Not Painting By Numbers

Maybe you're not into sewing. Or polyfill or fabric. (Although I'm not really sure how we managed to become friends.) So here's something different for you: pottery painting.

In DC there are a few places where you can do this, such as All Fired Up, and Color Me Mine. They're always full of kids and families, which is fun to see. But there are also plenty of adults - couples and groups of friends of various ages. I like to go at night - it's quiet, and you can concentrate. Over a year ago I went with some friends and started this bowl.

I got a little waylaid, and eventually finished it a few months later. That's the great thing about these pottery painting stores - you can go back as often as you want, and take as long as you want. You pay up front, and after you turn it in to them, it takes a week to be glazed, fired, and ready for you.

The more layers of paint you put on, the more opaque it looks, and I definitely prefer this - I'm not a huge fan of streaks.

On the bottom are my initials and the date, etched with the end of a paperclip - they have a wide variety of tools to use to make varying effects.

I used a stencil from the store for this tropical flower, but altered it quite a bit. It's off-center and the stem starts from the the curve in the bowl, so I think it has some movement to it. I like that it's fairly minimalist, and the colors are very complementary. I especially love green and blue together. The flower's petals are slightly raised in some places, simply because I kept touching up little bits, not satisfied with the outer border of each orange piece. 

Another piece I put a lot of work into last year was a large serving plate, done in stripes:

I used masking tape to make the lines accurate (it's ridiculous how much of a perfectionist I am), and made stripes of random widths, doing one color at a time. I left parts of it unpainted, so the natural white color of the clay could show through. Because the plate curves up towards the edges, it gives the appearance that the lines are curved, depending on where you are standing.

I also etched a simple loop-de-loop on the light yellow strips, again using the end of a paper clip. Really you can only see the design if you are up close - which is nice, it's a little surprise.

I really like how the two goldy (goldey? goldie?) yellows, greeny blues, and purply blues coordinate. And I enjoy the random placement of the stripes.

As with the bowl, I used a wet sponge to clean the edge. It creates a clear separation between the front and back glaze, and adds another design feature.

On the underside, I used a blue and a yellow from the front, and a really pretty dark gray.

I use this plate and bowl a lot for serving food. They are supposedly microwave and dishwasher safe, but I'm not taking any chances, so it's careful hand washing every time. They were inexpensive, and definitely have more meaning than something bought from the store. I can't say enough about how relaxing this whole activity is, I totally recommend it.

Both these pieces were fairly minimalist, with plenty of solid coloring. I like it, but I'd also like to deviate from that in the future, and try more complex hand drawn designs and techniques. I'd like to try a technique I saw in one of the store examples - you paint a design in various colors, then cover it all in black. You then use different tools to remove parts of the black, to reveal the color underneath. I remember doing something similar in elementary school art class - we drew in color with crayons, and then painted over it with black paint. The wax resisted the paint, so that the color showed through. Different technique, similar effect. I'm also dreaming of taking a class someday to relearn how throw clay on the wheel, and then paint it. 

A few months ago I started a mug, and really only got as far as painting the whole thing plum purple. It's been sitting, wrapped up in paper, waiting for inspiration to strike. I'll share with you how it turns out...

Infusing Meaning

How can I get away with writing about Christmas ornaments (again) in mid-February? Well, someone said Happy New Year to me last week, so I'm hoping I have a little leeway here.

I do a secret santa exchange with a few friends every year. This year I ordered some earrings for my giftee from Etsy. I waited and waited, and began to wonder where the hell they were - our exchange was in only a few days! So I went to my account, and it said my order had shipped the day after I ordered it (yay!) - from Tel Aviv (not yay). I'm not sure if you know this, but Israel is really far away. So that's why it was taking so long...

I didn't want to be the girl who wraps up a picture of her gift, with an apologetic promise of its impending arrival. So I decided that something handmade might be better anyways, and the earrings could follow, whenever.  I used a pattern that I bought about a year ago (again, from Etsy, I'm so original) for a pear ornament.

JZG are the initial's of my friend's 17 month old son, Jackson. I embroidered the letters on, with a simple backstitch in thread. I think the colors go nicely together, and I enjoy the irony (if that's the right word) of having a citrus print on a pear.

The stem and leaf are felt, with some embroidery - the stem rolled in on itself and closed with a blind stitch. I learned how to do a blanket stitch for the edge of the leaf. I'm particularly pleased with how the leaf turned out - it curled like that all on its own.

Here it is on my tree before it went to it's forever home.

That's a heart, if you can't tell.

A week later the earrings came (with some fun Israeli stamps), and those went to my friend. She and her husband enjoyed the ornament so much (and I had such fun making it) that I made another. This time it was for a friend of mine who has a 6 month old son named Harper.

The two reds are alllllmost the same  - I like that if you squint, it "reads" as all red.

