HeartFelt Silks Blog

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Wonderful Felt Art by Friends of HeartFelt Silks - Part 2

We are continuing the series we started earlier in the month and sharing more beautiful feltmaking by our friends and colleagues! We just love seeing all the fantastic felt art being made around the world, and we are delighted to be part of their feltmaking process through our felting tools, the Palm Washboards. We regularly share many more works by a variety of felt artists on our HeartFelt Silks Facebook page, so please follow us there for even more inspiration!

Nicole Burton of Parvana Creations (based in Ashland, OR) creates hand-felted and hand-dyed works of wearable art and home decor that have a unique and dramatic style. Take a look at these Native American inspired wraps, aren't they incredible!

And here is Nicole making one of her impressive felt pelts. You can follow Parvana Creations and Nicole's adventures in felt-making on her Facebook page.

We are glad to count Cristina Pacciani of Cricri Felt among our felt-making friends. Cristina has a studio and store in Amsterdam where she works on wondrous felt art and teaches classes.

Cristina is also the organizer of the amazing Arlecchino Project -- a collaborative worldwide project with felted large-scale installations in public places. You can find out more about it on the Arlecchino Project Facebook page.

Photo by Cristina Pacciani

Palm Washboard from HeartFelt Silks in use on the large-scale Arlecchino Project felt canvases

Chrissie Day is a talented knitting and felting artist, teacher, and book author from the UK. Check out these lovely creations by Chrissie. You can also follow her on Facebook.

One of our other gifted colleagues is Peter McMasters of Spry Whimsy Fiber Arts. Peter has a studio and store in Stoughton, WI, where he creates very beautiful felt art and teaches it to his students too. Check out Peter's very cool and striking vessels below.

And here we spot one of our Palm Washboards expertly used by Peter on creating one of his original felted Easter Baskets!

More felt-making by Peter McMasters in what, as many of you know, is my favorite color ;-)

The series of Wonderful Felt Art by Friends of HeartFelt Silks will continue soon. Please bookmark our blog and visit us again!

Friday, May 17, 2013

Robbin Firth's Felting Classes 2012-2013

As many of you know, I (Robbin Firth) teach wet-felting and nuno-felting classes in the Minneapolis, MN area. For the past few years, I have been guest-teaching a variety of group classes at local venues like The Textile Center, Phipps Center for the Arts, and a few local yarn shops, including That Yarn Shop in River Falls. Most of my classes are beginner-friendly, in many of the classes you get to go home with a beautiful hand-felted accessory you finish in class, and in ALL of the classes we have a LOT of fun! Starting June 2013, I will also be teaching classes in our brand new retail & teaching studio at 401 Second Street in Hudson, WI. We use the non-rolling method of wet-felting in our classes (it's easier on your body!), and we use our very own hand-crafted Palm Washboard felting tools. Here are just a few of the classes I teach:

Silk Bloom Scarf
Lightweight Summer Scarf
Cross Hatch Scarf Class
Winter Frost Scarf
Hat on a Ball
Felted Boot Cuff
Kids Felted Wristlet
Wet Felted Christmas Stocking
and more!

You can see the list of upcoming classes HERE or contact us anytime.

I want to share photos from a few of my 2012-2013 classes. Don't my students and their felted projects look just beautiful?

Hat-making Class

Cross-Hatch Scarf Class

Silk Ruffle Scarf

More Cross-Hatch Scarves in the making

Hand-Dyed Silk Scarves class

More class photos of my beautiful students and their creations

Everyone's busy working on their felted creations

Please stay tuned for the schedule of classes coming up at the HeartFelt Silks studio in Hudson, WI!

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Wonderful Felt Art by Friends of HeartFelt Silks - Part 1

Today we are starting a new series on the blog where we will be sharing with you the artwork of our feltmaker-friends from around the world. These artists are all extremely talented, and we are so happy to be sharing their work. We are also honored that they all use our felting tools, the Palm Washboards, in their work, and that they find the tools useful.

So, here it is -- Part 1 of the series, and stay tuned for more beautiful felt art by our artists/friends, coming soon!

Sandra Struck-Germann is a feltmaker from Germany who creates, among other things, remarkable 3D felt sculptures and portraits.

Image Copyright: Sandra Struck Germann

Below is an amazing portrait in felt Sandra created based on a childhood portrait of our daughter Kirsten.

Image Copyright: Sandra Struck Germann

Another felt and mixed media artist whom we respect very much and whose work we adore is Jan Waller. Follow her artist page on Facebook for daily inspiration from the world of felt, and see photos of her incredible works in progress.

Image Copyright: Jan Waller

Jan also teaches felt-making, and she does custom portraits in felt too, so you can contact her for a commission! In the upper right corner in the above picture is a current-day portrait of our daughter Kirsten!

