Happy New Year!

It's been pretty obvious to the two (three?!) of you who read my blog that I've had difficulty keeping up with it for quite a while now, like I mentioned in a blog post in June. I made a similar post on The Felting and Fiber Studio site in November, and if you read the comments, you'll see that I'm not alone! As I was stressing again this week about how much I've let slide, and worrying about how I'll even 'catch up', let alone stay on top of things, I thought I would start with a look back over the year like we do on the Studio site each year. But instead of making a couple of slide-shows of my work, like I did there, I thought I would pick one project from each month of the past year to share. And this made me realise that if I find it so hard to blog weekly, why don't I blog monthly instead? Seems obvious when you think about it doesn't it!?! I didn't make anything in January, but over the holiday break I tidied up the supplies from the class I do at the Well-Being Centre and in late Jan/early Feb I made lots of batts from all the odds and ends and matted bits of wool tops from the bottoms of boxes:

In March I made a couple of vessels, I used texturey wools on this one and left it to dry without anything inside to shape it and I liked the way it came out:

Having a 'play day' at the well-being centre one day in April, I made this piece using tubes of wool made by wrapping wool wisps around a kebab stick:

In May, I made a nuno felted piece for a challenge on the Studio site. This is one of my favourite photos from while I was making it, I thought it looked like a cow's stomach/tripe!

This is what the finished piece looked like held over a lightbulb:

In June I made a felted painting for a friend. I'd shown him some photos of paintings I'd done and he liked a few in this style:

Originally, I'd planned to do a painting on canvas for him, but the technique I'd used didn't transfer to canvas very well, so instead I thought I'd see how well the idea worked in felt. I have to say, it's one of my favourite pieces I've ever made!

I kind of got hooked on making felt pieces inspired by paintings, I used this painting too for inspiration:

And this is the felt piece I made:

In July, I made a kind of seascape felt piece:

And then used it to make a notebook cover:

In August, I made a few collage pieces for greetings cards, this is one of them:

I did a bit of needlefelting in September, this is a piece I made using various wools dyed with natural dyes:

This is a piece I made in October for another Studio Challenge, I combined wool tubes and twists with nuno felting:

I made a purple and black piece embellished with lots of undyed fibres, in November:

One of the last things I made last year was a case for my best friend's birthday. I made it in one piece over a resist and used silk to line it, I added a button and stitching before I gave it to him, but here it is when it had dried:

I'm grateful for anybody who ever takes the time to read the blog posts and I hope to blog a bit more frequently this year. I hope you have a fibre filled 2019! Happy New Year :)

"Burning Out Doing Way Too Much"

... But Having Nothing To Show For It.

I planned so many things for the blog this year, but abandoning it for 6 months was never meant to be one of them. I love making felt, but sometimes having to take into consideration whether what you make will sell or not and whether or not making it might be a 'waste of time' that could have been spent more 'productively' takes a lot of the fun out of it. And adds a ridiculous amount of anxiety. Which is really pointless considering very little of what I actually do make to sell ever gets sold.
Which then makes me think I should be spending more time doing things which are a bit more succesful in selling, like tutorials and e-books, but every time I start, I soon get overwhelmed by how massively I've underestimated the work involved. Which sucks the life out of me and any bit of enjoyment I was having :(

And often the pressure of having to produce something to blog about and then finding the time and energy to do it, can feel like a huge task, and never knowing if anyone's even ever going to read it or if I did it all for the benefit of that bot or the spammer who earns thousands of pounds working from home, can often make it feel like a pointless as well as huge task.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who's ever felt like this, and I won't be the last! And sometimes when I least expect it, I'll do something which reminds me why and how much I love making felt. Like a couple of weeks ago, making notes for nuno samples of different thicknesses and asking myself questions for things to look out for, like shrinkage  comparisons, and being pleased with myself for accurately predicting outcomes. Or like this week, making a piece of felt just for fun to give to a friend, and really enjoying the whole process.

So, if anyone does still read this blog, apologies for being slack. And if you have any advice, or your own tales of getting bogged down by obligations spoling the fun, feel free to share and have a moan! And, so this isn't just a boring wall of text, here's a few photos of the piece I made this week :)

 Merino, with mostly dyed Nylon fibre, silk throwster's waste and various cellulose fibres.

Felted:

 My favourite part:

Thanks for reading :)