The First Photo Shoot

I’ve always known that I was going to be a published author at some point in my life. If you would have told me 25 years ago that the book I was to write would be about felting, I would have wondered why would I be writing a book about shrinking merino sweaters? At that time, I was still in college and taking some Textile Engineering courses. I vaguely remember a class where we discussed why fibers felt. At the time, I found this to be tremendously boring. I mean who really cared why the sweater shrank in the washing machine? The main point to me was that it was $30.00 literally down the drain.

Now I wish I had paid more attention. But, that is besides the point…I don’t think if I would have paid more attention that this book would be any easier to write, or publish. It’s not so much that it is difficult, it’s just terribly time consuming. Not only for me – but for those involved in my life as well.

I spent most of my last weekend felting, with the help of my friend Connie. For our technical shots for our first photo shoot (which was on Tuesday), we needed items in various stages. So, we created over 50 pieces of artfelt® in various stages in two days. Each piece was small – 10” x 10”, but none the less, 50 pieces is 50 pieces! Fortunately I know a little trick that helps when you are felting many smaller pieces; do them in a long roll! In other words, when it is time to do your actual felting, get a piece saturated with water, cover with plastic and roll, wet the next piece and continue to roll, wet the next piece, and continue to roll. I was able to roll a good 8 to 9 pieces into each roll. This is much quicker than rolling each individual piece. Connie was a trouper with the tacking in, but when it came to do the felting, she had to go home. Of course it was 9pm or so on Sunday – so I guess she had every right. Thanks for your help Connie!

The shoot went quite well. Cass of Redstonepictures.com was our photographer.
(She discusses a shot with Marcy - our hand model and my assistant - below)



She has a very creative eye and it is always exciting to be around, never a dull moment. She even made the technical shots look like fun, which quite honestly, is not so fun.



But we did have some fun shots as well. (Above, Cass shows my daughter how modeling is done)
We shot some garments for the book, such as the Sergeant Pepper Jacket below.


My daughter fit the jacket perfectly, and since it is such a whimsical piece, we played a little Beatles music and she fell right into character.



Since this jacket will be featured in some upcoming artfelt® ads I can share a few of the photos with you. I would love to share photos of all the other great garments, but as they say, I would have to kill you; they are top secret until the book comes out!

But this will give you a little taste of the book. It truly is going to be the most exciting book on felting out there.

This weekend is another artfelt® marathon – this time to develop pieces for our new “Say Hello to artfelt®” line. I’ll share those with you after the weekend!
Until then, tally ho!