Image Copyright: Jan Waller

One of our earliest supporters is the excellent Cheryl Gentry, and we are so grateful to have had Cheryl cheering for us from the early days of HeartFelt Silks, that has meant a lot to us! Cheryl was also kind to write about our felting tools for the website Cool Tools. Thank you, Cheryl! Here's a very cool collar Cheryl made with merino, alpaca, banana silk thread and Cotswold locks, using our Original, Rounded, and Mini Palm Washboards.

Image by Cheryl Gentry

Here's another very special felted wall hanging by Cheryl Gentry

Another dear friend and supporter we want to mention is Cami Smith, a felt-maker and felting teacher who is also the Online Content Editor for Fiber Art Now magazine. We love seeing what projects Cami makes, and here is a color/texture study she shared with us.

Image by Cami Smith

We like Iona Loyola's nuno felted designs very much, and we are so pleased to know that our felting tools have come in handy in her work. Please visit Iona's website, shop, and see her designs at art shows in the NYC area, too!

Image Copyright: Iona Loyola

We have a lot more beautiful felt-making to share with you, so please come back to our blog soon, for Part 2 of our series "Wonderful Felt Art by Friends of HeartFelt Silks"!

Monday, May 6, 2013

See HeartFelt Silks at Shepherd's Harvest Sheep & Wool Festival

HeartFelt Silks will be a vendor at the Shepherd's Harvest Sheep & Wool Festival, May 11-12, 2013! This is Minnesota's largest fiber festival; it connects shepherds with fiber and animal lovers. There will be classes, events, demonstrations, and fun for the whole family. Both Robbin and Harry will be in attendance, and our full selection of fiber arts supplies and tools will be available on display and for purchase -- wet-felting kits, hand-dyed silks, our Palm Washboard wet-felting tools, hand-crafted wood shawl pins, and much more! We hope you can visit us at this exciting event!

Location: Washington County Fairgrounds just east of Lake Elmo, MN at the intersection of Washington County Rd 15 & Highway 5. Free Admission. For more information, visit http://shepherdsharvestfestival.org/

Image Courtesy of Mpls Photo Center

We are counting down to the Grand Opening of our very own Fiber Arts Teaching and Retail Studio, coming very soon at our brand-new location on 401 Second Street in Hudson, WI, at the Seasons On St. Croix Gallery. Please stay tuned for the schedule of upcoming felting classes! In the meantime, please follow us on Facebook for regular updates, and visit our website and shop. See you soon!

Thursday, April 11, 2013

A warm spring welcome to our new blog!

A warm welcome from Robbin and Harry Firth to HeartFelt Silks' new blog! Here, we will bring you news from our fiber arts & woodworking studio and share exciting wet felting and nuno felting projects. We will let you know about events we participate in, including Robbin's fun and beginner-friendly felting classes. We will offer felting tips and discoveries, and share felt works made by other artists. We are going to have such a great time, and we hope you will join us on this journey! Please add our blog to your browser's bookmarks or your favorite blog feed reader. We also invite you to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

The full line of Palm Washboard felting tools, exclusively from HeartFelt Silks.

We also want to share some VERY EXCITING NEWS! After years of working on HeartFelt Silks from our home studio in Stillwater, Minnesota, we are opening a small RETAIL and TEACHING STUDIO of our own in beautiful Hudson, Wisconsin! Located on the main floor of the magnificent and award-winning Seasons at St. Croix Gallery, the new HeartFelt Silks studio will be open to the public, and will carry a full selection of our hand-crafted tools and supplies for feltmakers and fiber artists. When you visit our studio, you will find our line of Palm Washboard wet felting tools (hand-made one at a time by Harry, as always), along with Robbin's hand-dyed silks, and a full line of luxury wool supplies. We will also carry our hand-crafted wood accessories, including shawl pins, buttons, and more. AND, we will offer in-studio FELTING CLASSES for groups and individuals on a variety of topics. We are so excited to open the doors to our own studio and bring the beauty and the magic of felting to you! Please stay tuned for news of our grand opening, tentatively scheduled for June 2013!

Of course, our website and online shop will remain open for all of our national and international fans and customers!

And here is what's new from HeartFelt Silks this month:

The EDGE Palm Washboard from HeartFelt Silks.

We introduced our newest felting tool, the EDGE Palm Washboard, designed specifically for areas that need fine and detailed felting manipulation, as well as for working on ruffles and seams. Note: the first batch sold out almost overnight, and more EDGE Palm Washboard are being made. Contact us to reserve yours.

Hand-dyed Fabrics and Scarf Kits from HeartFelt Silks.

We made many new hand-dyed silks and gauze fabrics -- they are available individually, as fabric, and also as part of our unique Scarf Felting Kits.

We are also delighted to make our very special, one-of-a-kind Inlaid Wood Shawl Pins available for sale online for the first time. Visit our shop to see more.

Don't forget to bookmark our new blog -- we will be back soon with more posts and news!