Posted in family life, polymer clay, tagged heart jewelry, polymer clay jewelry, Trezhers, Valentine's Day on January 24, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
New items to be sold at “Trezhers“, a local gift store that sells only hand-made things from local artists/crafters. They asked for Valentine’s Day related articles and this is my daughter’s response. She is the youngest artist represented in the shop, a fact that makes her proud and makes her work with extra care on new things.
Posted in craft show, crochet, embroidery, felting, greeting cards, polymer clay, spring, vintage fabric, wool felt, tagged craft show, crochet, crochet rocks, embroidery, felting, greeting cards, jewelry, lavender sachet, paper weights, plant dyeing, polymer clay, sewing, wool felt on May 7, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
After a test-run on Friday afternoon in the living room (how to best display everything),
and a last-minute banner production (tip: don’t use your yoga mat as a make-shift ironing board…),
my daughter and I set off to do the real thing on Saturday morning. Unfortunately a very gusty wind blew all day and constantly sent all sorts of pollen, seeds and dust around the place – but in spite of this unchangeable fact we had a good day!
There were not a lot of customers out (see weather, maybe), yet enough to keep us going. Our booth neighbors were kind, the event organizers supplied us with water and snacks all day. There was a general sense of support and community, which I enjoyed. My family and several of my friends came to visit and wish me luck. Thank you all!
And after packing up, taking everything home, a shower, food and rest we went to see these guys:
What a great way to end a great day!
Posted in polymer clay, tagged jewelry, polymer clay on April 8, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
The Promising Crafter (my daughter) has finished a whole production line of polymer jewelry. Necklaces, matching earrings, keychains and cell phone charms. They are baking in the oven as we speak. She wants to be my table buddy at an upcoming little craft show “Trezhers” is going to host in May.
Doesn’t this look delicious?
Posted in crochet, felting, polymer clay, weaving, tagged crochet, crochet rocks, felting, polymer clay, weaving on March 27, 2012 | 3 Comments »
This is the beautiful Schacht Inkle Loom I acquired at our school auction. It is sturdy, if anything it is very gently used and it came with a surprising $50 gift card for a local yarn store, which was all hidden away in the accompanying book. I was delighted, I can tell you! The following morning I went straight to work to warp the thing. The book was only partly helpful, I had to go to You-Tube for some video footage, which made the process a lot more understandable.
You have to make yourself about 40 heddles out of a very sturdy twine or yarn. I used vintage upholstery thread that a generous fellow crafter gave to me a while ago for making Waldorf doll heads…Well, you never know when things will come in handy, do you? Dolls’ heads, inkle loom heddles, you just never know.
After that you warp the loom in one continuous loop. So much faster and easier than warping a “real”, i.e. a rigid heddle or even a floor loom. I was thrilled! An hour from not knowing at all how to work this new toy to being ready to go – great!
A little uneven still, but a lot of fun. I am using my plant-dyed linen thread for the warp and undyed cotton thread for the weft. Like other weaving I have done it is fast (once the warp threads are in place), it is meditative in its repetitiveness and I daydream about the possibilities the end result can be used for. Right now I’m thinking mini pouches, more fabric pendants, knitting needle holders…
Talking about mini pouches, my daughter developed a taste (!) for all kinds of miniature goodies made from Sculpey, or more general, polymer clay. Here are some of her creations.
She hasn’t stopped yet. We just got more colors of clay last week-end, plus something called “translucent liquid clay” that you can color with pigments (such as shavings of pastel crayons) and it looks just like frosting or whipped cream. Cool!
I experimented with felted pebbles…
…and one of my all-time favorites: crochet-clad stones. I find them so pretty, I can’t even say why. Maybe the contrast of the delicate lace and the rock? The soft colors? They nearly always look best when they come in groups of three or more. I was crocheting over in my friend’s house, and her daughters asked me whether I could make them each a small rock (which I did). At last the youngest child, a boy, dared to come up and ask whether he could have one, too. And there I was thinking he didn’t even notice what I was doing.
Eva
