omnicrafter

Learning to spin

2011-10-18T22:48:00.001+02:00

I dyed wool roving with food colouring and vinegar yesterday and have been practising various spindle spinning and plying techniques today.

Two-ply left and 3-ply navajo-plied on the fly right.

posted from my HTC android using blogaway
simply brilliant!

Binding off/casting off

2009-10-30T13:26:00.004+02:00

I have been avoiding finishing my purple socks because I found the cast-off shown by Silver in her Two toe-up socks on one circular needle much too intimidating. I like sewing and I like knitting, but I don't like doing both at the same time. I try to keep any sewing done on knitting to the absolute minimum (like darning in the end of my yarn after casting off).

Enter Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off on knitty. It's easy to learn, quick, and gives a superior stretchy edge to your socks. I have put together a quick slide show showing more details.

Sock advent calendar

2009-10-20T21:09:00.001+02:00

Here is my inspiration:

And here is sock number 1:

(with my doll's house in the background)

Knitting on Ravelry

2009-10-20T15:06:00.002+02:00

I am knitting furiously again after seeing a photograph of a very cute Advent calender made of 24 miniature socks. Seeing that I only started on 18 October, I have to knit one every second day to make the deadline of 30 November.

If you are interested in knitting, you must visit the wonderful web community at Ravelry.
Here you can look at patterns (many of them free!), yarns, what other people are knitting, find answers to questions like "what size needle and gauge should I use to knit socks with Opal sock wool?", and just generally learn more about knitting.

It is a free site and has almost half a million members. You have to become a member to "get in" but they don't ask any personal information and I get no spam email from them. Just click on "Create an account now" on the right-hand side of the opening page to start.

Here are a few screen shots to tempt you. The menu bar at the top shows you the different categories:

The site has a very advanced but easy to use search facility: Here I searched in "patterns" for "baby surprise": the answer shows individual patterns, telling you how many projects have been added to Ravelry for the pattern.

When you click on the pattern name, you go to a summary page, which mostly has a link to the pattern website. Tabs show you how many projects have been knitted, blog posts have been written and comments have been made about the selected pattern. This one looks very popular!

Clicking on "Projects" brings up a list of photographs to browse through:

Clicking on one of these takes you to a detailed page about the project - I like the colour pattern in this little jacket. The best about this is that it is written by real people like you and I - you can add your own patterns, projects, comments and yarns.

From here you can jump to other places of interest - like yarns. For example, clicking on Noro Silk Garden Lite above took me to the following summary page on this yarn:

What more could you want? I can guarantee you many hours of happy surfing.

Highly recommended!

Double bind

2009-08-06T21:39:00.002+02:00

I started sewing on the binding for the quilt this morning, and completed two long and one short side before pausing to look at what exactly Diane Gaudinski says about sewing on bindings. Result: I was doing the binding correctly, but I hadn't straightened the quilt out correctly when I was blocking it, and my marked line wasn't an even distance from the inner border. After some soul-searching (who's going to notice anyway? do I really want to rip out all that stitching?), I decided to rip out all that stitching (thank goodness I used a long stitch length!) and wet and reblock the quilt.

I was worried about the weather - it was getting overcast, and the quilt would need to dry. But the sun came out again and I could go ahead. I now know the meaning of "blocking". I used my quilt rulers to push and pull and squish the damp quilt into shape, making sure the borders were even all around. Once it was dry, I marked my cutting line right again, this time marking it exactly the same distance from the inner pink border right around.

Two-inch binding attached with walking foot and trimmed

The second round of sewing on the binding went smoothly and I felt happy with my decision to redo it. The corners have been mitered and the beginning and end joined invisibly at the top of the quilt (off-centre). The final step was to trim the backing, batting and extra bits of quilt to an even quarter-inch right around the quilt (without cutting right through the corner mitres like I did on my test quilt!)Now all that remains is to handstitch the binding to the back of the quilt, and make and attach the label (I am thinking of an applique heart to match the front).

