Shearing ALPACAS...

Saturday was Shearing Day at West Wight Alpacas and with over thirty alpacas to shear they needed extra people to help out, so I volunteered my services. Having felted so much natural fleece and fibres over the years I'd never seen the shearing process first hand and close up so I was really excited to be involved.

When I arrived at the farm the afternoon had already got off to a dramatic start with a baby alpaca just born and barely 20 minutes old when I took this picture…

Itisha with baby Tinkerbell

With 33,000 alpacas now in the UK a team of expert Australian alpaca shearers had come over to do the work. They arrived having been shearing on the island all day with another farm to visit afterwards.  They tackled the task with great efficiency and professionalism, making sure each animal was sheared cleanly. The alpacas are tethered whilst the shearing takes place. It's up to the helpers to collect the fleece as it is cut, folding the main saddle piece together, labelling it and carrying it to the skirting table for sorting, whilst also collecting and keeping the secondary cuts separate. 

Vince and Berlin waiting their turn...

Kaiser being shorn...

Fleece on the skirting table

Shearing is obviously a very necessary process, together with the toe nail clipping, teeth checks and vaccinations that are all done at the same time. Observing from the side-lines it made me appreciate the terrific responsibility that comes with owning and caring for these magnificent animals. It is a traumatic time for everyone involved - I know I was shattered after just a few hours of helping out... 

Little Summer without her coat...

But the shearing relieves the alpacas of a heavy winter coat (Kaiser's was over 8 kilos) and they are soon back in the field, light-weight and grazing as if nothing's happened…  

Bella & friends back in the field...

The end product - the wonderful fibre that these animals produce is of a fantastic quality and I'm really looking forward to using it in the felting workshops this summer. You can see the drum carding in action here and click on any of the photos to enlarge... 

The new workshop dates have been posted here.


POSTSCRIPT (1st June) :


I learned some very sad news today about little Tinkerbell. Apparently she was born with certain problems and had to undergo an operation when she was barely a day old. She received the best possible care over the past two weeks but she didn't pull through. It's understandable that everyone at the farm is devastated...     

SHIBORI Flower Cushion...

With the first 'Felt Cushion' workshop coming up in a couple of weeks time I've been working on a new design.

This cushion is decidedly OTT ! Colourful and bold, the design incorporates some exciting new techniques and can be dressed up or down to compliment any sofa! The flower is constructed with layers of pre-felted petals, some completely felted into the background square, others partially needle-felted together, giving the cushion a real 3-D feel. A separate centre piece was felted using a 'shibori' technique, needle-felted onto the flower and decorated with wooden beads.

'Shibori' is a term used to describe the Japanese techniques of shaping and embellishing fabric by knotting & binding. When applied to pre-felts it can create interesting textures which remain in place after further felting.

The flower centre was created by knotting felt balls into a pre-felted circle. This was fully felted by hand in warm soapy water. After felting the knots were untied and the felt balls were left completely felted together creating the bobbly texture. (This piece would actually make a wonderful felt corsage in itself!)

The centre was needle-felted onto the petals and beads were sewn in place. The finished felt flower square was then sewn to a fabric backing to make the cushion cover.

This has been a really fun project to work on. There couldn't be a greater contrast to all the natural alpaca shades I've been surrounded by recently.  

I'm looking forward to seeing how it works out practically in the classes and seeing all the variations my students will come up with. The 'Felt Cushion' workshops will take place in Freshwater & Newport in June so for dates and booking details follow the links...

Drum Carding ALPACA...

A really interesting aspect to the workshops at the Alpaca Farm is using drum carders to prepare the fleece for felting. Previously I'd had limited experience using these machines so it's wonderful to have them and I've been able to get lots of practice in...

I hadn't appreciated quite how straightforward it is to use the sheared alpaca fleece without any preparation. I started using Desdemona's - a lovely white Huacaya - pulling clumps of it straight out of the bag, just finger picking it to fluff out the fibres, removing any bits and feeding them straight into the carder tray.

It seemed such a shame to get these marvellous carding machines dirty!!! They're  hand-made in Shropshire by Paul Brittain of Classic Carders. We have TWO available in the workshops and they are an absolute pleasure to use.

It didn't take long to fill up the large drum - these are jumbo size and produce a lovely large batt. I've been experimenting with blending some natural coloured Shetland wool in with the white alpaca - the possibilities are infinite. 

I also tried felting the batt as it came off the carder and it gave me a lovely (half length!) scarf, washing all the dirt from the fibres in the felting process. I also used the batts to make a bag blending Desdemona's white fleece with the Shetland colours. One of Jude Allman's wonderful raku buttons compliments the natural coloured fibres and just finishes the bag.

This year's shearing starts in a couple of weeks time so there's going to be plenty of new fleece for us to use in the workshops. I mentioned in the last post that alpacas come in over 20 natural shades...

This is the official colour chart !!!


(And you can click on any of the photos to enlarge...)

FELTING with ALPACAS...

These are exciting times...!  As I mentioned before I've been invited to hold a series of workshops at the West Wight Alpaca farm in Wellow starting after Easter and I'm able to confirm the dates here. West Wight Alpacas is home to both a herd of rare coloured Suri Alpacas and the more common Huacaya Alpacas (pronounced Wacaya) and makes a perfect location to hold felt making classes in their brand new workshop facility, surrounded by all these amazing animals!

As you can see I've been experimenting with the alpaca fibres and they do felt very differently to the wools I'm most familiar with. The Suri fibres are beautifully soft and silky to handle, which makes them quite difficult (but not impossible) to felt as the fibres do take quite a bit of working. I did use them to make some of the examples here like the black lattice scarf and the bowls (click on the photos to enlarge). However these fibres are better suited to hand spinning and produce a luxurious knitting yarn.

