Winter and Spring 2015 Felting Classes with HeartFelt Silks

It's a new year and a new season of felting classes at the HeartFelt Silks Studio at SEASONS on St. Croix Gallery! Find the list of Winter and Spring 2015 classes below. Other felting classes (including private and group instruction) can be arranged by appointment.

All registrations are done via phone or email and must be prepaid. 

Follow us on Facebook to see photos from previous classes!

Take a felting class with fiber artist Robbin Firth at HeartFelt Silks® Studio  

Let your creativity flourish and create unique fashion accessories and home decor objects! 

Location: 401 Second Street, Hudson, WI 54016  at SEASONS on St. Croix Gallery

  phone: 651-263-7275        email: robbin@heartfeltsilks.com        www.HeartFeltSilks.com 

Felted Vessels with Resist

Create a one-of-a-kind vessel with 3D effects and learn the technique of wet felting using wool roving, UPWOLFING cutouts. These unique vessels make bold decorative and functional objects of home decor.  Robbin will teach you a faster way to felt using the Palm Washboards and the new Wedge Palm Washboards felting tools. Felting experience required. 2 day workshop.

Material & class fee: 
$160.00                     
Saturday & Sunday, January 17th-18th 12pm-5:30pm




Felted Cross Hatch Scarf

Create your own lattice-style scarf or wrap. This technique makes a beautiful scarf that looks complicated, but is easy to learn. Use merino wool roving of various colors, silk embellishing threads, and your own scrap yarn bits to create the design, and then wet felt with Robbin’s Palm Washboard felting tool, and her innovative non-rolling technique. Felting experience required.


Material & class fee: 
$65.00       

Saturday, February 7th 1pm-4pm  




Felted Raw Locks Scarf

A superfine merino wool will start as your luxurious base fiber; then, layer in raw Blue Faced Leicester sheep locks onto the merino base. Just a small amount of rolling and use of a custom designed felting tool, and your wet felting adventure will produce a scarf with a soft texture, but a curly and chunky appearance. Please note: raw locks do have a slight odor. Felting experience required.

Material & class fee: 
$70.00
                                                         
 Saturday, February 28th 1pm-4:30pm





Intro to UPWOLFING

Discover the creative and unusual UPWOLFING felting technique! Learn the basics of UPWOLFING invented in Eruope by Irene Van Der Wolf. In this class we will experiment with a small UPWOLFING mat and Merino Wool Prefelt. You will create patterns and designs that you can later use in other felting projects. This class will go over advanced UPWOLFING techniques and products. 

Material & class fee: 
$65.00 

Friday, April 10th 6pm-9pm
                                                                
Saturday, April 18th 1pm-4pm



Felted Flowers and Vines
Create beautiful and delicate flowers with stems to make belts and necklaces. This class will take you through the basics of making the flowers with the Palm Washboard felting tools. Robbin will show you an easy technique to create the stems and then a way to connect them to the flowers for fashionable accessories. Felting experience is required.

Material and class fee: 
$65.00

Saturday, May 2nd 1pm-4:30pm

Friday, May 29th 5:30pm-9pm

Please bring a couple of towels to the class/es you attend.

All registrations are done via phone or email and must be prepaid. Other felting classes can be arranged by appointment. Private and group instruction available. Contact Robbin at 651-263-7275 for details. If you cancel 2 or more weeks prior to class date, there will be a 10% cancellation fee. If you cancel less than 2 weeks from class date, there will be a 50% cancellation fee. If you cancel the day before or day of class, there will be no refunds. A full refund will be made if a class is canceled by the instructor.
   

All registrations are done via phone or email and must be prepaid.

                            651-263-7275        email: robbin@heartfeltsilks.com


Shop for unique felting tools, supplies, and kits: www.heartfeltsilks.com

Photos from our Fabulous Fibre Month!

