Two of our group, Marie and Elaine, had pieces of their work chosen to exhibit in ‘Kaleidoscope’, an exhibition held recently in the Botanic Gardens by the Irish Feltmakers Association and oh what glorious and colourful pieces they were!  We couldn’t resist showing you their work:

This is ‘Carnival’ by Marie Dunne.

Marie was inspired by the movement and colours in a carnival when all the lights are on and everything is spinning around.  Most carnival rides are round and their spinning reminds Marie of a kaleidoscope with all the colours of nature exploding at once.

This is a large piece, formed from two layers of felt.

The first layer consists of a layer of prefelt, two layers of very find merino wool into which circles of different sizes were laid to form raised pockets and then a layer of silk haboti was placed on top.  These elements were then wet felted together and hand stitched with rows of different braids and threads around the circles.

The top layer was made in the same way but without the raised circular pockets and then circles of various sizes were cut out by hand.  Both pieces were hand dyed and connected with a space between them to convey a sense of movement and shadow.

This is ‘Aerial View ‘ by Elaine Peden

Elaine was inspired by the beauty of our natural river basins, the reflection of light on water and the colours and moss green patterns that evolve from the reflected forest.  Elaine wishes to highlight the need to protect the water quality in our streams and rivers through this piece.

This work is very large – 61 x 25 inches – and makes a dramatic impact.

The foundation consists of two Corridale fibre layers and two layers of fine merino wool, dyed silk rods, silk hankies and silk throwsters waste.  It is embellished with sequins and lace.

There were a number of techniques used : wet felting, nuno felting with 3D elements using resists and later cut back.