£25 mounted original hand print.

£45 for a framed original hand print in a lovely lime washed locally made frame.

*First find a lovely beach- the quiet sort with sand & sun is best.

*Next have a walk about & find the very best pebbles, the perfect ones are the ones that fit in the palm of your hand comfortably.

*Light a fire to make a cup of tea- it’s February as I write this post so it’s nice to keep your hands warm around an old enamel mug.

*Place your chosen pebble onto a piece of synthetic fabric, I’ve use an old juggling scarf found in my little boy’s toy box.

*Start to wrap your pebble with strands & lumps of Merino wool until it is all woolly & wrapped without any holes. You can add strands of wool for decorations?

*Spray your pebble with diluted soapy water (washing up liquid is best).

*Wrap it up in your bit of fabric & start to gently squeeze it- keep doing this for quite a while it takes a bit of effort to felt wool.

*Unwrap it & see how it looks? If it has some holes patch then with a bit more wool, wrap it up again & repeat. If it all looks great wrap it up again and start to rub it. Keep checking it & unwrapping it, you can start to be much rougher as it becomes felted.

*When it is all felted  rinse it in the sea to get rid of the bits of stray sand & dried seaweed that might have crept in there and display with joy to dry in the sun!

*Celebrate with lunch & toasted marshmallows on the fire.

Click to view slideshow.

xx

I am happy to negotiate costs for a 1/2 day workshop.

I can help you though with your homemade wedding- I can;

Do a full set of hand printed wedding invitations, place setting cards & guest book.

Make a felted & fabric bouquet to keep.

Button holes & corsage.

Personalise a wedding dress for you, my dress cost me £25 from a charity shop I just adapted it to the way I wanted it, you can make it much more individual & special this way.

Button  hair clips for beautiful bridesmaids.

Accessories bags etc..

Decorations to make your reception perfect.

Felted love bird & couple cake toppers!

I will be at The MAKE Wedding Fair at The Market House in St Austell on March the 10th, it would be lovely to see you there to discuss any ideas you way have.

x

Lou

Where should I do next??

I’ve been working very hard on other projects as well, Lots of lovely lino printing which I am really enjoying at the moment & I’m working towards the MAKE Handmade wedding fair in St Austell.

This can be as a birthday party, a special treat or just a night in with some girls to warm up & get out of the horrid rainy weather.

The costs would be (including all of the materials & lovely Merino wool)…….. for an evening- £25 per person no less than 5 people (unless you want to pay travel costs as an extra) & ideally no more than 10 people BUT if you do get 10 people the hosts felts for FREE!!

                                               For a day course from 10.30am-3.30pm it will cost £35 per person, & again the host can felt for free if you have 10 people. This works really well if you all bring a cake or lunch & make a really good day of it.

Click to view slideshow.

After each party everyone will have something to take home which they have felted themselves to keep, they will also have the skills & contacts to keep felting after.

I hope to hear from you soon,

Lou

I teach felt making & rug- making classes www.loutonkin.wordpress.com , I also make my own products and art work using wool which I love but at the moment I do this with Merino wool which is beautiful (but not local) because it is easier & more readily available. What I would really like to do is use the wool from our very own county of Cornwall.

I would like to find small scale sheep keepers who keep their sheep for uses like keeping the grass down or breeding but don’t really know what to do with the wool. I used to keep sheep on a small scale & know how expensive it can be to have the wool processed & turned into balls of wool etc.

I would like my project to be a long term project involving as many sheep keepers as possible but what I need to start is a few willing sheep keepers & I would like your WOOL! Just a bit of it……I will clean it & card it, label it and use it, I will look at the best uses for your wool, experiment with it, but I will also put some of it documented into an exhibition piece.

To go with this exhibition piece I would like some information about you, as I would like the exhibition to travel. I would like to know where your sheep live, what sort of habitat they have, how many you have, why you got them to begin with? Your expectations on keeping them, Why you still keep them?  I would really, really like a photograph of you & your sheep.

I would hope that from this project we can show how useful our wool is & the value it has as a sustainable product & celebrate it! I would also eventually like to look towards getting some funding to teach you as individuals in workshops how to make simple products from your wools like your very own rugs & felted things.

I hope you like the idea of joining me on this project, please spread the word to other people you think might be interested.

Warmest regards,

Lou Tonkin.