Binding folded over to back and held with hair clips

I'm trying out a new method this time - using hair clips instead of pins to hold the folded-over binding. I always manage to stick my fingers into pins, no matter how careful I am, so I hope this works!

Machine quilting

2009-08-04T14:10:00.000+02:00

I have just taken a few photographs of Emma's Quilt prior to sewing on the binding. After binding it, I will wash the whole thing, which will make the quilt softer and the quilting puffier, but this gives already gives you an idea of the difference the quilting makes to the fabric. (The photos are a bit dark because I tried taking them with natural light, as the flash obliterates all the shadows that make the quilting come alive.)

Unquilted top (left), after quilting (right)

Corner detail

Border quilting

Diagonal background quilting, with trapunto flower motif and stipple quilting in heart

I outlined all the insects with trapunto quilting

The quilt is made of 100% cotton fabric, the batting is Quilter's Dream Blend (70% cotton, 30% polyester), and the quilting was done with Sew-Art International nylon monofilament thread in the needle and Mettler Silk Finish 100% cotton thread in the bobbin on my Bernina Aurora 440 QE.

Quilting finished

2009-08-04T13:49:00.002+02:00

My husband is flying down to Cape Town for a course, so I thought he could take the quilt with him for the first leg of the journey to New Zealand, instead of the risky business of posting it. So instead of working om my shirt, I started making the binding (I am usually a terrible procrastinator).

I started with 3" strips cut across the grain and trimmed to 45-degree angles at the ends. I follow the directions given by Nancy Srebro Johnson in her book Rotary Magic when binding quilts. This was one of the first "modern" quilt books I read, and it has very detailed directions on quiltmaking and especially rotary cutting. Perfect for the beginner quilter, and I refer back to it again and again. It is also loaded with tips and hints (I love that kind of book). There are also many tutorials on the web: here is a link to one that looks straightforward (although I don't do the joining of beginning and end like that).

3" strips with ends cut at 45 degrees and 3/8" tip cut off

Once I have sewn all the strips together to make one looooong continuous strip, I press the seams open to reduce bulk (same principle as in making lingerie!), then fold the whole thing in half lengthwise and press.

Double-fold binding ready for applying to the quilt

This time, I am trying a new technique. Following machine quilter supreme Diane Gaudynski's method, I blocked the quilt after quilting by spraying it with water and flattening it to dry on a large plastic-backed picnic blanket. Instead of trimming the extra batting and backing before binding, I have marked the final cutting line right around the quilt perimeter. I did it first with water-soluble blue pen (in case I made a mistake), and will go over this line with a thin permanent pen line tomorrow when the light is good. The idea is then to align the edge of the binding with the line, sew it on, and trim the extra fabric/batting off after sewing. Diane describes the process in her book Guide to Machine Quilting - a great book if you want to learn to do beautiful machine quilting. (I have to add here that Diane advocates using binding cut on the bias, but I am too much of a miser. And Diane now has a blog - here is the link.)

Cutting line marked on quilt with blue marker

You can also see that I was terribly miserly when cutting the batting for the quilt - it does not even show at the edge of the quilt top. The reason for this is that I originally designed the quilt to be smaller, but I ended up adding wider borders and I didn't have enough cotton batting left. I actually had to piece the batting to make a rectangle that was just big enough for the quilt. (I can't buy this batting locally and bought it online from the UK a few years ago; this was my last piece.)

I had to stop tonight because .... I found out that my strip of binding is about 30 cm (12") too short! I will have to make a quick trip to Nikki Mommen's excellent quilt fabric shop and buy a 4"-wide strip before I can finish the quilt. Thank goodness I always measure before I start sewing! (More about binding here...)

I leave you with this final picture of my sewing table. Am I the only person whose table looks like this while I'm working or do others also find it impossible to keep chaos at bay? I just seem to need so much stuff while I'm working.

The creative process....

