Nuno felt and natural dye workshop in Arenas Verdes, Argentina, 2016

Nuno felt and natural dyeing workshop by Vilte Kazlauskaite, Argentina 2015

RECONSTRUCTION

Layers of Natural Color and Design in Felting

with Irit Dulman and Vilte Kazlauskaite

September 9-17, 2013. Cyprus.

Botanical print and natural dyeing reconstructed in new wearable felt directions.

Exploring layers and advanced fusion of botanical print and felting.

Vilte Kazlauskaite:
- Exploring layers in felting and their characteristics, as well as possibilities of fusion
- Reconstruction of layers and introduction of other design elements
- Color language - personal colors and print as the starting point of the design
- Fiber dynamics and pattern making
- Mixing and matching the textural language of felt


Irit Dulman:
- Botanical print and natural background coloring - exploring layers in color
- Contact dyeing - possibilities of graphical, watercolor, and marbling effects
- Distortion and reconstruction of botanical prints
- Advanced felt focused exploration of botanical print in all stages of felt making

info: viltess@gmail.com

photo: collaborative work of Vilte Kazlauskaite (felt and garment design) and Irit Dulman (botanical print design)

EXPLORING NUNO FELT and ECO PRINT with Vilte Kazlauskaite & Irit Dulman

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT! and more details coming your way! But...if you are interested in exploring nuno felt textures and natural eco print with me and Irit Dulman in the island of Aphrodite - Cyprus (can you believe it??? :) reserve the dates this July!

Course I
Beyond the surface. Fabric manipulation in nuno felt dresses + Eco print.
July 17-20

Course II
Wild fibers. Fiber manipulation and raw fleeces in nuno felt accessories + Eco print.
July 21-23

 

 

INFO: viltess@gmail.com

 

P.S.

Based on inquiries we get, I have outlined main differences between 2 courses to make it easier for you to choose or just take both:

Beyond the surface - focuses on creating textures using fabric manipulation. We will also go deep into how to construct a garment, different wool lay out techniques, shrinkage, constructing of the pattern. Irit will teach eco printing and dyeing, and she will focus more on dyeing fabrics and nuno felt.
Second workshop - Wild fibers - focuses on creating textures using raw fleeces + fiber manipulation, which is different than fabric manipulation in the first course. We will create our own fabric from raw fibers and will learn how to give it dimension and combine with all texture from fleece. I will show how to make very light felt with fleeces, but will also cover how to make it thick if preferred. We will not go deep into pattern making and construction in this workshop, it's just for an accessory but completely different materials and techniques than the first one. Irit will also teach eco print and dyeing, but here she will also focus on dyeing raw fleece and fibers (fabrics and felt as well).

 

You can read some information about these courses in Russian here

Or take a peek to a space the workshop will be held at here

Everything it takes. A moment of now

Felt is what brings me to different places of this world. And every journey brings not just the wonders of the nature, but brings me meetings. With many different people who give you a gift of communication. And no matter if there are negative or positive energies in the relation, it’s always one of the most interesting aspects of travelling. There’s always a message, a lesson, a point for your own evolvement in any human encounter and relation.

Though I am still giving classes in Australia, I wanted to mention some little things about one of these meetings, one person in particular. And that’s Wendy Bailye – feltmaker and organizer of my workshop in Queensland. I’ve received so many gifts of communication with her that it will take lot’s of time to go through that all in my mind and heart. One of the biggest gifts she gave me was not just making business of all this relation, but making it so human, so personal, so full of attention. Because…at the end…it’s all that matters.

Wendy is the person who is capable to accept people the way they are, and give the best of her to them. It seems to be such a simple philosophy to really live, feel and experience now and make that now pleasant and good, but actually it’s a very powerful tool in one’s mind that makes a big difference. And she applies it to all the things she does during her day – if it’s learning process – make it feel good, if it’s having lunch – have pleasure doing that, make it lovely, now, not later – and just because it is your life, now, at this moment, not later, you don’t stop from life, don’t make a break because you work or because you come to learn, this is your life – now. And when you think of it, it changes so much. And it empowers the strength of human being relationship…

It wasn’t just me who was blessed with such attention of Wendy and her wonderful family, I think the students in her studio felt the same and were surrounded by her attention and care. They did feel valued and important, it was not just business as it happens in this world quite often. It was human relation that was put above everything at all.

So if you ever happen to be in Queensland and start looking for felting classes, I think that Wendy’s studio is the best place you can actually find yourself in and experience this total focus on human connection while you do your exploration of felt.

Wendy’s studio

Through Wendy I also found a lot of wisdom from the poet she shared with me – David Whyte…

“Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.”
― David Whyte

P.S. There were photos for this post as well, but due to extremely bad internet connection here in Tasmania, I can not upload anything now... So this post is going to be updated.

A view from above

 

my landscape

 

“I still can’t find any better definition for the word Art, than this. Nature, Reality, Truth, but with a significance, a conception, and a character which the artist brings out in it and to which he gives expression, which he disentangles and makes free”. (Vincent van Gogh)

 

P.S. I found this quotation in a book “Abstract Earth. A View from Above” by Richard Woldendorp – a collection of photographs of Australian landscapes. The book was a gift from a wonderful feltmakers’ group FeltWest in Perth where I was giving workshops. I was doing a slide show on the first night there and shared my passion for landscapes that I create in felt, and they were good listeners – gave me a most wonderful book of landscapes that will be my big inspiration when I return.

Workshop. Midwest Felting Symposium

If everything goes as it’s planned I will be teaching in Midwest Felting Symposium in Madison, WI (USA) this Summer – July 21-24, 2010.
I will be teaching:
working with raw wool in nuno felt
nuno felting and surface design – focus on different deapths of texture created by fabric usig several manipulation techniques
creative felt textures – bubbles, beads, craters

You can register for the classes at Midwest Felting Symposium webpage here.