New Piece of Art

Last night I was privileged to assist in the creation of a new piece of art. I provided assistance and technical guidance, but the colors were all chosen by another; the warp was all placed by another, and the weft was 2/3 placed by another.



Here's a picture of the artiste:



She's looking quite pleased because she was allowed to get up out of bed to pose with her masterpiece.

I was amazed by her concentration (she's 3 1/2). We finished 2/3 of the weaving before it got too dangerous to sit still for so long, and big brother was goofing off in the room. He did one row of weaving, and he was better at seeing where the "overs and unders" went, but did not have as much patience.

Momma is very happy to have such a good pot-holder; I'm hoping there's enough interest to make her another. When I was growing up we always ran out of loops before I was tired of weaving.

Swap and give-away

This is a picture of my box of polymer clay, Fimo and other brands. Since I've decided that I'm not planning on trying to become expert in another medium, I want to dispose of this. I had a brainstorm yesterday that I could trade these for threads! So here is my proposal: I will send you a block of clay for each skein of pearl #5 you send me, any brand. That is the swap part.

(Edited: 7/7 All the clay is gone!)



The give-away is that I have a pasta machine, an essential tool for working with polymer clay, and a bunch of other tools for clay, and I will give that away to someone who comments on this post. I will draw a name of someone on July 31, or when the clay runs out, whichever comes first.

(edited: 7/7 I will close the give-away portion on July 10)

I will send you my address if you e-mail me at jane dot compeau at gmail dot com with your address. I will be so happy to get my space back!

Tacky B.O.B.

No, I'm not talking about a former admirer, this is a tool for stitching that I find essential when I'm doing embroidery with beads. This is actually a "tacky box of beads." It consists of a small CD box lined with adhesive foam. The beads stay in place until you pick them off with your needle and stitch them on to your project.



This one is set up for my current project. It is very convenient that the pattern asks for 9 colors of beads. I scored the foam with a needle in a tic-tac-toe pattern to make 9 spaces, and carefully poured beads into each section. My biggest quandary right now is what type of thread to use to stitch the beads down. Right now I'm leaning toward a nymo (polyester) thread in gray. That will blend with all the colors, I think, and is strong enough so I won't be nervous about the thread breaking and beads coming off. I'm getting close to working with the beads again in my project, and I want to keep the momentum up. I'm almost done with the arbor on the "southwest" and with the gazebo on the south, leaving only the arbor on the "southeast" to be completed.