Invisible machine applique

2009-07-08T10:37:00.001+02:00

I appliqued the hearts with invisible machine applique, using a modified version of Harriet Hargreave's freezer paper method. I used fusible interfacing instead of freezer paper, fusing it to the wrong side of the fabric with very low heat and gluing the seam allowances to the interfacing.

Interfacing with 3/8th" seam allowances glued with water-soluble UHU glue stick

Right side of prepared applique

I pinned the heart to the backing square with three pins and sewed using nylon monofilament in the needle and Mettler cotton embroidery thread in the bobbin. My Bernina has a programmed applique stitch, very similar to the vari-overlock or blind hem stitch, but with stitch length and width set to 0.9 mm. I used an open embroidery foot. The straight stitches go into the backing right next to the applique, and the zigzag stitch catches the applique itself.

After stitching, I cut out the backing, sprayed the stitching line with water and removed the interfacing. It worked very well. I was surprised by how fast the whole process went - maybe I'll do a more complicated applique quilt next time!

Wrong side after removing interfacing

Finished applique after pressing

Close-up of "invisible" stitching

Quilt progress

2009-07-08T10:15:00.001+02:00

I have been working diligently on the baby quilt for the past week and have already attached three of the multiple borders. I decided to use the border fabrics in a different order and ran out of green. Will have to visit my local quilt fabric shop today to buy a bit more, and also get fabric for the backing. Here is the actual quilt on my cutting table (I had to get onto a ladder to take the photograph!).

Emma's Quilt - three borders attached

I tried out various combinations of fabrics and widths for the multiple borders and settled on an inner border cut from the borders on the butterfly print fabric, followed by a diagonal "marbled" print, a narrow pink piping border, and then a final broad green border. The marbled and green borders will be mitered.

Border mock-up

I also changed the order of the applique and print blocks from my original idea, and now have the different coloured hearts running in diagonal lines across the quilt.

Final layout with diagonal hearts

New quilt

2009-07-02T09:52:00.000+02:00

I have been working on a new quilt for the past week. is a baby quilt for my aunt's second granddaughter in New Zealand. I made a pretty quilt for her older sister when she was a baby, and now it's the little one's turn. I bought the fabrics yesterday.

The quilt design is very simple - just chequerboard blocks of the print and the green fabric, with appliqued hearts of the three plain colours, and a few borders. I hope to finish the piecing quickly and then to have more time to indulge on the machine quilting.

Tapestry crochet

2009-07-01T10:21:00.000+02:00

A little inbetween new craft I'm playing with is tapestry crochet. I saw a lovely little purse made in this method last year and also found a pattern in a crochet book from the library (didn't copy it though...)

I found some directions on the web and started with a few bright cotton perle threads I inherited from my mother. Here is the result:

I'm planning to turn it into a little bag for something, don't know what yet.

Purple socks continued

2009-06-24T10:08:00.000+02:00

The sock is progressing well! I have been writing down what I'm doing and trying to do some backward engineering so I can make a second sock when the time comes. I still don't know how many stitches I cast on, but I'm thinking it won't be too difficult to compare the new toe to the existing and redo it when it looks too big or small.

I have knitted six pattern repeats since my frogging yesterday, and started shaping the gusset according to Wendy's instructions (see previous post). So far the toe-up method is really a positive experience. I hated those first few rows of ribbing when knitting from the cuff down. Toe-up has you starting with a small number of stitches and all in plain knitting - no purl! I am decidedly not a purl-girl. (That's one of the greatest things about knitting in the round too - no purling neccessary for stocking stitch!)

Wendy Johnson has a great tutorial on toe-up cast-ons at knitty.com. I recommend it highly. There are three different version to choose from. Knit them all in some left-over yarn and decide which one you like best. My current favourite is the Figure-Eight Toe.

Another great advantage of the toe-up method is that you get to try the sock on as you knit it. I love it!

