So, I’ll start with the cats as has been my tradition as of late.
Bronx – my oldest male cat is a F1 Bengal. He is very true to breed – just take a look at how long his nose and paws are compared to other housecats. Additionally, he epitomizes breed by being aloof, and not wanting to be held. He’s not a “pick up and cuddle” type of cat.
Despite that, and much to my chagrin since I am the primary treat giver of the house – Bronx likes men – he usually picks the strongest man in the room (alpha male type strong, not physical) and commands that they honor him. Bronx prefers the strong, silent type; generally the person who is either ignoring him or expressing apathy. This honor is fulfilled by him sitting on their lap and surveying the room. He is NOT asking to be petted, and don’t you dare try to hold/cuddle him from that. He’s there to show he’s king.
A couple weeks ago – our friend Rich was over. Rich was sitting in hubby’s usually spot on the couch, and is a similar in temperament to Chris.
Notice how he is watching the room?
Annual Vacation
I just got back from our Annual vacation to Daytona Beach. Each year, I pack some handwork projects to do, and last year I blogged from there about the beautiful fabric orchids I made. I also usually put in 20-30 hours of work
This year, I was naughty on all counts
· I went to the hot tub almost every night
· I stayed up late and slept in
· I swore I was going to do yoga at a nearby studio every day – I went once
· We went to a movie
· We did go karts, nitro dragsters and the arcade
· I bought clothes and lingerie
· I sat in the sun and read books
· We went on an Eco Tour
· We went into Orlando to our favorite CD shop
It was a nice vacation, and despite taking a bunch of yarn, crochet cotton, knitting needles and crochet hooks along, I did very little.
I had taken a good amount of specialty yarns that I’ve collected – intending to make some scarf/jewelry pieces and a few other things. I did use up one skein of an expensive yard to make the basis for a decorative belt. I need to finish it off with some complementary yarn to make a fringe.
Here’s what I have:
And here’s the yarn I used. If there’s a few yards left after fringe, I’ll pair it with white and make a tie scarf/neck drape.
I also started a scarf. It’s decorative rather than functional. My goal is to use up two skeins of white eyelash, one skein of pink/beige cotton yarn and at least half a skein of a multi colored ladder yarn. The rest of which will be used for scarves
Quilting
Original Sewing and Quilting Expo Review
Not worth the price – don’t go.
Oh, you wanted more than that….?
I can do that.
I started going to this event about eight years ago. I was at the Sheraton in Bloomington, took up several large rooms, some small rooms, and the hallways. It took 3-4 hours just to wind through the selling booths, and I got a lot of great stuff.
It went downhill from there; it’s been getting consistently smaller and this year was awful.
In past years, there have been many sewing/embroidery machine dealers and at least THREE commercial/semi commercial embroidery machines on display. This year: NONE, just the Viking dealer.
It took me under an hour to see all the selling booths.
· No big collections of fabric anywhere
· No Hancock (but not a big loss)
· Only one booth with any amount of pre-cuts, and barely any
· Vogue fabrics which used to have a HUGE booth, with tons of notions, softwares, etc., was not there at all
· Barely any show items
I won’t be going again. I’ll stick to the MQ show which has a ton of booths and lots of displays.
Elinor’s Tree Skirt
I buy fabric because I like it…. Not for a particular project.
That’s one reason why I have a very large stash….
Lots of things attract my attention…
It also could be because I’m a bit of a hoarder ….
Or that I NEED to have a large palette to choose from….
Or that I’m just crazy…
Just saying…..
Anyway, on one of my many shopping expeditions, I found a charm pack of Christmas themed sock monkeys.
Yes…. I said Christmas themed sock monkeys… don’t those two concepts always go hand in hand?
After all, there are PINK sock monkeys too…. Here’s proof!
Back to the subject intended…. Shortly before I was going down to Albuquerque to visit Elinor (and it was near Christmas time), I decided I needed to bring something.
Or, I may have decided that I needed to start clearing out my collection of “I must do something with this” fabrics…..
Either way, I took that charm pack and made a small quilt out of it. The pattern that I used was the “Tossed Nine Patch”. You can refer back to one of my first blog articles here for some directions.