This time I had begun to think about starting this blog, so I took a few pictures of the process, with a post in mind. Not enough for a tutorial though (and anyway I don't feel comfortable doing that, since somebody worked hard to make the pattern and very much deserved to get paid for it). One day when I'm fancy, make my own patterns, and sew blindfolded or whatever I'll totally put that up here.

Marking with pencil where the embroidery will go, and cutting out all six segments.

Pinning printed sides together.

One of my discoveries during this project was the true joy of making something completely unique, by hand, and giving it to people I love. These little pears will hang on the Christmas trees of my friends for years to come. It's this kind of project that keeps me motivated to continue crafting, and to make it not only fun, but meaningful. 

Puzzle Ball, Part 1

Oh, hi. Not posting for 11 days is just terrible, and only the first four days can be excused by the fact that my house had no power and I was walking around in the dark, wearing gloves and seeing my breath. The other seven days are just, well, lost momentum.

If you're friends with me on Facebook (and I'm pretty sure that's my entire readership), you may remember seeing photos of a puzzle ball I made a while back.

I found the pattern in Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts, a fabulous book from the library. Apparently they are Amish in origin, and are good developmental toys for babies. Um, I made one for myself. Because they're pretty. And, being made out of half circles and ellipses, the math that's hiding in there fascinates me.

When a friend of mine saw it, he immediately started flipping the segments around, like it was a rubix cube (nothing is attached in the middle). This had never occurred to me - it would be amazing to put something with four rotating bits at the points where the blue embroidery floss is, and you could turn it all around and make it look many different ways. If you were so inclined. Which I am. But thinking about how that would work makes my head spin a little, so I'm going to go with the more doable idea, which is: there should totally be a bell inside it.

For the babies, I mean. For the babies.

A close family friend's niece had a beautiful baby boy in mid August, and I think it's about high time that baby had a handmade gift from me. So, fortified with these:

I don't know what nibs are, but I know I like them. Nom.

I used a very sophisticated template to make 3 orange and 6 purple circles.

I cut the purple circles in half, and made ellipses out of the orange. I marked a "scant" 1/4 of an inch seam allowance:

Then I used the sewing machine to do the first seam for each of the 12 segments.

It takes a while to hand sew the remaining seams on all twelve segments, so that's all you get for now. Part 2 coming up in a few days!

Let It Snow

If you live in the Northeast of the US, the view out your front door might look a little something like this:

And, if your employer follows the federal government with regards to weather decisions like mine does, you got to leave work 2 hours early.

(If not, I'm sorry. And, neener.)

What else is there to do on a snowy day but be crafty, right? If you have kids to entertain, get them being crafty too! I'm working on the sewing project I mentioned in my previous post, various drafts of posts that I have in the works (because I can never just do one thing at a time), and practicing the hand quilting that I learned in a class this weekend (this blog is totally motivating me to DO more of what I am thinking about doing). Surely, this evening will also end up producing something high in calories and sugar, too. I have a whole vanilla bean to use.

What do you are your families like to get up to on snowy days? Any creative pursuits? Leave a comment and perhaps we will give each other some ideas.

Back in the Saddle Again

I got my sewing machine out again a few days ago, after a bit of a hiatus. I just couldn't muster up the motivation to work on quilting in summer and fall. I got into gardening, and going for regular evening walks (I'm such an old lady). But I had an idea for a small, quick sewing project, and thought it would be a good way to get myself back into the swing of things.

My machine is a Singer 132Q Featherweight (for whatever that might be worth),

which my friend Turk had ended up with, and gave me when I started quilting. (Isn't she awesome? Yes, yes she is.) Straight away I remembered how to wind the bobbin, and the way to wind the top thread through the gears and into the eye of the needle, and how to pull the bobbin thread up from below. That part was smooth sailing.

And, it's a good idea to test things out on a scrap piece of fabric, because sometimes sewing machines do things like this:

Sigh.

Jammed up, terrible noises, lots of broken thread, maybe some swearing on my part. Someone with more knowledge of sewing machines could immediately tell you why that happened. For me, I just had to keep trying, until I eventually discovered that, in this case, there was a small piece of thread tangled up in the gears of the bobbin compartment thingy (what, you expected me to know the proper word for that too?).

Once I got that sorted out, the stitch length and tension had to be changed. Stitch length is easy. Tension, on the other hand...

Maybe you can see in this photograph how in between the stitches, there are little knots of thread (easier to see because I used variegated thread). From the WikiHow guide:

Most domestic sewing machines are of the "lockstitch" variety. That means an upper thread and a lower thread "lock" together. If they don't lock together in the correct place, the tension is "off" and the seam lacks proper strength.

As the threads lock together, they form a knot. If this knot is in the correct place, it is never seen...it is hidden (locked) between the two layers that are being sewn together. When these knots are obvious on the bottom or the top sewing surface, it's time to adjust your tension.