Knitting socks in winter

2009-06-23T08:58:00.067+02:00

Although not freezing cold where I live in the southern hemisphere, I do wear socks in winter, and was introduced to the wonderful world of sock knitting last year. Be warned, self-patterning Opal sock yarns are addictive!

I knitted two pairs of Opal socks last year (one from the Hundertwasser pattern shown here) and started on a third pair in purple, but stopped when the weather got warmer. In April this year, I started knitting again, but something went wrong with the pattern, so I stopped after two repeats. This weekend, I finally figured out which version of the pattern I had been using.

The purple socks are knitted toe-up, according to the directions for Double Eyelet Rib Socks by Wendy Johnson. Except, I didn't use the eyelet rib pattern, but a Mock Cable pattern given by scarlettknits in her top-down pattern. I'm using Elle Sock Wool, 80% wool with 20% nylon, on 2 mm DPNs. Major lesson here: write down what you do when knitting the first sock! I couldn't even remember which cable pattern I used (I have several in my pile of knitting patterns), and still have to figure out exactly which cast-on method I used, and how many stitches I started with!

On Monday, with some help from the great videos at knittinghelp.com, I managed to unravel the bad bits of my sock, with knitting needles inserted at the point where I wanted to start knitting again. I just could not face having to pick up all those stitches!

Here you see the last row of offending stitches before my final pull on the end of the yarn.

It worked! I had to make a few small adjustments, but most of the stitches were on the needles when I was done. Back to knitting again!

Paper has been made

2009-06-04T22:11:00.003+02:00

I finally got round to making paper this week. Mostly as a result of the family grumbling about lack of fridge space owing to a build-up of fibres waiting to be made into paper. It had to move out.

So I spent an hour on Monday fixing my ultra--low-tech mould and deckle. Replaced the tattered window screening, stretching the new piece TAUT as I stapled it on, and stuck nice thick self-adhesive foam around the bottom edge of the deckle. And it works! Haven't produced paper this fast for ages!

Here are the results:

From left to right: Strelitzia reginae (dyed black), retted Kniphofia (red-hot poker), autumn Kniphofia, banana, and milkweed (Gomphocarpus).

All the monocots were easy to use, but the milkweed bast fibre was a challenge. I ended up adding okra slime and using a (very) modified version of Japanese papermaking to at least get a sheet worth couching. The result feels like fabric more than paper, while the monocots all produced crisp pages.

I still have a large bag of seaweed-like lemongrass fibres (didn't cut those leaves small enough) and a small bag of hand-beaten Kniphofia leaves. And tomorow I'm visiting a friend who has an enormous clump of Kniphofia in her garden...

Milkweed fibre preparation

2009-05-19T18:15:00.000+02:00

Feeling a bit tired (still have a cold), so I thought I'd put a slideshow of my milkweed fibre prep here - and make use of those Picasa captions! You can also go and look at the album here.

Autumn fibre preparation

2009-05-19T18:08:00.001+02:00

I prepared quite a few different fibres over the weekend, packing all into ziplock bags and into the fridge. I developed a cold and decided not to push it and try to make paper as well. (I am a bit disappointed that Blogger and Picasa don't work together better - wouldn't it be nice if your Picasa captions could automatically be transferred as text when you click Blog This?) I finally sewed myself a big nylon mesh bag to use with a bucket and it works very well for washing and straining fibres. When I use an ordinary strainer I always manage to dislodge it and dump my fibres into the bucket. Here you can see it in action in the garden. I paired it with a cracked bucket, so I could rinse fibres and water newly planted shrubs at the same time!

The cooked rinsed Kniphofia fibres were still quite clumpy. I scraped these with a sharp shell as described in a previous post.

When I blended them (didn't have the energy for hand-beating) they turned into beautiful shiny separate fibres.

The yield was fantastic - I think I had about six stalks and got half a bucket of squishy pulp from them. I drained the pulp a bit after putting it through the blender to remove most of the water.

A close-up of the pulp shows the different fibre colours and lengths. I am looking forward to making paper from this!