This year, Elinor has decided to use the quilt (it’s about 35 inches square) as a skirt of sorts for their small Christmas tree. Her comment in text when she sent me this picture was: “2 people have already compliment/asked were (sic) they can get one J”
Twin City Quilting Block of the Month
I’m still plugging away at the BOM. I missed last Month (November) to go to the Original Sewing and Quilting Expo (should have skipped that instead), and I still have to go pay my $5 penalty and be contrite.
Meanwhile, here is the center laid out on my living room floor.
Glass
I’ve been putting a little more time into glass work than fabric lately. I have a few classes scheduled, and a long list of ideas.
My original plan with glass was to purchase a kiln of my own sometime early in 2013. I do not think that is going to happen now. I still have way too much to learn about the actual operation of the kiln. Additionally, I really enjoy my time at the studio and I think it’s a good learning atmosphere as well as being a good social activity.
I passed on this glass fever to some other people!
The small contracting firm that I work for (but not at; I work at a client location) is virtual. We have no offices. Every few months, we get together. Some of those get togethers are business related, but a few are social. I convinced the management to hold one of the social get togethers at my favorite studio (The Studio at Rush Creek). We had 18 people, made 12 inch plates, and a good time was had by all.
A few people from that night are going to return to the studio. A couple are interested in classes and I believe one person is going to have a children’s party there. It feels really good to both spread my hobby and to gain business for a woman who’s taught me a lot!
I will admit, however, to some jealousy at the creations made that night!
Using up Stock, aka Experimenting
When I first started doing studio time with glass, I was instructed by that mentor to buy COE 90 glass. (COE = Coefficient of Expansion, and you can NOT mix COEs). Her studio was a 90 studio.
Since then, I’ve decided that I much prefer another studio, and that most studios open to the public use 96 COE. I’ve also found 96 to be a bit cheaper. 90 has some really cool specialty glass, but I can buy just those and make special projects (It’s expensive for the really nice glass – too expensive to have a “stash” of it).
I’ve made the decision that my stash is going to be 96 and that’s all I’ve been buying lately (except for the rare specialty piece). However, since I initially bought quite a bit of 90 – have to have a good palette! – I have some to use up. My goal over the next few studio sessions to make pieces exclusively with the 90 in order to reduce what I have of it. While I’d like to have options, it can be disastrous (cracking, etc) to mix COEs in the kiln and I want to reduce the chances of doing that accidentally.
To this end, I decided that I’m going to “play” with the 90; make weird pieces, try odd things, etc, just to see what things will do.
I want this blog, and these pictures, to be a log of attempts and results. I tend to forget what I did, and look at the finished piece and wonder how I got there!
First – here’s the loaded kiln:
Piece One
Nothing too experimental here. This is one of my “My Style” pieces. It’s about 8x10. All the pieces – including those cut from rods – are 90 COE. It’s the standard two layers of glass, with some areas have little pieces on top to make a third and a fourth layer. I don’t expect any real surprises here.
Piece Two
This piece is about six inches square. The bottom of this is a THIN layer of medium blue transparent glass. It’s thinner than most I’m used to working with. Also, there is NOT a second full layer. Glass wants to be ¼ inch thick. What I expect to happen to the bottom piece is that it will shrink where there isn’t anything on top of it. It should turn out with scalloped edges.
There are white solid squares on top, then light blue transparent squares on top of those. Since the blue is light, and transparent, I expect it will lighten considerably.
Lastly, the circles on top are pieces cut from a millifiore rod. They are actually a 104 COE. In the past, when I’ve used 104 COE millifiore pieces on other COEs – there’s been some light cracking around the edges. (Note: 104 is soft, 90 is the hardest of the COEs used in fusing). However, I’ve noticed the cracking when the millifiori is large (approaching ½ inch) or many are laid out next to each other. These pieces are quite small (about 5/16th inch) and laid out singly. I am also interested to see what they do against the transparent background. And a final thing to observe – does the very thin bottom layer, and lack of other solid layers affect the melting/cracking potential?
Piece Three
This piece is about seven inches square. This is another attempt to play with single layers. The bottom layer is a transparent green that is also thin as in the above piece. I’m hoping for scallops along the sides, but not the top or bottom.
The next layer is a solid purple, and then a solid white, about 1/8th of an inch (maybe 3/16th) white laid on the top. Those were DIFFICULT to cut out!
Piece Four
I then moved on to smaller pieces and using some thin copper foil I have. This piece is about 3 x 4 inches.
