Fashion Fusion

In addition to FELT4U’s virtual store, we are excited that our nuno felted wraps are now available at the Julia milano boutique on Tel Aviv’s most upmarket shopping area, Kikar Hamedina. The Kikar (‘Square’) is the hotspot for those looking for their label fix - Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren and Gucci are all here.
Julia milano bills itself as a store for luxury basics. This is the flagship outlet in Israel for the Milan based leather goods manufacturers which started as a family business in 1950. We love the soft leather of the bags the craftsmanship and the innovative design – the straw effect Summer bag caught our eye as did the lightweight Bauletto bag in kidskin. Take a look at www.Juliamilano.com
We paired our Emerald Rags to Riches wrap with a stunning diamante studded evening dress, while a Purple Rags to Riches wrap draped beautifully over a floral cocktail dress both with the quintessential Italian flair.

Now I am hooked...

My older sister ( I have two sisters and a brother ) got an ipod for her last birthday. To be honest her daughter actually won it in a lottery and sold it to her mother and the family contributed so in the end her daughter had made some money on her lottery win to buy her twin sons their 3rd birthday presents. Money –go –round, but what the heck its all in the family. The reason I mention this is because with her ipod she subscribes to Amazons audio books and raves how wonderful it is to sit quietly, eyes closed, feet up and listen to a story being read. Almost like when you were a child and a grown up reads a story with accents and expressions.
So I went shopping and bought a SanDisk Sansa MP3 on which you can listen to stories and music. It is tiny and easily clips onto your clothes or bag without getting you too entangled. . Now I am hooked.

Today I decided to nuno felt a Rags to Riches scarf/shawl in black. . I designed it with an extra long panel of black merino wool and random pieces of flowing silk. When the scarf was complete I added a further piece to create a shawl and nuno felted them together.
The early morning sun rose as my hands beavered away at my craft. My whole being rapt with listening to The Shell Seekers on my MP3. And when the light had faded and the story had ended I marvelled at the lightness of a day of nuno felting a versatile garment.

Wish I were in New York...

It was great to read about the Fashioning Felt exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York – both Elaine and Iare so tempted to fly over there just to see it.
Although Israel is close geographically to Turkey where felting has a very old tradition, felting isn’t a well-known craft in Israel. The first reaction we often get to our work is “but HOW do you do it?” “Do you really make the fabric yourselves?”
Actually I enjoy it when visitors to the FELT 4U studio or those who see our wearable art want an explanation of the exciting nuno felting creative process. Yes, there’s a lot of water and soap to slosh around, each item we make is rolled more than 2000 times and at the end of it all we throw it forcefully down on the table about a dozen or so times. The reaction is usually wide eyed but with a little bit more understanding for this wonderful and versatile craft that was used by nomadic people 8000 years ago as a way to make their shelters and clothing.

Getting back to musing about the NY exhibition…it would be wonderful to be exposed to an exhibition that shows how felting is utilized in so many different mediums (architecture, fashion, industrial design, jewelry, soft furnishing etc)
At present I still feel passionate about using nuno felting for making scarves, wraps and tunics. There is enough to learn, evolve and experiment with in this small sphere… and Elaine and I come up with new ideas weekly. Such as the kimono wrap we devised. Different body shapes, heights, and the fact that many people feel intimidated to tie a scarf, caused us to look for alternatives to the traditional scarf. Summer is also round the corner and we wanted to make a garment that can be thrown over a bathing suit.

The exhibition is on at the Cooper Hewitt until September. Hold thumbs for us that we will make it there somehow!!!!

Free Spirit

Ein Gedi, the famous kibbutz at the Dead Sea in Israel is perfect way to relax and chill out after a hectic five day Felting Master Class presented by International Felting Teacher and my felting guru Phyllis Hoffman from Australia. www.phylstudio.com
This was organized by The Israel Designer and Craftmen's Association of Israel
www.designcrafts.org.il and their very efficient secretary Tali Talmor.

A year ago we started FELT 4U www.felt4u.etsy.com and I must say felting is really unique in that it is dynamic and an ongoing learning exeperience, something like my philosopy of Life itself.

When I was in my early thirties, I met a man who was 21 years older than me. I was in the process of a divorce with two children. He was ruggedly handsome, an artist and bohemian who had been briefly married. He was so different from anyone I had ever met before and I fell head over heals in love with him. He changed my life in many ways made me into the person I am today. He taught me to be a free spirit and that is how I think of nuno felting. www.felt4u.etsy.com
Free and floating with texture, color and simple versatile structure.

Curious Conversation

My journey some years ago en route to Curious Conversation started with the idea of creating a merino wool wet felted sculpture, possibly a hollow vessel out of which would emerge a needle felted head. I liked the idea of creation, and birth and wanted to string them together somehow. That was before we started FELT 4U
Did I know how to wet felt a sculpture? No, but I was sure keen to learn. As a student of hands on learning through books, internet and experimenting, I checked out wet felting vessels and thought it looked easy. Oh dear how wrong I was!
After five layers of black and white wool tops over a large copper milk can, that I had bought at a Flea Market in South Africa in the 1980's, I wondered how on earth I was going to wet it down as it had turned into a kind of unwieldy monster.
I read somewhere about using pantyhose when wet felting. As luck would have it, my sister had given me a bag of her old ones. I found something that looked suitable and tried in vain to cover the monster by myself. I was really panting and sweating profusely, but to no avail.
So I invited a couple of friends and together we managed to tame the monster into a flesh colored pair of used pantyhose. .
I hosed it down with soap and water and rubbed for days on end, as it gradually morphed into a
floppy lopsided grey creation with unexplainable openings.
In the meantime I needle felted a head which evolved into a Sci fi bodiless alien from all the
pricking. Certainly not the newborn's head emerging from birthing as I had envisaged.
But I was not yet finished. My floppy lopsided creation needed some weights to ground as well
as to round it, so I felted a dozen balls and put eight inside.
Aha, now we were getting somewhere, the vessel, the head, the balls and me.
To elevate it to its rightful place I put the vessel on a iron thing that I had found somewhere
(I love collecting junk, but that is another story) and put four balls to resemble a baby pram.
Finally the head completed the ensemble or so I thought. But I was wrong. Something was missing. My eyes scanned the horizon of the mess in the workroom and there I found it.
My Egyptian Cat, just waiting to have his say.

Elaine

SPRING ......
2009 is flying.
"Stop the world I want to get off". Is that a song or a movie?. I'm not sure.
What I am sure of is that spring is in the air.
I can smell it in the scented blossoms of the almond trees.
I can hear it in the soft call of early migratory birds heading homeward.
I can sense it in the vibrancy of the fashion colors now dotting the shop displays.
But mainly I feel it in the yearning to be newly creative.
Like two busy bees, FELT 4U's Elaine and Elana are rocking and rolling as we craft our latest merino wool nuno felted garments for Spring/summer 2009.