As many of you know, in October 2014, the HeartFelt Silks studio at Seasons on St. Croix Gallery hosted a month-long celebration of all things felted, woolly, and wonderful -- Fabulous Fibre Month! In addition to a special gallery exhibit of decorative and wearable fiber art (complete with a fashion show!), we hosted a series of unique felting workshops with guest instructors from around the US. If you missed live reporting on our Facebook page, here is a taste of the festivities at HeartFelt Silks in October 2014.

Our workshop series opened with Dawn Edwards' Eco-Printed Felted Hats, where students of all levels of experience spent two days concocting sculptural hats that were bundled to be eco-printed.

Dawn and her students used a selection of leaves for their beautiful eco-printed hats.

All Fabulous Fibre workshops took place in our retail and teaching studio, and to accommodate larger than usual class sizes, our felting tables spilled over into the beautiful Seasons on St. Croix Gallery.
In the photo above, you can see some of Dawn Edwards' other beautifully eco-printed objects, including handbags. The scarves and wraps overhead are HeartFelt Silks-made, and the hat block in lower right corner is an original hand-crafted wooden hat block by Harry Firth.

The lovely Dawn had a selection of her one-of-a-kind felted hats on display at the gallery.

Making a (supplies and tools) list and checking it twice!

Next up was Becky Utecht's Raw Felted Locks Throw pillow class. Becky, who is not only a feltmaker but also a shepherdess, knows her wool locks! There's nothing quite like a handsome, fluffy, and warm felted locks pillow to add a touch of the grassy pastures sheep love to your home decor.

If you know me and my fiber favorites, you know that I simply love felting with raw wool locks! During Fabulous Fibre Month, by popular demand, I got to teach a Felted Wool Locks Shawl workshop, which was a lot of fun.

I started by prepping the gallery the night before, setting up the tables, laying out the wool bundles, and some inspiration for our shawls from fashion magazines.

The felting adventures began the following morning, in the sunlit gallery. First, the layout...

(The students felt inspired by the artwork surrounding them, as well as by the scenic setting of our town, Hudson, WI.)

Then, the felting...

 And not long after that, we all had luxurious wraps to model!

A few days later, we welcomed Jan Waller to HeartFelt Silks. Jan came to teach a Felted Landscape workshop. With Jan as an inspiring (and entertaining!) teacher, the students had an amazing time.

We were again treated to gorgeous fall weather! And the autumn views around Hudson helped to inspire the colorful landscapes made in wool.

See? Gorgeous fall colors interpreted so very beautifully in felt!

Each student put their own inspiration and personality into their one-of-a-kind, unforgettable landscape.

And none of us shied away from lots of color and lots of embellishing fibers.

We reveled in each part of the process, from carding the fibers...

To using our trusty Palm Washboard felting tools...

To examining and admiring the stunning fruits of our labor.

Another student-favorite was Ruth Walker's Hat on a Ball workshop.

Ruth is a well known teacher and felt artist, and students traveled from near and far to take her class.

What could be more fun than bouncing a felted hat to have it take shape, while surrounded by colorful wool on all sides!

It was full house for Ruth's class, and look at the lovely hats made by all!

We also hosted Beth Marx all the way from California as a guest teacher during our Fabulous Fibre Month. Beth taught a Nuno Felted Vest class -- it had a big turn-out and lots of hard-working students.

What an eventful and busy month! We took a few breaks from felting by sampling some of our local restaurants, and entertaining extra special guests, like our very own internet celebrity Mick (Firth) who came by to visit one day!

Curious about what's coming up next for HeartFelt Silks? Visit our website, follow us on Facebook for daily updates from our studio and helpful tips, Twitter, and Pinterest, and email us any time. For the complete Palm Washboard series of felting tools, felting supplies, kits, as well as handcrafted wooden buttons and shawl pins, visit our online shops on Etsy and on our website.

We are working on bringing online lessons and tutorials to you in 2015, please stay tuned!

The HeartFelt Silks teaching and retail studio is located at 401 Second Street, Hudson, WI 54016.
Private individual and group felting lessons are available by appointment.