Oh man, found objects

The coolest metal bits ever are lurking around the streets of Somerville!



Do you think I should oxidize (darken) the silver on this one, or leave it shiny?



It figures, just when I've decided I have all the jewelry supplies I need for a while, I stumble across even more cool things. At least these ones were free :)

Spinning yarn!

I tried to learn how to spin yarn a few years ago and didn't do very well. Sometime last week, I stopped by Mind's Eye Yarns and asked for some basic wool to learn to spin with--and I managed to make something that mostly looked like yarn! No pictures yet, as I still want to dye it. But then I took out some of the roving that I'd bought the first time I tried spinning:



Oh my goodness, it looks a lot like real yarn! I'm going to get some more roving and ply together different combinations of singles--I find this particular combination a little too much like all the yarn I already own :) But yay, spinning is neat!

Finished projects, in the "Jewelry Inspired by Palimpsest" category

I tried to make these visually interesting in their own right even if you're not familiar enough with the book to know what they're alluding to... did I succeed?

Casimira earrings:





A more abstract November pendant:



(these are available at the etsy shop)

Pasta machine printing

I had the idea to use my pasta machine (which I've previously used for rolling out polymer clay) as a printing press. Ink a thin plate with a raised design, place it on top of a sheet of paper, and roll it through. If you click on the image above, you can see a sort of haphazard step-by-step sequence of the process I used. I'm fairly happy with this technique, although the rollers on my machine seem to not be exactly parallel. I may investigate alternate press approximations. (Maybe a vise would work? And a vise would be a useful thing to have around anyway for other crafts...)

I recently read Palimpsest and have a bunch of crafty ideas in my head because of it. It's a great book with lots of rich, visual language and interesting characters.

a horizontal surface of one's own

This weekend Susannah and I rearranged a bunch of stuff in the house so that I could have a corner of the living room as a crafting area! It is so amazingly awesome. Since the above picture was taken, I also brought out my stacking drawers that I've been using for my yarn stash; I need to weed through it so that only yarn I actually care about is in the drawers.

I also made a mixed-media painting! The media are acrylic paint and silver wires.



I am pretty happy with the technical side of things on this painting, though I'm still mulling over whether I like the final composition or not.

Quick post

I've finished a few knitted objects and have a couple pairs of armwarmers in progress. Also, I updated my etsy shop with steampunk jewelry left over from Deceminate and used some of the earnings from the craft fair for awesome new jewelry supplies. And I suspect I'll be making more jewelry soon, and possibly also playing with making small felt objects.