Exciting news

I've been asked to be the featured speaker at the Kitchener-Waterloo (two cities in Ontario) Knitters' Guild on October 8.  This is a huge guild with 180-200 members and as many as 140 people showing up for meetings.  Their theme for the year is Accessories and I will be talking about shawl pins and how to use them.  I've prepared a PowerPoint presentation on the history of shawl pins and then, using my mannequin, I will demonstrate a bunch of different ways to use shawl pins with various types of scarves and shawls.  This should be fun!  Not only are they going to pay me a speaker's fee, but they are going to let me sell my pins after the speech!  Some photos from the PDF I'm going to send folks who sign up for my mailing list:

Clay Carnival, Part 2

Donna Kato's method for making big cabochons with precision lines was very enlightening and the technique will be useful for lots of designs:

and Meisha Barbee's class on mica shift caning was fun.  Everybody made lovely pieces:

Finally, Donna and Leslie Blackford collaborated on a class involving inclusions and carving.  Again, while the instruction was excellent, carving is a technique I'm not likely to use very often.  It takes a lot of practice to do it well.  My minimalist attempt:

All in all, it was a terrific retreat.  Good classes, nice people, and an interesting environment.  Now if that darned slot machine had just paid off.....

Clay Carnival 2013

I had the good fortune to attend Clay Carnival this year.  Las Vegas was its usual bizarre scene, but we spent most of our time in the classrooms with ladies who were not dressed in "Daisy Dukes," bra tops and high platform shoes.  However, the members of the Rowdy Room did partake of Fat Tuesday's large daiquiris during a couple of classes. 

I had a great time in all of my classes and learned some good things.  We were very lucky to have an all-day class with Diane Keeler, one of the foremost sculptors working in polymer clay.  Despite her excellent instruction, I do not believe I will be taking up sculpting on a regular basis.  Making realistic faces is HARD:

Julie Eakes showed us how to "deal with the hand we're Delft."  Her method for making blue and white canes was easy and fun and produced lovely results.

Judy Belcher showed us how to do "Tatoo Caning".  Here are some sample tiles:

Leslie Blackford taught us something fishy.  We were supposed to cut the fish into thirds and put it back together with a flexible attachment, which I did with the striped fish, but I couldn't bear to cut the red fish.  Now I have to figure out how to wear it even though it is kind of big.

More tomorrow.

Week 29 Year of Jewelry

Here is another new design for my line of copper shawl pins.  I used wire wrapping to define the shape and it features a large lampwork bead from Laurel Mountain Glass.

Latest Shawl Pin Design

My copper shawl pins seem to sell very well at the knitting oriented shows I do, but I decided I need some new designs.  This one is simple in concept, but it was difficult to make the 10 gauge copper wire cooperate.

I'm thrilled!

I am delighted to see that The Wearable Art Show is using a photo of my jewelry as the cover photo on their Facebook page.  I don't know how long they will keep it there, but I'm thrilled to see it.

Check it out here:
https://www.facebook.com/wearableartshow?fref=ts

Half way through

I'm half way through with the Year of Jewelry project.  Here are my entries for weeks 24-26.  The first earrings are made of polymer clay scrap canes and look sort of like little quilts.  They are folded into a wavy shape to look like fabric.

The earrings below are made from large copper "beads" placed on niobium ear wires which are colored to look like copper.

 These are copper wire pieces I purchased and put on the niobium ear wires.