New Year's Mantra

May we break boundaries, tear down walls, and build on the foundation of goodness inside each of us. May we look past differences, gain understanding, and embrace acceptance. May we reach out to each other, rather than resist. May we be better stewards of the earth, protecting, nurturing, and replenishing the beauties of nature. May we practice gratitude for all we have, rather than complain about our needs. May we seek cures for the sick, help for the hungry, and love for the lonely. May we share our talents, give our time, and teach our children. May we hold hope for the future very tenderly in our hearts and do all we can to build for a brighter tomorrow. And may we love with our whole hearts, for that's the only way to love.....
I know I have posted this before, but it is worth saying over and over again...I read it a few years ago on a blog, and thought it was just so right....hope all of you have a wonderful, heartfelt New Year and that we continue to look for the goodness in each of us. 
thanks so much for reading my posts and making my world richer. 

Peaceful thoughts

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

Greetings to the coming of the Light

Being as it is dark about 4 o'clock nowadays we are eagerly awaiting the coming of the light and the season of the lights...here are our best wishes for you and yours at this lightful time of the year. 

off the cuff

Here is a selection of Christmas gallery works that I have made most recently... the first are felted bracelets which were inspired by Anita Larkin, and are made over copper wire so that they are adjustable and flexible.. Anita Larkin is a wonderful feltmaker in Australia, and does a lot of sculptural work...she was very generous in sharing her process and I have had much fun making these/
The next photo is of work inspired by a wonderful Canadian feltmaker, Marjolein  and I have been making these pod type pieces for quite awhile and just recently making them into neckpieces. 
They are so organic and rich that I wanted to be able to wear them so the neckpieces came to me late summer and I moved on the idea, extending what I had already learned...
The third pic is of cuffs made with silk that was dyed in multi colours and then lightly felted with wool on the inside.  I have made a large selection of these and they are lightweight and very organic looking, I do prefer nuno with the silk side out, as I have stated before, so these are really a way to
utilize that process and make them very appealing to me. 
I have just returned from the Christmas Faire here on the island where I live, and the cuffs were really well received and the neckpieces, in fact considering the power went out and we had to close two hours early, I did quite well, and so many people love felt.. It is really taking off these days.
I always remember when I first started felting with my good friend and mentor Alma Schofield, that there were about 5 or 6 felting books on the market and it was not very well known by the general public, now the story is quite different and there are so many wonderful felters in the world.  It has been fun watching the resurgence of the craft of felting and seeing how things come full circle on so many of the arts and crafts movement.  Wonder what will be next....
for me  the next week-end is a two day event on a neighbouring island, and hopefully the sun will shine and the power will stay on ....in the meantime, mushroom dyeing is on the table, and have done some cuffs with the mushroom dyes, and with the eucalyptus, which is the plant that truly "keeps on giving:" lol

dance of abundance

Cortinarias are popping up but what type is still in question...perhaps "croceus" but perhaps one of the other hundred of types of these shrooms, but these have lovely tan tops and gold/orange gills, and now I have them at home have separated the caps from the stipes and have cooked the caps and soaked the stipes...the wool is cooling in the mordant and tomorrow will be the telling moment.  I believe my water is almost neutral ph although I did use tap water.  Oh the fun of fall.   I was able to pick some today but due to a cold, dh picked a lot in the past few days as well as these photos, to let me see where he had picked...love the photos...
tomorrow I will start cutting and  soaking the hydnellum peckii (older) which we got on our camping trip last week up north. There were no young ones but a few older ones, so I will try them.
The trip was a great success as the weather was good enough to camp and the shrooms were out. No cauliflowers, and no lobsters which is quite a surprize. 
So the hunt continues, for colour and shrooms...I love the fall

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL FELT UNITED DAY....something blue, which was the theme and purple but can't find anything purple except this print. 
This is a wall hanging of a sunflower which is about 5 feet long and two feet wide....it is beaded around the edges of the petals, and some free motion embroidery on the surface with a lot of french knots. 
Hope everyone is having a wonderful felting day. 

Summer sanity

Here is where I have been this summer, or at least part of the summer, felt jewellery, and felted vests and nuno shawls and now harvest and stopping to eat peaches and dry them....the markets are almost over and I have  a few orders to fill and now back to work for three days a week.The pictures are of a few of the neckpieces I sold this summer, and the top piece was inspired by work of several artists, and hopefully I did something original with the piece...I have several pieces of these lichen/sea anenomes and they are turning into the neckpieces and look great..I made several before I knew what I was going to do with it...I just loved the process and now it is paying off with new ideas, so I was thrilled...I showed them at a local gallery and they were much commented on and that was before I made them into jewellery.   the other two were pieces made earlier, the shibori indigo beads which has a definitely japanese flavour to it, in my mind, and the multi coloured fun piece was quickly sold.....it was a wonderful summer, not hot, rainy enough to keep the garden happy and fruitful, and enough people at the market enjoying my work to keep me satisfied, not to mention selling work which allowed me to buy more supplies...like some lovely silk, and some fine merino rovings...so I am busy dyeing and doing some eco printing and then felting into it, and some gathering of dyeing supplies.  Fall is an amazingly busy time, and it sneaks up on me every year.  I love the fall and I hope we get a long indian summer and then lots of rain for the mushrooms, that would be perfect.  I have been doing indigo dyeing and mordanting like crazy and even did a cochinel dye bath, and it is still giving me colour.  Have done some ragweed, and some oregon grape dyeing as well and will have photos shortly.   People really appreciated the felting at the galleries, and you can see that it is more generally recognized, and so the felting world is definitely expanding.   I can see people are really seeing the felt work and appreciating it.  Also the natural dyeing, although I don't exclusively do that, I mostly do it with a dash of synthetic every once in awhile...and this week the synthetics were in teal and deep rusty ochre, and I really like this combo....so back to the workbench and more fun and obsession...hope everyone is enjoying their end of summer and looking forward to a long and fruitful fall.