Birthday Week celebration for designer Josef Frank

Austrian-born architect, artist, and designer, Josef Frank is another of my favorite designers.  He was the KING of the fantasy floral (Jacobean/Tree of Life) born July 15th 1885, tell me this man's designs are not fresher today than when they were done over 100 years ago!  I so see my style in his hand!

and for a much more extensive view on Josef Frank check out Svenskt Tenn

July 4th Rug Stomp

Two days of laying out fiber, talking about felt, design, techniques, life stories, and making beautiful felt rugs.  In honor of the holiday I made a red, white and blue scones for today's snack, blueberry, cherries and white chocolate....mmmm 

Take a peek during the day's STOMP!  and a photo of the finished rugs below...

Finished Ottomans

Where has the time gone?  By now I trust all my "ottoman gals" have received their ottomans shipped to them after the class.  I was such a lucky dog to have these beautiful pieces in my studio for the week before they all got packed up and sent to their final homes.  It was a treat to see such creativity and professionally designed and constructed pieces. (I hope I get some shots of them when they are in their new homes to share with you.)

Finished Ottomans

The workshop has come to a close, I have 6 ottomans to ship to their various homes (1 is going as carry-on), but what a day pulling everything together today.  What do you think?

One Last day of OTTOMANS!

We are two days into our workshop, and boy what a great time we are having!  I am so pleased with each person's creative process, and am of course sharing constructive suggestions for design and color while working on laying out patterned felt techniques and yesterday's wet felting.

I like sharing many felting concepts with students as I feel there is more than one way to work the fiber.  I certainly learned, mostly self taught, by trail and error as well as simplifying production.  Part of my mantra is "economize".  I try to be smart about how I use my space, roll my wet felts around my table, etc.  The less extra motions and steps I take (in production felting and rug making) the better for my energy!  

I always share a variety of tools and ideas during my workshops, and suggest felters try as much as they can or want to (It is great in a workshop experience because a felter who is on a limited budget can try out a variety of things before making a financial commitment of an expensive purchase.)  For example, I love my Fabulous Feltomatic, and since I purchased mine 4 years ago to aid me in making a VERY LARGE rug, I have cherished it!

The studios awaits its students, studio stations are set up

Seven students hard at work

Four of seven of the sides, a couple of fabrics for tops and a long fabric for making felt tassels all out to dry

A few more tops

Our second felting day also included two other instructionals.  Each designer is just that during this workshop, they are conceptualizing a finished "decorated" piece of furniture.  And must decide if we want trims and other finishing accents, and of course make the felt fabrics or object for those on the second day.  For designers wanting decorative tassels for their ottomans, I gave the steps and techniques for making those.  For designers who wanted felted flowers on theirs I made one during the day and passed around the room through out the process to show my demonstration as they half concentrated on getting their felts rolled.

Today, the last day, is assembly day.  The studio is set up with 4 stations; a cutting station, sewing station, outdoor gluing station, and a carpentry station.  We rotate through the stations and the finish our beauties by the afternoon! 

More photos to post tomorrow!

AHHH, just about ready

Ottoman Workshop May 2010 promises to be very exciting, 7 gals coming from all over and the last of my dyepots are just about finished, studio tables are set up, supplies all ready for Sat. (well almost everything)

Each student's station is set with up with their mat, fiber colors of choice, the ottoman cores, feet and hardware, and the instructional.

Earlier in the day the studio looked like this!

The weather looks like it is going to be great this weekend so I plan on opening the front double doors and have set up my pop up tent, to expand our workspace!  More photos to come!