Wools of our Lives |
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| 4:10 PM | |
| I'm so excited! I have 8 lampwork buttons in the kiln right now as we speak! | |
| I can't wait to pull them out tomorrow. I've had to take several breaks from the torch for feeling woobly, but it's too exciting I can't stop myself. Imagin how stunning your wool sweaters and vests will look with hand made lampwork buttons!! I'll post pictures tomorrow!! Wooo Hooo. | |
| August 17, | 9:18 AM |
So, back to Dit, who is also known as Eleanor, the fiber expert, Designer, woman of |
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wisdom, who seduced me to the wool side. She sees my trunk full of wools and canvases, divides them up into keep this and sell this on eBay piles. Mama had one box of knitting amoungst all the needle point projects. It was a box of wool from the 70's, blues and greens with a booklet of knitting patterns for making a blanket of sampler squares. I tried the needle point and gave up after 3 night. It's hard to do needle point! I left the trunk alone until one day when I was headed to the Wet Canvas glass bead makers Cabin Retreat, where I heard there would be knitting lessons. I grabbed Mama's instruction book and a roll of green wool, and some knitting needles, two months later I had one 8 inch by 8 inch knitted square. I brought my other blue wool and instruction book with me to Dit's mountain home because I knew she was a knitting expert and I had hopes of her teaching me how to make one of these little squares without having to tear it out 50 times before actually making it to the end of one of these little squares. |
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| Eleanor suggested I go with her to the Wild and Wooly (no web site). I told her I had | |
| hoped to not buy any of the beautiful wools until I had knitted all mother's blue and green wools from the 70's into a blanket. She laughed and tosssed her head saying, "what was that in hopes that you would loose interest in knitting all together, you are so funny." Reluctantly I followed her into the den of wool and inequity. (Dit read blogs about wool 4 or 5 of them every hour). I can't continue any longer I'm beginning to shake again. Come back tomorrow I'll tell you more about my scandelous beginning of k k k brrrrr knitting. there, I said it, My name is Amoret and I'm a knitter. |
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| By the way, I now have plans of making glass items that go well with wool, like buttons | |
| and shawl clasps (clasps is hard to say) classssppssssss ummmmm. hard glass, soft wool. | |
Previously on the Wool Side |
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| August 16, | 6:00 PM |
I'm back from all my rompings around the country. And I have the creeping crud. |
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also known as a chest cold. I didn't take my brother's advice and drink lots and lots of water when I felt the first light tickling in the back of my throat. (now why didn't I?) Anyway, right when I communicated with my current eBay customers to be looking for all my wonderful listings that would be showing up as of today... I feel too rotten to work! LOL! And I'm so excited to get a great inventory up for my first real show! I'm going to be selling at the Arts in the Meadow show. I don't even have a tent yet! But it should be arriving tomorrow from HutShop.com. |
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| Last week I had the delightful pleasure of spending §ix wonderful days and nights at my | |
| Dit friend's house. She owns a house in Montreate nestled in the town of Black Mountain up in the North Carolina Mountains. Oh my lord, now I've gotten started, jump back, I can't stop myself. She seduced me into a yarn shop. I resisted the temptation as long as possible. She made knitting sound so exciting, so luxurious, so so Organic. One time when she was at my house visiting, I made the mistake of asking her expert opinion on what to do with my mother's fiber collection. Well, if you want to know more you'll have to come back tomorrow. It's got me all aquiver just thinking about it, and I can't continue. | |
| August 5, | 6:43 PM |
Watching Lucio Bubacco at the Gathering was a treat beyond belief. I'm hoping he |
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will let me come learn from him in his school in Murano. So far I've emailed him and written him a "real" letter by airmail. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll hear back from him with the dates I can come and then I'm off! I know his school is booked up until March.
I've been working on making some more of those big beads but the failure rate is pretty high right now and they take a lot of glass. My biggest problem is that the bead release breaks apart before I get the base part of the bead laid down..... |
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| August 2, | 12:04 PM |
I pulled my first bead out of the kiln using my 2.5" mold from Cattwalk.com . |
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At the time of writing this, this mold (press) is not available to the public. I got it at the gathering and it makes such a huge bead that I had to name the mold, now called Bucephalus. below are some pictures of the first bead from Bucephalus and a comparison bead, which is 1.5" (also not avail able to the public) the closest mold they have to these is the 1.25" press.  |
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| August 1, | 5:19 PM |
I'm back from "the Gathering" and I had a blast. The International Society of Glass |
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Beadmakers puts on its gathering each year and this was my first one. It was in Louisville Kentucky. I especially loved seeing the Glassworks which is the only glass, gallery, hot shop, architectural, and lampworking facility (housing all 3 types of glass making studios) in one facility in the country. I was delighted to see my bead on the postcard created by the ISGB to promote the gathering
mine is the 7th one from the left in the second row! I am proud to say I sold beads and jewelry at the bead bazaar on Saturday. I wasn't planning on it but when my room mates saw all my beads and bracelets, they said, you should try and sell your beads, so I did! I did very well considering I was in a room of the best bead makers in the country and I hadn't even planned to sell. It was my first experience selling at a show. My table display items came from Walt Mart! Here is a very out of focus, but only picture I have to show.
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| For more ramblings check out Nuts and Bolts archives |  |
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