black birds cuff

Getting more stuff ready for next summer in the gallery. I've been working on the cabs and haven't done any cuffs! When I went to my "beaded shit" folder to get this picture I discovered most of my cuffs from last year were made in early March...must be a good time of year for beads!

venting

Small town b.s. My boss's birthday was the end of January, my neighbor and good acquaintance Linda and my boss are friends. Linda asked me if I would do a screen print of Van Morrison for Liz (boss). Sure, sounds good. Linda expected me to design it, I said no it's your gift, you find an image and we'll posterize it for a one off screen print. She found an image, I touched it up. She bought a sweatshirt, I printed it. The sweatshirt was too small for Liz. That was my fault apparently because I said "I think a medium is big enough". After finding out it was too small, Linda called me and said "I know Liz better, that sweatshirt was too small" Or something along those lines. Liz then bought herself a new sweatshirt...asked me if it needed to be washed first, I said no you can just give it to me an I'll print it. She said (something like) no, I'll get it to you on my own time after I wash it. Well.... a month later I have taken the stencil off the screen and Liz (prompted by Linda) brings the shirt to my house. I

I feel like shit because I didn't reserve one of my 2 screens with Linda's stencil on it... I told Liz it would be a while because I need to re do the screen...Liz said oh no, that's ok. sigh. I SAID I'd re do it, dammit. Even though I don't want to... Linda only bought the first shirt and found the image, it's her fucking gift to Liz and I feel bad because I got tired of waiting for the replacement sweatshirt and wanted to use my screen. AGH.

we revisit the home of the lazy blogger one month later

I have been a lazy blogger but a busy beader! Svenson's (gallery owners) have been enthusiastic about smaller more affordable cabs and seeds type necklaces, so I've been making more. I need to work on bracelets too but they're more time consuming and I don't feel consumed.
The first one on the left and the middle one are fossilized coral, there's some green jasper in the one that was in the previous post (second from the left) the far right is a bone face with some poppy jasper and the second from right is unknown but I think it's agate.

I've been getting some really nice cabs from Lima Beads where they have a lunch special every Tuesday. I love shopping for art supplies in the winter, and with a gallery wanting more bead work...yum!

smaller, more affordable

Working on making pendants with cabs, trying to figure out how they should hand from a neck. In person, this looks o.k., here I don't like it. The left side beads seem too small, the right side too jumbled in color. If I'm going to use semi precious stones as the necklace part, they need to be simple and dark...garnets.

second neck piece

Learned a lot making the first one, this was 100% easier. Less b.s. starting with using black pellon and not gluing the ultra suede on the back. It is for a swap with a friend here, she's going to be making me a mosaic mirror. The big stone and the malachite are from her father's collection, he cut and polished them.

first beads

First beadwork of the new year is adding a picot stitch to the edge of this to sew the ultrasuede on the back. It's part of a necklace to be swapped for a mosaic mirror done by my friend Sharon Svenson, woot!

determined creativity.

The guy climbing the ice fall is leaving on the ferry tonight. He's going to be gone until March on his annual trip to Washington and Hawaii. I'm trying not to miss him already. I'm going to use the time to be as creative as possible, make bracelets, make felt, make screen prints. We have an interesting relationship: two very independent loners hanging out together pretending it's all casual and stuff.
Today's screen print is "raygun" I have some flowers and scrolly girly stuff on the same screen right now but I just wanted to do the raygun! A touch of the steampunk.

Each of these runs involves learning something new... sharpie drawing on acetate is not as good as actual inkjet printing. The inkjet is more opaque and makes a better photo stencil. The photo emulsion sheets sold with the Yudu printer are lame and expensive. The sheets sold by Dharma for less than half the price are mailed in a stiff/flat package and are much better at adhering to the screen. Last of all: the amount of ink on the screen needs to be proportional to the size of the part of the image you're printing...as in you don't need so much for the skinny part of the ray gun as you need for the grip end. (yeah, I know...Keen sense of the obvious)

I got one of those Yudu things...

From Dharma trading and then read all sorts of stuff about how awful they are including complaints about how they're impossible to use and that they're just a toy and total crap. It is a
screen printing system that includes all the steps including a light to burn images to photo emulsion to a dryer for the screens and a platen to hold t-shirts while you print. Not a professional system by any stretch but pretty compact and user friendly...IF you read the instructions and watch some Youtube tricks and tips. Most importantly: let the emulsion dry, no really really dry.


Here's what I did after only one emulsion disaster:


The black is my first go at printing the entire image. The squeegee that comes with the kit isn't that great so I couldn't get the ink all the way to the edges and all the way to the far end of the image. So I taped off the parts I didn't really like anyway and printed the white. A nice opaque white, it worked!

Am currently cleaning the screen for the next go!

Christmas Eve eve

This wasn't the 23rd, it's the very beginning of the lunar eclipse on the 20th. You can just see a wee nibble being taken out of the lower left side of the moon as our shadow sneaks along. I didn't get any other pictures...probably could have tried harder but it was cold and I was busy watching the amazing amazingness!
This years wee tree! I love it, and the wee felted birds get to hang out on vacation instead of being on display for sale. See them with their little party hats?
The weeness of the tree revealed, it has to stand on the blue stool to be seen. You can just see the princess dog at the bottom enjoying the splendor of the wee tree.

and now with hats!

Birdies have been selling like mad so I've been restocking like mad! Stick stick stab with the felting needles and so the wee birds evolve...



This is the most recent one using some Harrisville roving I got from Webs (yarn.com). I like this kind of roving for felting, the staple length is really short and it's not combed for spinning easily. The Fiber Trends kits and most of the other rovings are really nice and smooth with a pretty long staple so when you poke the wool in in one place you can actually feel it pulling out in another.
Wanted poster for bird in a dunce cap.