Recycled Felt and recent trip to Washington, DC

(Above: Miniature In Box with Copper Beads. Click on image to enlarge. It was created on a substrata of recycled black felt. For a tutorial on the "In Box" series, click here.)

It is hard to believe that a week slipped by without a single moment to blog.....but it did! I've been busy....working and stitching....in the midst of facilitating "week three" of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way....and teaching fibers at Saluda Shoals Park. Lots has happened. I'm halfway through another Grave Rubbing Quilt (evening stitching) and have over a dozen sheer chiffon hangings stitched for my Epitaph Installation (studio stitching). Yet, I finished a miniature In Box Series piece especially for this blog post (above). Why? Well, it was created on recycled felt.


(Above: A pile of recycled felt on my studio floor....I put my flip flops in for scale! This is A LOT OF FELT! Click on image to enlarge.)

Believe it or not, kayaks and canoes are often shipped to their distributors wrapped in felt. Guy Jones owns the local shop, River Runner. He saves the felt for me. I picked up an entire, big box of it this week....much more than I can use in a year of stitching Grave Rubbing Quilts (I use the recycled felt as "batting".) This is simply TOO MUCH FOR ONE PERSON....so I'm giving most of it away.


(Above: A stack of approximately 25 pieces....18" by approximate 6 to 7 feet long!)

I roughly cut up almost all the felt into pieces. I'll mail five of them abroad and the rest to anyone making a request in the USA. All I ask is that those requesting this felt send a fiber postcard to Guy Jones at The River Runner, 905 Gervais Street, Columbia, SC 29201. By the way, Guy has no idea I'm doing this.....just send him a fiber postcard thanking him for his recycling effort! To request the felt, send me an email at mouse_house@prodigy.net that includes your name and mailing address. I'll write back and send the felt. This is the least I can do for Guy's generosity!

(Above: Scratch by fellow South Carolinian fiber artist Jocelyn Chateauvert at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC. Click on image to enlarge.)

Last weekend Steve and I made a quick, impromptu trip to Washington, DC. We went to an antiquarian book auction on Thursday night. Steve went on a 30-mile bike ride to Mt. Vernon on Friday....but sensibly I don't do things like that! Instead, I went to The Textile Museum to see the Amish Quilt Exhibit and Ann Duncan's (President Obama's mother) collection of Indonesian batiks; to the Renwick Gallery; and to the Sackler and Freer. I promised some photos of the experience. Well.....here are a few. I wrote more about the trip and included other images HERE! These are just a few "highlights".

(Above: Renie Breskin Adams' Point of View. Click on image to enlarge.)

(Above: Beth Lipman's Bancketje at the Renwick. Click on image to enlarge.)

(Above: Ann Duncan's Indonesia Batiks at the Textile Museum, August 2009. Click on image to enlarge.)