Plant fibres in autumn

2009-05-12T19:48:00.000+02:00

We finally have cooler days here in the southern hemisphere and I have been enjoying working in the garden. While pruning and cutting back some shrubs, I discovered that our big red-hot poker (Kniphofia) had produced several new inflorescences since my last harvest. I have already decorticated the flowering stalks and plan to cook them tomorrow. I still haven't been able to discover how to process dried Kniphofia stalks into fibre, but maybe the PaperMaking Yahoo group will have some answers. I have about a hundred of them to harvest, but don't want to go to the trouble if I can't get fibre out of them.

Another autumnal harvest has been milkweed. We have an indigenous (native) species here called Gomphocarpus physocarpus (previously Asclepias physocarpa). It makes enormous blown-up fruits and is also called balloon plant.

I cut as many stems as I could carry and started experimentally stripping the bark yesterday. I might also try steaming to see whether it will make stripping easier. After pulling off the long strips of bark, I scraped them with a sharp mussel shell (it really works!) to clean the rough bark off the long white fibres - lovely. I wore latex gloves to prevent any irritation from the milky sap. I picked a variety of stem thicknesses.

My first glimpse of the fibres was from a piece of bark that pulled off the stem while I was harvesting.

My local field guide says that the stems are used for fibre and that one of the Zulu names, usingalwesalukazi, "refers to the fibre used for sewing isidwaba, skirts of old women"!

Just remembered that last week we also bought my first "official" fibre plant at Silverglen, a wonderful medicinal plant nursery. It is Hibiscus tiliaceus, also an indigenous plant, used for making rope locally. According to one of our gardening books, it grows up to 2 metres per year! I'll be sure to harvest it after it has flowered!

(Photograph by Geoff Nichols, from posa.sanbi.org)

Papermaking slideshow

2009-04-16T08:15:00.001+02:00

Here is a slideshow of my low-tech papermaking Picasa album:

Current craft

2009-04-10T18:35:00.001+02:00

I am spending all of my crafting energies on trying out new lingerie patterns at the moment. If you are interested, visit my lingeriecrafter blog.

I will start posting here again as soon as I am "well-supported"!

Tina

The power of power failures

2009-03-29T19:27:00.000+02:00

We had a 24-hour power failure earlier this week, which forced me to make paper again. I couldn't work, because I had used up the battery of my laptop the previous evening surfing the web. After making all the phone calls I could early in the morning, I had to think of something else, and I thought papermaking would be just right, seeing that it uses no electricity. I decided to use some of the pulps I have been keeping in the fridge. I had some Kniphofia from dried leaves ready to be beaten. I cleaned the sink, packed away all the clean dishes, set up my vat and couching surface, and soaked my felts. (One of the perks of making paper in your laundry/scullery is that you have to do the dishes before you can work in the sink - and it always makes me feel virtuous and less guilty about spending time on this particular hobby.) I filled my blender, put in a small handful of fibres, and switched it on ... and nothing happened. No electricity! That deflated my balloon a little bit. I think I went off and did something else for a while.

Later, I realised that all was not lost - handbeating would do the trick! I decided to work on another batch of pulp instead - the inside fibres from dried Kniphofia stalks (the outer bits have recalcitrantly refused to yield to several bouts of cooking with long periods of soaking in between). It looked softer and easier to beat. In the end I managed to make about five sheets of paper from the pulp. Although I am not totally thrilled with the results, I did learn a few things:

1. When it says cut up into 1-inch lengths, it means 1-inch lengths. I ended up with lots of very long fibre strands that made it difficult to pull sheets. In the end, I fished them out of the vat and cut them into 1-cm bits with scissors. The results were OK, but I which I had short fibres before handbeating, for a softer look.
2. Skimping on preparation in the beginning of the process leads to lots of additional work later on. For example, not cutting up the stalks into short bits before soaking and cooking the fibre leads to unwanted long bits when you can't use the blender; not scraping the stalks and leaves before cooking them makes it difficult to rinse the cooked pulp and leaves it full of bits of epidermis and "impurities" that give an uneven result and colour.
3. I prefer the beautiful, even, uniform sheets I get with scraped green leaves and stalks to the bumpy, lumpy paper I get from dry material.
4. Scraped leaves and stalks not only give nice even paper, but the cooking time is also much shorter.
5. I should go out and harvest stalks now before they start drying up.

