Beginning My Third Year

I just realized that I've been felting for two years now, I started in January of 2010.  It feels like I've been doing it much longer!  Maybe that's because I can't imagine myself not felting, it's such a huge part of my life now.  Yet there is a part of me that say's, yeah-just two years, because I have so much still to learn before I feel I'm really on top of it.  I look at the felters out there who's work I admire and they have quite a few years experience working with fiber and you can tell by the quality of their work.  I have to keep reminding myself of that,  often when I see some great work in felt I can  feel myself getting frustrated because I'm not able to produce that caliber of work, both design wise and technique wise. So, I'll keep taking classes and try to

perfect what I've learned and continue experimenting with new ideas. 

Lately I've been playing around with making jewelry with felt. I took a course this summer on felted adornment from Lisa Klakulak up in Mendocino and learned the techniques I'm using here to make these necklaces and the bracelet.  The necklaces are wet felted cords and closures that I make with these beautiful beads my cousin creates.  I love the simplicity of them and how well they show off her beads.  I'm probably going to put some on the Etsy site since I love making them and a gal can only use so many.

   The bracelet is made from a natural merino that I love working with and I used some dark grey partial felt circles that I wet felted onto the bracelet.  I did some machine stitching on it also, another technique I learned from Lisa last summer, and then sewed on these great vintage buttons that have huge holes in them.  I was told from the lady I got them from they originally were used to hold ones bloomers up-before the invention of elastic!  There is a loop and post closure in the back that were also wet felted onto the bracelet.  These bracelets are so fun to make, I'm working on two more now and trying to incorporate more of the things I've learned over these past two years.