June 2011 Smallest of all

On June 1st the newest addition to the Pearl dynasty arrived. Amelie Rose, my first granddaughter. She is beautiful and a perfect baby. Now I can knit pink at last.

Felt Workshops

The felt workshops are going from strength to strength. The 10 week felt making course was a great success with nine participants. The course finished on July 18th and here is a picture of an assortment of the students work on the course. There is a new course starting on September 12th every Monday until November 14th, 9.30am until 2pm. Click here for details and course curriculum. To book please go to the Studio Workshop page.

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Felbi Wool Batts

I am now the UK supplier for the delicious Felbi wool batts from FibreFusion in Australia www.fibrefusion.com.au. For those of you who do not know of this wonderous product read on. 

Felbi Wool Batts, sometimes also referred to as prefelt or needle felt, are crafted from the finest  Merino wool and available in 27 tempting colours. Felbi can be wet or dry felted.  It can also be used in machine embellishing.  For feltmakers, Felbi needle felt eliminates the need to "layout", allowing you to spend more time on your design.  It can be wet felted in the same way as you would felt wooltops(felting wool). Felbi gives a smooth, even finish when felted.  It easily integrates other fabrics, silks and yarns through processes feltmakers call 'nuno felting' or 'laminating'. Felbi is a great  product for creating felt 'yardage' for garment construction and a life saver when having to teach felting to school students in a 50 minute session!.

Vibrant colours Natural colours Gentle colours Blended colours. To purchase the Felbi Batts please contact me at suepearl@me.com

New kids on the block

I have been developing a new range of creatures. These are all needle felted and all came about after a mouse got into my newly refurbished kitchen. I love mice but maybe not in the house so after blocking up all possible entries and exits the mousey disappeared but it stayed in my head and soon these little mice started appearing. Not being a fan of needle felting as the only things I had seen having been created by a felting needle were trolls and strange pixies I had been loth to venture into it myself. But the mice hatched out and I was hooked. Now I and my needle are good friends (although I keep the box of plasters close by) and a whole family of mice and associated friends are arriving weekly. Here are a few examples. Three mice (not blind) and Badger, Mole and Ratty from Wind in the Willows.

Knitting and Stitching Show at Ally Pally

This year I will be having my own stand at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace in London. I will be in the Textile Gallery sharing a stand with the lovely Jill Denton, a feltmaker of great repute. I will be selling my rainbow dyed merino, Felbi wool batts and Felbi silk lapp which comes in gorgeous brilliant colours all from FibreFusion in Australia. I will also have my felt kits and a new line of needle felting kits for pictures and mice. Come and see me on my stand Felt Better Look for me on the workshop list as well as I will be doing some Felt Inlay Picture workshops on the Thursday and Sunday.

Felting workshop at Sally Bourne Interiors.

Sally Bourne Interios in trendy Muswell Hill, North London, run a series of workshops from soap making to quilting and upholstery as well as having a lovely shop full of tempting goodies .

They have asked me to run a feltmaking workshop on Sunday October 24th 2010. Please check out their website to see this and other wonderful workshop events.

sallybourneinteriors.co.uk

Justhands-on.tv

Justhands-on.tv is a great website where you can access many different tutorials for a whole myriad of textile processes.

Valerie and Jennie have compiled a very interesting collection of mini videos from well established textile artists and craftspeople who utilise many different techniques to produce beautiful work. They also have an online shop which is selling books, DVD's, materials and kits. My DVD Felt Magic is on sale through them and there is a 10 minute video clip from the DVD on the website to introduce the art of feltmaking.

They are also selling my Felt kits which are perfect presents for budding textile artists and also make great birthday and Christmas presents as well as keeping the children occupied during the long holidays.

Visit their website justhands-on.tv to see the whole shebang.

Tibberton CE Primary School and the Tweetures - February 2010

While I was over wintering in Australia I received an email from the deputy Head of Tibberton School. She had bought my book and had fallen for the various creatures in it. She asked me if I would consider traveling to Shropshire to give a creature workshop to a class of 10/11 year olds. She didn't have to ask twice, I was raring to go especially as she told me that the class had raised the money themselves by organising market stalls.

And so back from my travels and just over jet lag I set off for Shropshire at the end of February. The school very kindly put me up in a hotel overnight and the next morning I was ready to start. I was a bit apprehensive as I normal teach adults to make my creatures and a school day is shorter than my usual workshop times. The children were delightful, well behaved and enthusiastic. We got as far as getting them ready to be wet felted and alas, the school day finished. I had to leave them in a fluffy un- finished state but I showed their teacher how to wet felt the creatures. Last week I received a wonderful picture from the school of all their finished creatures or 'Tweetures' as they are now known.

So here are two pictures, the before and after. And didn't they do well!

Catch up with me on my new blog site!

My new blog site. Click to see it!

Catch up with my new blog site to get the latest news on felt and all that I've been up to in the last year. Click here to go there. Or, just scroll down the page to read all the news in detail!

Melbourne December 5 2009

Melbourne December 5 2009 I am at the last meeting of the
year of the Victorian Feltmakers in Melbourne.

