Edinburgh Festival

This week we travelled back up to Edinburgh, and went to see the famous festival. It was definitely less busy than normal – I did not see buskers or leaflet distributors, so it had much less atmosphere. Indeed my favourite venue on George Street is now a Covid vaccination centre!! However, we did see some art exhibitions and shows in the usual mix of temporary venues and through the adoption of lovely old buildings. Some highlights were Karla Black’s ephemeral sculptures at the Fruit Market; the Escape Game experience managed by agentnovember.co.uk and Jack Dee’s Work in Progress comedy show with of- the-moment jokes including laughing at ourselves on how we experienced life during lockdown.

- Clare

Craft Club

For this months craft club we did wet felt making.

Felt making is such a tranquil experience. It is very satisfying and relatively simple to do. At the end we all had a unique piece of fabric made entirely from strands of unspun wool.

Steps

You will need; unspun wool, bubble wrap or a sushi roll, warm water and washing up liquid in a squirty bottle

• To start with get a piece of bubble wrap each and place it on a flat surface.
• Choose your favourite coloured unspun wool and place a thin layer on top of the lumpy side of the bubble wrap.
• Place a second layer of unspun wool on top of the 1^st layer – this time with the wool strands facing perpendicular.
• Repeat until you have as many layers as you like -  We did 3 or 4 layers of this until we were sure there were no gaps.
• The top layer of your felt will be most visible so you may want to think of a design to go on top. We chose different colours and ombré patterns
• Then the fun bit! Douse your layers of unspun wool with a mixture of warm water and washing up liquid.
• Place a second layer of bubble wrap on top to form a sandwich.
• Roll up your bubble wrap (with the felt inside) and rub against a table like a rolling pin.
• Make sure to unroll the bubble wrap occasionally and re-roll from the other direction (this stops the shape of your felt from changing)
• When you are happy with your felt rinse under the tap and hang to dry. 

One of the best thing about felting is the fact that it always has a unique outcome.

It is great to see all the different colours and patterns everyone ended up with!