Basic Concept: If you get a picture in your mind of the tension knob as a device to raise and lower these knots, it makes the adjustment much easier.

If there are knots on the bottom, increase the tension. If they're on the top, decrease it. But excuse me internet, what if they're on the top AND on the bottom? Well, I did my best anyways. To get a more professional adjustment, I'll have to wait until the next time I see my mom.

What's funny is that after all that, I discovered that this little project doesn't exactly lend itself to machine sewing. Because three edges eventually come together at once, you can machine sew the first seam, but have to hand sew the rest. And that's more than okay with me, I enjoy the old fashioned way just fine. Stay tuned for a post on that project, as soon as it's done!

The exercise was worth it, of course. In achieving our goals (and generally when trying to get anything difficult done), I've learned that you must "slice the apple thinner". Take an overwhelming task, and tackle a small, doable portion. So, in getting back into quilting and other machine sewing, here is the first, thin slice.

Three Hundred Sixty-Five

Have you discovered Etsy's blog, The Storque? It's really fabulous. In fact, let's first establish that you know about Etsy to begin with. If you don't, you: A) have been missing out big time, and B) have probably been living under a rock. Okay, that was mean. But seriously, you should go there, and be prepared to ignore your loved ones and all other responsibilities for a good few days as you bask in the glory that is Etsy.

Anyways. The Storque had a great post the other day, pointing readers to the fascinating concept of 365 projects. Wherein, you make something, every day, for a year. Did I really need yet another thing on my plate? I already have a billion ideas about getting creative for this blog. But, this just so happens to be very applicable.

Look here! makesomething365.blogspot.com. There's this guy named Noah Scalin, who started it all. In 2007, he made a skull a day for a year. Watch the blink-and-you'll-miss-it photo collage of all 366 (it was a leap year) skulls he made:

 A daily project. To make something every day, centered around a theme. It could be a photograph. Or, a thank you note. A doodle. The image of a burger.  A flower. A smiley face. The adventures of a gnome. You get the idea.

So, can I do it? Can I come up with something? And do it every day for a year? And share it with you, as part of this blog? It's kind of weird. But maybe it's just weird enough.

Belated Paper Crafting

Oh hi, internet. It's midnight, and I should really be asleep, but instead I'm blogging. It's all your fault!

Anyways, I've been doing a Google Reader audit over the last few days. Do you have way too many blogs on your reader, like me? You know you have a problem when Google just gives up counting and says you have 1000 + unread posts. Gah. It was incredibly cleansing to delete those that I'm no longer interested in, or that have no new posts.

The real fun of it was catching up on some of my favorite blogs, particularly the crafty ones. I had missed a lot of great holiday crafts! It's probably just as well, as I was very busy experimenting with new recipes, yum. But you see, I have this obsession with Christmas tree ornaments. They're small, you can hang them, I don't know, I just love them alright!? So it was fitting that I found this great tutorial over at How About Orange (great name right? I command you to go over there immediately! but come back, okay?)

It was so simple! A great alternative to TV on a Wednesday night.

Stripey UFO with menacing hand shadow, eeeee!

I did a few things differently. Namely, I used buttons instead of beads (you know the ones that come with clothing, except if you're like me, you never label them and have no idea what in the world they belong to).

I discovered that a penny sized paper circle (in blue) was too close in size to the button, so I traced around a quarter instead.

I sewed the button to the circle. I cut up the strips (using my rotary cutter and mat for something other than fabric for the first time), folded the strips in half, and threaded through each strip towards the end. I then started threading through the other ends, starting with the FIRST strip that I threaded before. This instruction seemed counter-intuitive - looking at the middle photo below, it makes more sense that you would start with the white strip to the far right, rather than the yellow one to the far left.

But I dutifully persevered, and ended with this:

Which, is exactly what happened to How About Orange: a gap on one side. it's impossible to avoid - the strips of paper descend like a spiral staircase, only Escher could make them match up.

Ahah, I decided, she must have done it wrong - if I thread it the way my instincts told me, it will be nice and symmetrical.

Well, hubris, etcetera:

Ahem.

It doesn't work that way at all. The strips don't fan out nicely like they should, they just nestle, and flail. Bah.

But! I sort of worked it out, by tying a big knot on either side of the stacks of strips, so they didn't separate along the string. Am I making any sense? Probably not. Nevertheless, that seemed to reduce the gap.

The tree is down, so it can live on the chandelier for a while.

So, I might be crazy for making ornaments in January. But we all know how bleak it can get this time of year. December is so full of the newness of winter, in its fresh, invigorating way. Christmas celebrates the season, with the snowmen, and the hot chocolate, and the matching gloves and hat wrapped under the tree.  But then January comes around, and we're faced with 2 1/2 more months of not-so-novel-anymore hybernation. I say, it's time to keep the joy alive, in the form of oh-so-addictive paper craft.

Which is why I made some snowflakes this morning at work.