New template

2009-03-20T20:51:00.001+02:00

I've been playing around a bit with templates to change the look of the page, with the result that I lost all my sidebar things, like books I'm reading and my fellow crafters' blog links! Will try and fix it this weekend.

Tina

A conflict of interests

2009-03-19T19:10:00.003+02:00

Another week has gone by without any visible signs of papermaking! Not that I've been doing nothing. That is, in fact, the problem - I have been doing too much!

First there was the quickie medieval gown I had to make for Anna (and I did leave it a bit late...) and then I joined a Dutch forum on making lingerie (that is another story - I'll keep you posted). I have, of course, also been doing research on blogs and blogging (more on that coming soon), and in my spare hours, I did some work (I am editing a book on succulent plants). And as if this wasn't enough, I also got three (yes, THREE) House DVDs and watched every episode. I feel exhausted just writing this.

So. No papermaking this week.

I am sure this is a situation shared by many other crafters. I sometimes feel envious of people who can call themselves, for example, "quilters", and who spend every free minute quilting, and consequently make ten quilts a year. No other distractions. I have just never been able to contain my interests. Enthusiasm for one craft boils over and spills into another, until I get . . . a conflict of interests.

It's like a gaggle of geese, or a flock of sheep, or an embarrassment of riches, or . . . a conflict of interests. (For a cornucopia of collective nouns, look at The Collective Noun Page.)

So until I have resolved the present conflict - no papermaking!

Tina

The papermaking process

2009-03-13T12:10:00.013+02:00

I haven't made paper all week! I am still preparing fibres, but taking rather longer than expected. I think I should have done one batch from start to finish instead of having four on the go at the same time... I have also posted a Picasa web album with photographs documenting my low-tech papermaking process.

Those new to papermaking may find the series of free online videos by Toni King at expertvillage informative. This was the only place where I could actually see how to dip and shake the mould, instead of just reading about it. (She calls the mould a "dackle" and the deckle a mould, but I thank her for making her series available to all of us.) I found the expertvillage videos a bit bumpy and an alternative is to go to youtube and search for "making handmade paper".

If you're into shaking, you may want to look at this fascinating video about Japanese papermaking. After watching this, I could not help thinking that the Japanese seem to be expert at taking something invented by someone else (in this case the Chinese), and turning it into an art form (by being obsessive about the tiniest details). Just think about the difference between making a quick cup of tea in the kitchen (hey, I do use a teapot!) and what you know about the Japanese tea ceremony. To read more about Japanese papermaking, you can look at Japanese Paper Crafting by Michael G. LaFosse on Google Books.

A scrap quilt with a difference

2009-03-11T17:24:00.004+02:00

I have been working on this quilt for a while now - first collecting the fabrics, cutting the blocks, and more recently, making the blocks. At the moment I am just adding the blocks to my flannel design wall as I make them.

The technique is simple: sandwich two fabric rectangles, draw the leaf design, sew around each leaf twice, then cut the top fabric about an eighth of an inch inside the stitching. Press and pop on the wall. I call it "raw edge reverse machine applique."

I try to choose fabrics that contrast well, keeping to solid and hand-dyed cottons for the top blocks, and using all kinds of patterned, printed, sequined, lame and batik fabrics for the bottom layer. The quilt really sparkles at night! Maybe I'll keep it as a wall hanging.

I plan to machine quilt it in the ditch using invisible thread, with freehand machine quilting around the leaves.

