Pam Carriker's Shades of Grey

I've been wanting to do Pam Carriker's Shades of Grey course for a long time now but was too mean to pay for it. She is now making the course available without going through a third party so it is cheaper than before. http://pamcarriker.com/online-classes/

These are the results of following the first two videos:

Life Book - week 1

I'm taking Tammy's Life Book course this year. It is a year long course and has several guest teachers. Pop a long to http://www.willowing.ning.com if you are interested. This is week one's homework.

The story of the amulet

Just read the story of the amulet by E. Nesbit. The take takes place in 1905 and I presume was written at around that time.  It is in a similar vein to the lion the witch and the wardrobe but without the religious undertones. Although it is a child's book I certainly enjoyed it. I read another book about an amulet as a child in the early 70s but can't remember which one, does anybody have any ideas about what it might have been?

year of wonders

I've just finished reading 'year of wonders' by Geraldine Brooks. It is set in Derbyshire in the plague and is fascinating. The population was decimated to the extent of an apocalypse and the survivors had great challenges to surmount. Our landscape would be very different today had it not been for the plague. The author was a war correspondent and this is her first novel. It is very well researched and I recommend it.

Dyeing in a bag

Last weekend I went to my friend Aggie's studio to some dying in plastic bags based on Helen Deighan's book Dyeing in Plastic Bags: No Mess, No Fuss, Just Great Colours. I've been wanting to do this for ages and was surprised at how easy it was.

Soaking up the Dye

Soaking up more dye overnight

Drying in the sun

Trying out some stamping before stamping the dyed fabrics

Recording the mixtures

I dyed several pieces of fabrics, a T-Shirt and a couple of canvas bags. I was going to print on the canvas bags but my experiments were not sufficiently crisp for me to want to do it on the bags or t-shirt. I'll have to think of some other form of completing the decoration.

THe Brilliance of You tube and a necklace

I have a beadalon knotting tool which helps you to make perfect knots when making jewellery. I tried using it yesterday, with mixed success (and I did RTFM). I watched a you tube video about it last night. I think the video is different to the paper instructions and it looks so easy. I haven't had a go again today to test the theory. You Tube is a wonderful place to find step by step instructions on how to do things. People are so generous in sharing their knowledge.

I also watched a few videos about the coiling gizmo and learned how to open and close split rings - you don't pull them from right and left to split the ring, you do it forwards and backwards which means they go back into the proper place when you have finished. I also saw a video which included a section on making wire which has a hoop at both ends (I don't know the name for them) and discovered that I had been doing it completely wrong. If you are interested, look at 7 minutes 35 seconds on this video.

Using my new found knowledge, today I created a necklace from the Sculpey beads made yesterday.  I don't have making the wire with hoops at both ends sussed yet (I have a measuring problem), but this necklace is a lot better than the last one I made using the same technique. I have ordered a pair of jump ring closing pliers which I want to use to make the jump rings on this necklace oval rather than round. This means that the rings will be less likely to open. Click on the image to see more detail.

Beads

I have a bead roller which helps you to make perfect round and oval beads. I did re-learn, RTFM (Read the ... Manual). The bead roller instructions tell you how to cut the perfect size clay to put in the roller and we had at least 3 goes before I realised I had missed an instruction or two.

We made sculpey marbelled beads and also tried it out on Model Magic which is an air drying clay. (Good job I took photos of the packaging, this was for Mandi's benefit but I thought I had used Eberhard Faber PlastLight and had written several sentences about it in the draft version of this blog post).

Mandi did say that these beads were more round than the ones she had hand moulded because the new ones escape. I was also able to try out the baking stands that I made in the pottery class a couple of years ago. When I first made them, I didn't go to the class to pick them up and the teacher nearly threw them out because they looked useless. They are so, so useful! You can use a potato instead if you wish though.