I found the following on a website about fusing:
During the process of firing, copper oxidizes. The areas that oxidize the most turn turquoise, the areas with less oxidation turn red. The oxidation occurs in the kiln in the hours before the glass begins to fuse. Once the edges of the glass have fused, the oxidation process stops.
So, I’m very interested to see what happens with the copper and the different colors of glass
In this piece, I put copper lines on a piece of solid bright green and covered it with clear glass.
Piece Five
This piece is copper hearts (they weren’t the easiest to cut out!). The piece is shy of one inch wide – which should give you an idea of how small the hearts are. I first attempted to use scrapbooking paper punch to cut them out, but the metal is too strong for that, even though it is thin.
I overlapped the white with the clear by a good margin.
I’ll admit… this was done out of laziness. I’m just experimenting, so I didn’t want to spend a lot of time cutting….
However, after reading that passage about the oxidation stopping when the glass fuses, it will be very interesting to see if the overlap affects that time
Piece Six
This piece is also shy an inch wide. It’s going to be very interesting to see both shrinkage and oxidation on this. The fancy green solid glass is much wider than the clear on top. There is nearly ¼ inch exposed on both sides. The clear also does NOT completely cover all the copper. I wonder what will happen to the exposed edges?
Piece Seven
This piece again does the top (clear) overlapping the bottom (white). The cutout star takes much more of the surface than the hearts mentioned above. I think this should affect oxidation.
Small bit of advice – while most people can eyeball and cold cut a heart – don’t try it with a star! I just couldn’t figure it out. I finally turned the copper over and drew and star with a sharpie. When I was drawing it, it was so automatic and simple! Yet, that doesn’t translate to cutting…..
Piece Eight
Yet another overlapping clear over white with copper bits in-between. However, on this one, I put a piece of fiber paper (fiber paper does NOT burn up in the kiln) in between to make a channel. I wonder how that space will affect the oxidation?
Piece Nine
Done with the copper. Now I’m just playing with some scraps. Piece of transparent green on the bottom, piece of white over it, and then a strip of green along the top. I want to see what the under lap chunk on the bottom does AND what the strip does at the top and bottom where it has a lot of overlap.
Piece Ten
Green and purple – definitely my personal palette! This piece is closer to ½ inch wide. The bottom layer is a scrap of white. The second layer is a piece of transparent clear. The spots on top are a deep purple solid. I’m quite interested in seeing how the colors.
I’ve also put fiber paper into this one to make a channel.
Finished Pieces
Inspiration is a funny thing. Two weeks ago, I put some pieces into the kiln. I only took pictures of the two plates. The interesting thing about both these plates is that there is a great lack of originality combined with some of my special techniques. I’ll explain more with each description.
When I went into the studio two weeks ago, I was feeling a bit lack luster. I’d just seen all the plates that my firm had done at their social outing and I was jealous of some. I also had a lot of noise in my head from those… too many designs, techniques, etc.
Bit of background. I am notorious for sorting. Things MUST be organized. So, to clear myself, I pulled in all my glass from my mobile studio (aka the trunk of my car). I sorted, organized, played with, and came to the conclusion that I had too many pieces of some colors and that became my starting point.
Additionally, when my firm did their outing, I wound up with all the scraps of glass. Most of the people there weren’t going to do glass again, AND even if they did, they weren’t going to store a stash like me, so it only made sense I got the scraps of the paid for sheets. Many of these pieces were cut from for other projects.
Note: both plates are 12 inches, slumped to the “square in square” design.
Plate One
Black scraps are threatening to overwhelm my stash. I had a lot from my own projects, and then a couple people did plates using black bits, so I wound up with an over full container of small black pieces, in addition to larger pieces.
I did the technique of laying down powder and the cutting “mosaic” pieces from scraps and arranging them to make the second layer. I used both black and clear pieces, with a couple black iridescent scattered in. They are framed by red strips, which are decorated with other black pieces. The fusing is not a completely full fuse; there is a little bit of nubby texture on the pieces.
Plate Two
One of the team mates at the outing made a plate with strips of reds and browns. I took her leftovers, combined them with a few other colors and viola! Total artistic stealing…. But I like it. It will make a good present for someone……
Teaser
I have a bunch of new beads. I’m getting better!
However, I’m tired and it’s late….
Tomorrow….
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