For the last week or so I have been at Ballarat, Victoria for the annual
Fibre Arts Forum there having fun in
Pam de Groot's workshop "Freedom Construction in Felt". We had a small class, only 5 students, so for once we had plenty of space to work on our garments.
We worked from scratch - making metres of undyed prefelt, using fine merino tops
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| Maxine working on a section of her prefelt |
and dyeing the prefelts and silks using various tools from Bunnings and empty wine bottles in shibori techniques with acid dyes.
before creating our ever evolving garments. I have to say for me, who likes to plan meticulously, "going with the flow" and adding / subtracting pieces as the garment seemed to dictate, was a challenge but very rewarding in the end.
This is my (almost) finished dress and yes, I went for the purples and blues yet again - a creature of habit.
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| back of the dress |
And some photos of the detail
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| arashi dyed silk paj with texture |
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| swags of nunofelt with silk |
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| arashi dyed silk lining |
It really took me 5 days to get there mentally and physically but so glad I did. I have often been inspired by Pam's work while I've been in the Craft NSW gallery on duty but I have now only even
more respect for the skills involved in creating her unique garments.
