some beautiful single buttons.
The good news is that I have now settled on the bracelet/cuff for Pat. I just need to finish it off. This has been a very creative and enjoyable journey, and along the way it has given me ideas for a couple of workshops I can run locally.
Having said that I am slowing down, as I write this I am now thinking of how I can make some bracelets using lace and some mulberry silk paper!!
And finally, I’m really looking forward to the video of all the felt swap bracelets that will be coming to the IFA members zone later this year and to see everyone else’s work, my bracelet for Pat will also be there.

 

Article by Shelley Steele, Felting Crazy - Region 14