More stuff

OK, I lied about not being as excited about polymer clay. I bought this awesome pasta machine device.

And lo, it is awesome, and makes sheets and tiles of clay an easy thing. I made some dinosaur scale pendant thingies. Interference powder is neat! It makes things shiny! The first set had the interference powder brushed on before baking, and then I added a clear acrylic glaze. For the second set, I mixed interference powder and translucent liquid Sculpey and painted it on before baking. It seems to have turned out slightly less glossy.

So, sewing. I got out my Singer and played with a silk shirt from dollar-a-pound. I was kind of fixated on making gathers. This was annoying when the thread decided to break and stuff, and I got kind of frustrated with my early attempts. (Though the frustrated/screwed up fabric looks kind of cool in retrospect, and maybe will be used for something else later). Then I realized that silk + water = wrinkles.



I sewed a few lines of running stitches, gathered with them, ran the whole thing under water, and twisted it as much as possible and let it dry. Then I pulled out the gather stitches altogether, leaving tiny holes and lots of pretty wrinkles. I folded up the ends around some ribbon to make a pretty, modern-looking choker thingy (which doesn't look good on me, but would look amazing on someone with a long, graceful neck). I think I'm proud enough of it that I'll add it to my etsy shop later this weekend.

Because I'm totally not that distracta--oo, look, a shiny!

Thinking about smaller fabric projects too. Sort of tempted to get some silk remnants and some pearls and combine them in interesting ways to make some kind of ruff/choker or something. But I think I will play with the shinies I have first.

Edited to add: found an unwanted bracelet of peacock-colored freshwater pearls that I'd made a year or so ago. Cannibalized! And I think I have a couple of silk shirts in one of my bags of Dollar-A-Pound finds... too bad it's bedtime now :/

...yep. Totally a new crush.

I keep squeeing over Gibbous and this amazing German website and thinking about the fabric. I think the activation energy for this project is going to mostly be related to putting the foundation layer/waistband area together. That feels a little bit like work (which is why I haven't started tonight, along with the fact that my sewing machine is loud and it might not be nice to run it when our upstairs neighbors might want to be asleep). The other ideas I'm having, though, just feel like play. Draping and patching and collaging fabric to attach to the base in an interesting way. And I know there will be frustrating moments and mistakes, but my ideas don't require perfection.

...Um, yeah, I don't think I have a point beyond "this project idea is shiny and I'm being obsessive about it. *end of post*

Status

Stuff I've been working on in the last month or two:

Watch part jewelry

Fimo tile jewelry

My crush on polymer clay seems to have been much shorter-lived than I'd expected, and my crush on wire-wrapping/linking/gluing watch parts has lasted longer than expected (which is good, because I'm not nearly close to using up all the parts I've gotten from ebay).

One thing that can stop a crush on a medium for me is finishing a particular type of ambitious project. I always feel like my next piece should be better than the one before it. So if I make something that is really amazing, but also takes a lot of work or special materials that I don't have any more of, I go through a period of trying to top it and failing, which can be demoralizing. For a while, it looked like Fringes might have had that effect on watch part jewelry for me. But I spent a few days away from it, not thinking too much about watch parts, and then came back and worked on some simple pieces. Then I worked on Orbits and Strange Device. I'm quite happy with both of them, and now instead of feeling like I have to clear some impossibly high hurdle to match the awesomeness of a single fluke, I feel like I'm getting better at what I'm doing. Yay.

Crush on the horizon: Gibbous Fashions and other reconstructed/elaborate sewing. I'll be going to a party in early May that some people traditionally make elaborate, alternative-looking costumes for, and I think something in this vein would be perfect. But with more draped bits and tassels and all the yummy elements I love in skirts, combined into one! I went to Dollar-A-Pound yesterday and gathered a bunch of white and wine-red fabric, and I'm starting to form A Plan in my head. I'm hoping to get started this weekend! If so, I'll post pictures of my progress :)