Tina

Red-hot poker paper

2009-03-10T12:13:00.005+02:00

Photo: www.knoch1.de

My favourite plant for papermaking in the last few weeks has been red-hot poker (Kniphofia). I have two clumps growing in the garden, and have permission to harvest stalks from an enormous stand within walking distance. I have to wait for the seeds to form first, though.

So far, I have made paper from scraped green leaves (nice), unscraped green leaves (dirty but interesting), scraped green stalks (nice), and bleached pulp from scraped green stalks (very nice). The paper has an incredible silky sheen, is strong, makes very sharp folds and a nice sound.

During a walk along our neighbourhood stream last week, I picked some dried leaves and stalks.

I cut up the leaves into 1-2" bits and soaked them for 36 hours. Too long! It was already starting to smell bad this morning. (Note to self: soak for 24 hours ONLY.)

Nothing a pair of rubber gloves wouldn't solve, so I cooked them in soda ash solution (3 tablespoons in 3 litres of water).

After about 90 minutes, the fibres pulled apart easily, and both water and plant material had turned dark brown.

I left them in the pot for a while until I had completed an important bit of editing, then took the pot outside and started rinsing. I put the leafy stuff into a nylon mesh bag in a bucket and ran rainwater from our tank through the bag, squeezing every 15 minutes or so. I rinsed for about 45 minutes. Have now emptied the bag into the bucket of water until I'm ready to start hand-beating.

Paper into pots

2009-03-07T17:22:00.002+02:00

Gerry Copp's book Paper into pots and other fun objects has step-by-step instructions on basic papermaking from recycled pulp and paper collage and includes many pics of her incredible finished pots.

Bright colours

2009-03-07T14:29:00.002+02:00

I originally started making paper because I wanted to decorate papier mache bowls, but have ended up just making more and more paper. My bowls are still in their pristine white state. I justify this by the fact that I need a lot of different bright colours before I can start the collage...

After trying to scan my papers, with fairly dismal and washed-out results, I decided to photograph them instead. I had to play around a bit with lighting and flash, but I think I have managed to capture the colours fairly well. The coloured papers below are the ones I have made to decorate my papier mache bowls.

When stuck to the papier mache and varnished, the colours become brighter and more saturated, like wet paper, as you can see in my paper-covered heart.

I started working on my second pot while I was helping my daughter to build a flying papier mache pig. We have christened him "Harry Trotter". Poor Harry is still at the subcutaneous fat stage (white paper layer on top of the newspaper skeleton), but, I am happy to say, his sixteen sheets of pink pigskin are ready and waiting to be applied.

Making paper

2009-03-06T09:48:00.004+02:00

I have been making paper for the past few weeks. I actually started about two years ago after reading Gerry Copp's Paper into pots and other fun objects. She describes making pots and bowls from papier mache pulp and then decorating them with handmade paper instead of paint. Beautiful bright things. The only problem then was that I didn't have any paper to recycle! Since that time I have bought a shredder (for my worm compost) and have been saving coloured paper for the day when I would feel like making paper again.

Now it's taken off in a big way. Not only have I made stacks of recycled paper in assorted colours, but I have started making paper from plants! As my daughter Anna, aged 9, says, I am obsessed with paper. On our daily trips home from school, my side of the conversation generally tends to exclamations about this or that papermaking plant spotted in a garden or on the side of the road.

I have made another big papier mache bowl using the laminated newspaper and paste method (I found Sheila McGraw's Papier-mache today to have excellent, easy instructions), but haven't started decorating it yet. I did do a little polystyrene heart in purple and turquoise for a test. I also bought two packets of polystyrene eggs to turn into Easter ornaments...

But right now I have to do a very quick evacuation of all the contents of both my computer desk and sewing table, as I bought three desks at an auction on Wednesday and they are coming home to roost at lunchtime! I plan to turn one of them into a sewing machine table with a cutout for the machine, to make sewing and quilting easier on my shoulders.

Must dash!

Tina