Freeform Friday

Gads, it's been one of those kind of weeks.  Well, I've been plugging away at my knitting project for the KAL sponsored by Jane Thornley.  The ladies over in the forum at Ravelry have been producing some beautiful items.  Wish I could link to it, but the way Ravelry is set up, you have to join to see anything.  If at all interested, I would recommend joining - it's free!  A lot of knitting, crochet, spinning info and free patterns!

I took a progress photo of my project, and YUCK!  The green circle looks awful!  It actually doesn't look as bad as the photo makes it.  Guess I'm going to have to do some frogging. . .



On to polymer clay beady things.  Don't these beads remind you of the roar of the ocean, taste of salty air, cool ocean breezes on a hot summer day?

Bummer.  They were supposed to be evocative of cold crisp snowy mornings.  I guess I just don't do snow very well in general. . .








I've been playing with making patchwork leaf pendants. I'm thinking strung simply on leather cord.  But, there is always the chance I will change my mind.  I'm still pondering them. Not sure if they look leafy or just plain weird.

Well, right about now my brain is mush.  Probably something to do with the cold I have, blech. Mush, or not, I need to do some ArtFire things (or at least attempt to), so off I go.

I had fun this weekend!

I did some claying over the Weekend!

I cracked open some packages of polymer clay and fired up the pasta machine! 

The clay I worked with was actually Sculpy Premo, and not the Kato in the picture.  It is way easier to condition!  Oh, but I have plans for those packages of Kato Polyclay. 

To get going, I just wanted to make some simple beads.  I made a few and put them in the “secret” ingredient. 

I learned this trick from Silastones’ tutorial blog:  Silastones Tutorials   (scroll down to the "Lava Beads" tutorial.  She uses rock salt in her demo to make lava beads, but I wanted a finer texture and went with Kosher salt.   

And I want to mention, Silastones' work is wonderful and her tutorial blog is a great wealth of information!

After some feverish claying, I had a tray of beads nearly ready for the oven. 

Now, these beads would look rather plain without some sort of patina. 

So to give the beads some pizazz, I brushed on some Perfect Pearls.  The beads will have a nice metalic shine, almost like raku.

 

Guess what the most important item is for working with Perfect Pearls.  YES, that’s it – the dusk mask!  You don’t really want to breathing this stuff.

Well that’s it.  The beads have been cured and are ready to be turned in to jewelry. Oh, and I'm guessing you are wondering what they look like.  Well, you are just going to have to wait! 

Well, okay I did plan to include a picture of the finished beads, but the weather was rainy all day. I couldn’t go outside to get a decent  picture of them.  So, hopefully tomorrow.

Summer's End

A tale my Mom use to tell about my brother (16 years my senior) was about a paper he had to write in grade school. The topic was what he like most about summer and what he liked least about summer. What he wrote was something like this:

"What I like most about summer is when it begins. What I like least about summer is when it ends."

I never like when summer ends either. Even now, I tend to get a little melancholy as summer winds down. I like and look forward to autumn, but at the same time I don't like summer to end. As I worked on these beads I thought about those carefree summers and days at the beach growing up in Southern California.

Really, the colors of these beads aren't quite right for Southern California. But that didn't matter. As I worked on them, I still thought of the foggy beach mornings giving way to warm sunshine. And playing in the waves of the cool Pacific waters. And the inevitable sunburn.

A picture of the woodcut print that is the inspiration is at August monthly challenge.

The bead colors were inspired by the print for the challenge. Somehow while working on these beads, I found myself thinking about the Southern California beaches and never wanting summer to end.

Back in the "Groove"

I'm such a naughty blogger. Okay, my New Years Resolution is to blog a minimum of once a week. What? It's already August, nearly September! Well I blew that resolution.

I've been getting back to working with polymer clay - it's such a fun medium! Last year at Polymer Clay Central, one of the topics was groovy. I started these beads last year and recently finished them. I made this fun little necklace with some of the beads.

Currently, I'm working on some beads for a monthly challenge at this blog: http://artbeadscene.blogspot.com/

After I get the beads buffed, I'll take some photos and post a little more about it.

I also have some quite a few beads I need to photograph and post. As well as some random knitting things. (It's too warm to think about knitting very much right now).

And maybe I'll think about finishing the painting. Maybe.