Landscapes in Wool

A few weeks after the Top Stitch competition my friend Kathy and I decided to meet up at the Wisconsin Wool and Sheep Festival in Jefferson, WI. Kathy lives in Illinois, so we look for opportunities to get together and enjoy our passion for fiber.

Even though this show is only 15 miles from my home, I’d only been there once before because it’s always held the same weekend as the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show and I was always teaching there. Since the quilt show was virtual this year we realized we could see the show and take a class too! We decided on a 3 hour workshop by Anna Repke, entitled “Mini Wool Felted Landscapes”. Here she is with a few of her class samples.

The feature image at the top of this blog post was taken of Anna’s booth in the show. To visit her website click here.

Her work is incredible! Anna is a great teacher, a sister in Christ, and her workshop was one of the best I’ve taken in a long time (even though wool isn’t always my first choice of fiber). Here are a few more class samples. I think you can see why we were excited to get started.

She brought all the supplies, including an amazing selection of dyed wool roving.

In her initial demonstration we learned how to lay out the design,

Layer it all, get it wet and begin “massaging” it,

Roll the piece up to continue the felting process (and roll, and roll, and roll some more),

and once the background piece was wet felted, we learned how to needle felt details on top of it.

I found her instructions for adding trees particularly interesting.

Then it was time to jump in. I actually enjoyed the felting process: playing with fibers, hot water and soap; and discovering how the wool behaves and shrinks. Here’s my background pre and post wet felting:

Now it was time to needle felt some details onto my background. Years ago my friend Linda did a play day with a number of friends in which we tried needle felting. To see the project I made that day click here!

Having that little bit of experience was helpful, especially since needle felting is a pretty easy process. You simply lay fibers from wool roving in place and “punch” them into the background with a barbed needle (or a felting machine if you’re lucky enough to have a friend who owns one 😊). I added some more “hills and valleys”, but I couldn’t wait to finish it off with “That Tree” I posted about last week (I warned you this was coming)! The windblown tree series now contains one made in wool. I’m thinking this is very early Spring, and I’m pleased with the results for my first try at it.

All of the student quilts were successful ~ and quite interesting!

Kathy and I truly enjoyed it – thanks Anna!

The rest of the show was fantastic and I have to admit I did buy more wool to add to the stash. Can’t wait to jump in and explore wool felting again.

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Fabric Opportunity For Those in Southeastern Wisconsin!

Patty recently sent me this email:

“I have some fabric that I’m trying to find a good home for. Maybe you know someone who would be interested.
Vintage Lace – A box of lace from my mom’s basement. Mostly lace tablecloths and curtains. I don’t think any are handmade. You can tell they were used since some have stains or holes. Great for some kind of project though.
Bag of zippers – Also from my mom’s basement. She never threw anything away. These were salvaged from clothes before the clothes were put to another use.
Wool scraps – A bag of washable wool leftovers from projects. Nothing very large. These were originally from wool clothing. They’ve all been washed and dried and didn’t felt.
Cotton quilting fabric scraps – Little leftover pieces. I’d heard you could fill pillowcases with them and donate them to animal shelters but I couldn’t find any in the area that would take them. Have a couple of bags.
I live in Germantown and drive to the Madison area a couple of times a month to babysit for my granddaughters. I’d be happy to drop them off anywhere along my route.
Thanks, Patty”

If you’re interested please contact Patty directly at: