Landscape Felt class at West Hartford Art League

I was rather nervous about teaching at the West Hartford Art League since I had never been to there before and I was pretty sure that most of the students had never felted before. It was also going to be the first time that I taught without someone there to call on if there were any problems. I am getting a little better about handling things outside of my comfort zone but I kept thinking of all the things that could go wrong. My friend Joei and I were wanting to get together for one of our usual fun, felting weekends anyway so I asked her could she pretty please come help me with my class...if only for moral support. Thankfully she said yes. I got almost everything packed and ready on Thursday so that we could spend Friday doing some felting, gabbing, and laughing. I have so much fun with her. We actually did only a little felting since we had a lot of things to show each other. We both worked on art cards for the guild swap at the April meeting. I decided to try some new yarns and batting that I recently bought.

I just wanted to play with the materials and not try to make it look like anything. I am going to do more stitching and maybe add some beads.

Thanks to my friend Joei the class on Saturday went fairly well. The classroom was nice, with big windows on three sides, lots of tables, and two sinks.

Unfortunately some of the tables had water soluble paint on them that made a mess when we wet out the fibers. Next time we will have the tables covered. That is my ready assistant Joei on the left, ready to help with those minor? problems. I wish she could always help!
This class was a struggle for me, in part because I was not feeling great. The students were so quiet that I found it hard to gauge whether I was being understood or if they were enjoying themselves. At least one of the women did enjoy it enough to sign up for the class I am teaching there in May. And another student bought enough fibers from me to make another landscape at home. (The last time I went up to New England Felting Supply I was thrilled to see one of my students, photo in hand, buying fibers for a new painting that she was going to do.) Since the women all left at different times I was not able to get a group photo this time, but I did get photos of each piece.

When I was driving home from class on Sunday there was fog rising from the snow, which I was told was sublimation at work. It created some beautiful mysterious scenery. I wanted to capture it in felt since I had been watching others felt for two days. I am not happy with it but it is not fully dry yet, and at least I got my hands in the fibers and soapy water.

In the last two weeks I also finished two pieces that I had been working on. The first is a piece for a guild exhibit on creation myths.

And this piece for the SDA's exhibit titled 'Merge and Flow'

I also purchased a laptop so I have spent quite a bit of time learning how to use the touch pad, which basically means learning how to undo something that I had no clue I was doing, and learning Windows 7. 

And now on the table is the start of a new piece, which I will explain when it is done.