The Huacaya has the more normal 'Teddy Bear' fleece that is closer to wool and is much easier to felt. The alpaca natural colour range is amazing! They come in twenty two different shades, from white to black with every other natural colour of fawn, brown & grey in between, which makes them perfect for these felting projects. The finished felt also retains a wonderful 'alpaca' quality, the bowls & bags have a lovely soft hairy-ness which is quite unique!

With the forthcoming feltmaking workshops we plan to use a 50/50 mix of alpaca and wool. All the natural coloured fibres for the workshops will be available to buy at the farm shop and we will be using large drum carders during the workshops to blend these fibres into individual colour combinations for the felting projects. 

 

Huacaya Alpacas (above) and Suri Alpacas (below) at Wellow



It's been an exciting time for WWA as they have just returned from their first major UK Alpaca Futurity show at the Birmingham NEC with lots of rosettes and two of their brown Suris winning Champion (Kaiser) & Reserve Champion (Kimi).

There's more alpaca information at : http://www.westwightalpacas.co.uk/ 

And there's more workshop information and booking details here...

SPRING GALLERY...

Spring has certainly arrived here on the island and Sally's felt daffodils say it all…

Today I'm posting up a 'Felt Gallery' of work produced at this weekend's workshops. The pictures below were made at the "Painting with Fibres" workshop on Saturday here in Freshwater. Everyone bought along photos, sketches & ideas to work from, building up their designs with pre-felts and textures. They will continue to stitch and needle felt into their pictures,
adding textures and embellishments and I'll hopefully be able to show some more completed work soon...

On Sunday the workshop at Brading Roman Villa was a shorter session, producing much more spontaneous work…

This was my first workshop at the Roman Villa. It's a wonderful venue, with a great group who all responded so enthusiastically to the felt making and ALL want to continue - so I'm really looking forward to returning in July to hold a
'Felt Bowls & Bags' workshop! Please get in touch with Joy at Brading if you would like more details.

I just want to quickly mention another exciting new venue…

I've been invited to hold a series of workshops at the West Wight Alpaca Farm in Wellow starting after Easter. I am finalising all the details at the moment and will be posting the dates up very soon...

SCARVES & HATS and more workshop news...

February has been another very busy month of workshops and this has been the first opportunity I've had to catch up for weeks! Even with the extra day I missed my regular 'first day of the month' posting but we made good use of the Leap Day with a Scarf workshop on the 29th and here are some of the results...

I've mentioned before that this Scarf workshop is for all abilities, so beginners have a chance to make something really substantial whilst learning to work with the fibres and textures.

There's also been several workshops this month for those wanting to improve their skills which has resulted in some amazing hats & slippers, bags with pockets and shoulder straps, lots of soft pots & bowls and some fantastic tea cosies!

Sometimes it's tricky to photograph the felt at the end of a workshop when it's still wet and need finishing. Gradually work comes back to me and I'm able to photograph it at it's best, complete with decoration and embellishment.

We had great fun this Saturday making felt Tea Cosies in Freshwater and the week before I spent a lovely day showing my friends at the Weavers, Spinners & Dyers Guild in Rookley how to make felt bowls… But I'm going to wait to post up all those photos in a week or so.

I'm coming to the end of this current programme of workshops with three more dates in Freshwater over the next few Saturdays. There will be more workshops planned after Easter and I'll be posting these as soon as they are finalised.

There's still places available on the "Hats & Slippers" day next Saturday 10th March and also on the "Felt Kindle/I-Pad Case" workshop on March 24th in Freshwater.

If you haven't been able to make any of the previous dates and would like to come along to either of these workshops and make any 3-D project such as a bag, bowl or even a tea cosy then please get in touch ....

HATS UPDATE : "Keeping up with my students..."

I'm not a hat wearing person BUT I just had to have a go at another one after seeing all the fantastic creations my students were making...

Totally unwearable (for me) but great fun to make, with matching scarf..! 

 

Experimenting with TEXTURES...

Lots of experimenting with textures over the last few days in preparation for the new workshop next week - with some very pleasing results ! 

The natural colours of the fibres & textures blend SO beautifully with the wool backgrounds. I deliberately chose non-Merino wool with a good natural colour range - Norwegian grey, Shetland browns, BFL and Welsh white.  

Quite a contrast to the bright scarves of previous weeks...

The fibres shown here before (above) & after felting (below) are as follows :

Wool Slub/Knops - Linen Noil - Jute

Synthetic Mesh - Banana Tops -  Skeleton Leaf

Bamboo Tops - Carded Cotton - Carded Jute

Soya Staple - Flax Tops - Crab Fibre Tops

  

It was surprising just how quickly all the fibres felted into the wool. 

The more fibrous flax & jute were easily trapped. The fine silky crab & banana fibres 

felted in beautifully leaving shiny crimps. The cotton & linen noil were applied more

 thickly and the wool worked through the base of these clumps leaving the top loose and easy to pinch into shapes and ridges - perfect for surface texture.

I plan to work further into these swatches with hand stitching & beads, but for now I've simply photographed them with shells, pods and other natural forms.

'Experimenting with Textures' is for those who have some felting experience and 

would like to try using this amazing range of alternative fibres. 

ALL these textures will be available to use and included in the price of the day, along with other organic & synthetic yarns and fibres. You can make sample swatches like the ones shown here, create a 3-D project or cover pebbles with felted textures.

This workshop will be held at OliVEN in Newport High Street on Wed. 25th January

 and places are still available. 

For more details and information about booking call 554 934.