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The last time I taught my Sweater Reclamation class (up-cycling old wrecked wool sweaters into fun felted projects) my students really got into the little needle felted embellishments that we were adding so I promised them I’d offer a needle felting class. Tonight we met at The Canvas–which is a wonderful non-profit art studio in Juneau–and I taught needle felted landscapes. Or at least, that’s what I called it so folks would feel like they had a purpose… Really, we were just playing with wool. The instruction part of this class takes about one minute, and then we chat and trade colors and share ideas and “crunch, crunch, crunch,” stab wool into wool to make a picture.

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“This is really relaxing,” someone said just a few minutes into the process. We kept our projects pretty small so we could finish in the three hour class, and most of us did.

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People brought inspiration photos and artwork. Two people brought their visiting moms to take the class with them! I love how in the photo above, one artist is using a postage stamp as her inspiration.

It’s not often I get to play along with my students, but I did get to tonight. My attempt is the one at the top of the blog. This photo I took on one of my walks was my inspiration. I was inspired to add the raven by a greeting card that another artist brought.

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I love the variety of pieces that people created. This deep blue background in this one made us all think of Henri Matisse.

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In keeping with my affection for up-cycling, we used old sweaters as our canvas, and this artist let the sweater become part of her piece. I love how she used  dyed mohair locks for her fireweed blossoms.

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The final landscape was created by a children’s book author. She’s writing a story about loons and we all thought she should illustrate it herself with needle felted pictures. I love how she blended her colors.

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Painting with Wool