ad libitum

MORE SPINDLING AND FOLDING

I'm still in jewelry making mode (week and a half to go until the holiday sale). here are 4 necklaces and a pair of earrings (and yes, that's an eyelet I used in the earrings).

 

I FOLDED, WRAPPED, STITCHED AND RIVETED

With the goal of making some jewelry for the holiday sale, the inspiration of the Jane Wynn workshop, the cool book, "Wrap, Stitch, Fold and Rivet," the class I'm taking at the KIA and the inspiration of bloggers like Deryn Mentock, Connie Williams, Beth Bricker, and Leslie Wood (I know I'm leaving people out here), I spent this past week-end working on jewelry. I played with my new butane torch on Saturday (I had my friends Catherine, sadly she has no bolg, and Brittney over so we could all play with fire together). I have a whole lot of components ready to make into pieces of jewelry, but I also have three finished pieces, which I show you below. I have no idea if these will do well at the holiday sale, but I'll probably put them up for sale on  my sadly neglected web site after the sale, if they don't. I'm really rather proud of these.

BUTTON, BUTTON, I'VE GOT THE BUTTONS

Well, it was time to make new buttons (I've got the Holiday Sale coming up on November 8 and I plan to have a trifle dish filled with buttons for a dollar a piece; my buttons were a big seller last year); so, I made about a thousand (hoping the knitters will be buying some, I made a bunch of big ones). My buttons are made ofpolymer clay and all of them have gone through the washer and dryer.

JANE WYNN CLASS

I drove home from Toronto today (a little over 6 hours in a pretty easy drive), sad to leave the charming company of Martha Brown (check her blog for her class  projects) and sad that 2 days of very good classes with Jane Wynn are over.

I have a lot to do before all my class projects are finished. I didn't work on the pipe pieces from Sunday's class at all. I did work on the 8 bevel and and resin pieces from Saturday's classes (well, 6 of them have resin) and actually finished 3 of them. I really like using resin and am already planning on using it more often.

Here are the necklaces from Saturday's class. First, the almost finished ones and then the done ones (those which were done and not done?).

OH, CANADA! - SPECIFICALLY, TORONTO

I drove up to Toronto on Thursday to spend time with Martha Brown and to attend two days of workshop classes with Jane Wynn . The drive was beautiful (gorgeous fall foliage along the highways) and not killer long (a little over 6 hours).

On Friday, after getting lost a little bit (even with the GPS, I can manage to get lost), I made it from my hotel to Martha's house where we chatted and had tea before leaving for a day of shopping and touristing in Toronto. Martha is an excellent guide and took me into cool stores along Queen Street and then to the lake.

Today (it's still Saturday to me because I haven't gone to bed yet) was Jane's Bezel class for Found Object Jewelry. Jane is a patient and organized teacher and lead us through a lot of information. We soldered with torches and we should be ready for resin tomorrow before we start the Pipe Dreams class.


After class, Martha and I went out for dinner and I had Martha take my photo with a moose.

SOCK CLASS HOMEWORK

Well, my second sock class is tonight and I did get my homework finished yesterday afternoon...even after ripping out 3 inches and having to re knit my heel flap. This is my first sock and it's for me, so I'm pretending that it's OK to have a few puzzling places (dropped stitches? - but the count's been good). Oh well, I'm assuming the second sock will be better (and, if need be, I'll knit 3 socks to get 2 socks; which I think will be easier than hopping everywhere). Here is a scanned image of where I am now.

I'M NOT A JEWELER, BUT I PLAY ONE ON TUESDAYS

I am always really impressed by the beautifully worked metal jewelry that I see posted (yes, I mean you, Beth and Connie, as well as Deryn Mentock, from whom I'll be taking a class in June...and others, I can't think of now). In fact, it's sort of intimidating. Well, I know I'll never be a real metalsmithing jeweler, but I really want to be an adequate dabbler. So, I'm taking another jewelry class at the KIA (Kalamazoo Institute of Art - a "jewel" of a museum with great classes); and, I have the joy of taking the class with my older daughter (who is a jewelry artist). Our current project is casting sterling silver  "natural" objects; this is going to be a 4 week project. This past Tuesday I sprayed the beegeezis out of a fabric knots and then sprued those babies and put them in a flask. This coming week we'll be "investing" our objects in plaster like stuff. Wish me luck.

Here are the first two pieces from my class.

VARIATIONS ON A THEME

In honor of the transition from summer to fall (and because I want to come up with usable images for note cards for the Holiday Sale I'm doing on November 8), I decided to take one of my sunflower photos and play with it in Photoshop. I present some of the results. The top image is the original untouched photo (of which I'm rather proud).