Here I am at the final meeting of the year at the Victorian Feltmakers in Melbourne.

This is wonderful group of felt makers with membership of over 200 covering the whole of Victoria. I am very pleased to say that I am now number 2007 on the membership role.

I gave a little presentation about me and my work and of course, about my role as Publicity Officer for the International Feltmakers Association as well as London co-ordinator for the group.

There was a shared lunch and a show and tell session. The standard of their work is very high and I hope that they will invite me to run a workshop for them when I am next in Melbourne. A very enjoyable day.

News Page - November 2009

There was a big change for me in February this year as I left my house and studio in the Cotswolds and moved back to London. I really miss my lovely workshop but I have to be content with my 10 foot by 6 foot shed in the garden. It may be small but it has everything I need in it except for a loo.

I was trying to keep my workshops going in the country and Anne Griffiths, the textile artist, had very kindly allowed me to use her studio in Churchill to run some of my workshops but unfortunately she couldn’t keep the studio and so I had to go as well.

I am now running my workshops from a super space in Highgate, North London. Please look at my Studio Workshops page to check on what I have to offer in the way of workshops. Please remember that I am very happy to run a special workshop for you and your friends, group or guilds and of course I am still running my felt birthday parties for the younger set.

October 3rd was the International Day of Felt as chosen by Felt United, a group of feltmakers from Norway and Hollan, www.feltunited.com. They decided that feltmakers around the world should celebrate by decking the natural world, buildings and ourselves and anything else that stands still long enough in felt with the colours ranging from yellow through orange to red. I am the co-ordinator for the London group of the International Feltmakers Association at www.feltmakers.com and so I organized a Guerilla Felt session outside the Tate Modern in London. We were met by bemused passers by and talked felt to whoever wanted it. The Tate moved us on but we reinstated ourselves on the main pedestrian walkway by the Thames. Some of our group also decorated the Millennium bridge with strands of coloured felt and labels proclaiming who we were. This is probably the reason the Corporation of London emailed us to ask for all the felt to be removed. That was a shame as it brightened up a grey day in London.

Earlier this year my London group was lucky enough to get a two day workshop opportunity with India Flint from Victoria in Australia. India is a eco dyer and we spent a wonderful weekend wrapping flowers, leaves and berries into bits of cloth and cooking them up and then marveling at the wonderful results of colour and prints that naturally occurred. Visit her blogspot to see her work and read her musing at prophet-of-bloom.blogspot.com

My big news is that I am off to Australia for three months to spend some quality time with my daughter Gemma, son-in-law Nathan and grandson Oliver who is two and adorable. I am hoping to visit Feltmakers in Australia and maybe run some workshops if they will have me. I will be back in February 2010 to resume my felting activities.

Clarks Shoes Special Workshop

The children's shoe designers at Clarks shoes preparing
their new animal designs for the 2010 collection.

I was asked by the children's shoe designers at Clarks Shoes to run a special workshop for them. It was held at their London office in Hammersmith and so on a very rainy London Tuesday I arrived expecting to run a normal creatures workshop day making felt birds but the girls had other ideas.

It was a meant to be a funday for them, something different from their normal office routine. They all came along with designs that they had worked on for their new range of children's shoes and I had to interpret their drawings into a three dimensional shape. As you can see from the picture which was taken just before they wet felted their creatures they certainly managed to create an unusual menagerie. The elephant was particularly fetching.

Fashioning Felt Exhibition

International Feltmakers Association Exhibition

This picture was taken outside the Cooper-Hewitt museum in the old Carnegie Mansion on Museum Mile in New York. It is the design museum of the USA and for the exhibition it was filled with a wonderful and beautifully laid out display of felt from around the world. The education department asked me to run some workshops during the exhibition run and so I went to New York for a few days for that purpose.

I left London in gloriousl sunshine and arrived to find New York rainy and cold, so much so that I had to wear all the clothes I had bought with me at once to keep warm. The weather got better and the workshops went very well and I got a contract from the Smithsonian Institute that I am now going to frame.

March 2008 - New Arrivals

Caroline & Joshua

Since my last newsletter I have become a grandmother. Oliver James arrived on September 11th 2007 in Sydney, Australia to Gemma and Nathan. I was lucky enough to be there to see him just after he emerged into the world. He is a beautiful baby as you can see from his picture here. Another trip to Australia over Christmas gave me lots of time to acquaint myself to the art of nappy changing again.

I became a grandmother again as Dan and Caroline had a baby, Joshua in May 2008.

Felted Friends by Sue Pearl

While I was in Australia for Christmas 2007 my book was published there by Search Press. It had already appeared on the shelves of the bookshops and online booksellers in the America and Canada’ published by Storey Books there, and the UK in November published by Search Press but Australia and New Zealand released it in December.

It is now available through many outlets as well as here on my own website. It is priced at £9.95 and is a step by step instruction book on felt making from making flat felt to three dimensional felt and then onto how to make my individual felt creatures. It has over 25 projects all fully explained and is in full colour. Just click on www.searchpress.com to buy a copy!