Asymmetrical Willow Basket

 

 This weekend I was back at West Dean, but it wasn't for glass beads this time!  Instead I was on a willow weaving workshop.

I'd seen a few things about willow weaving and thought it looked interesting, but it wasn't until I saw the asymmetrical basket workshop that I decided to have a go.

Example baskets

 

Our tutor was the lovely Sue Kirk.  She's incredably patient and knowledgeable and was happy to answer all our questions over the course of the weekend.  But I soon stopped taking notes when I realised 1. just how complicated it all is! and 2. that although I really enjoyed the workshop I'm not sure I'll be making another basket anytime soon.

A very gappy start to my base

 

She started by explaining a bit about basket weaving and the willow we'd be using.  She'd bought 4 example baskets of different sizes for us to look at and use as guides for what we wanted to make.  My aim was the create the second smallest basket, but it ended up a little bigger.

Undone and rewoven - no gaps!

 

She had also bought a lot of willow with her of different colours (some she grew herself and some she bought) so we could play around a bit with the look of our baskets.

 

We started with the base.  Mine was very gappy so I undid it and Sue helped me get the spacing better.  From then things went better.

The base took most of the first day!  By the end of day one I had a base with 32 up rights and the foot round the bottom.  I'd also selected my rods so I'd be able to start weaving the sides straight away on day two.

End of day one

 

Day two was a shorter day, finishing at 3pm.  But the sides went a lot quicker than the base and I easily finished in good time.

 

As I said its a little bigger than I was aiming for, and I'm interested in what the colours will do as it dries out - I think it should lighten a little, and as the maker I am a little critical, I can see where it's maybe not as round as I wanted etc, but for a first attemp I'm pretty pleased with it.

I can see why people would get obsessed with making baskets, there is much to learn and so many techniques to play with, but I think I'll stick to glass for now.

 

Hopefully my hands and fingers won't feel so sore and tired tomorrow and I can get back to my knitting.

Glass Bead Necklace And Bracelet

 

 I haven't managed to get into the studio for a couple of weeks now, however this weekend I finally did something with all the tiny beads I've been making.  

Every week when I go into the studio and make some beads, I finish my session by making some tiny tiny beads with some dot and stripe patterns.  The idea is to practice making beads all the same size and my dot placement, extra hard on tiny beads.

 

Now I've got a good collection I wanted to make them into a necklace and a bracelet.  Firstly I sorted them by size, saving the really small ones for the bracelet.

Having watched some videos on YouTube on how to knot pearls into a necklace I wanted to do the same with the beads, but after a frustrating hour or so I gave up - I just couldn't get the knots where I wanted them or a consistant size.  'im outdoors suggested I use seed beads as seperaters instead and this worked well and was a lot quicker.

 

I then used a special two hole bead I'd made as a fasterning.  It worked really well.  I'm really pleased with the necklace, it's pretty without being too in your face.

 

I then tried making a bracelet.  As a first attempt it's ok but I think it will need more work.  Maybe I should just follow the necklace design and have a single row?  But I like that they can move about.  It uses a sliding knot, so very easy to put on and take off and I like that I could finish each end with a bead, but getting the whole lot to sit nicely on my wrist is hard.  I might take it apart and have another go at some point.  Maybe I need a different sort of cord too?

 

It's great to finally have a 'use' for some of my beads.  At the moment most of them are just sitting my my desk, which isn't really the point of them.  It's nice to give them a purpose.

Knitted Baby Elephant

 

Around the time I was having real problems knitting the bubbly sweater, I decided to start this sweet little project.  Knitted all in garter stitch it's a really simple knit, perfect for when you want to knit but can't face a project with issues.

At this point 'im outdoors had blocked access to my craft cupboard, so I had to use the wool I had to hand rather than pick something from the stash.  In this case the detail colour from the bubbly sweater -  a lovely bright turquoise from Stylecraft.

I imagine I could make this over a weekend if I wanted, but it's been a slow make, something to go to when the sweater was driving me crazy.

I think I could have stuffed him a little harder, but I still love how he's come out.  

 

I also love that you could knit the pattern in any yarn and needle size and it would just change the size of the finished elephant, rather than spoil the pattern.  Also the pattern comes with lots of detail when you come to sewing up, so very easy to follow.

A lovely little project.  Don't be surprised if I knit another.

Glass Mandala Beads

 

 I have been totally fascinated by mandala beads since I saw my first.  I've watched a couple of videos on how to make them but not found anything written down so have been finding it hard to get my head round how to make them.

But this week I decided to have a go anyway.

The first was a complete mess.

See the progression from right to left

 

The second started to get the idea.

Then I made a break through realising I needed to drag the dot down, not the space between the dot!

Then I realised that less dots is better!

And now it's just a matter of practice and, as always, dot placement.

 

Resting my work on top of my torch really helped too, as my hands shake when I try and do the detailed work.  And remembering that I don't need to panic, I can take my time and reheat if needed also helps.

I had two afternoons working on them over a bank holiday weekend and I can see the progress I've made, especially when I compare the last one from the first afternoon and the last from the second afternoon.  There is still work to be done, but I can see I'm going in the right direction which is the key. 

Afternoon 1 on the right, afternoon 2 on the left

 

And looking at photos of others work on instagram, I've also realised that I don't have to melt the drag mark in, which I've found reduced the size of the bumps.  Something to try when I'm back at the torch.  Always learning!

Bubbly Sweater

 This year I've been knitting the Bubbly Sweater from Isabell Kraemer.  I say year as it's taken much much longer than I would normally expect a sweater to take.  

I must have started it after I had finished the Kiss of North project as I try to only have one major project on the go at a time.  And this week, only 6 months later, I've finished it!  (I'd normally expect a jumper to take 3-4 months to complete.)

 

Some of it was all the running I was doing.  I was covering a lot of miles, which in turn left me feeling very tired by the end of the day, my normal knitting time.  With a pattern this complicated you don't want to do it when you're tired and bound to make mistakes.  It was only complicated round the yoke and the ribbing, but it still slowed me down.

 

Plus there has been the excitment of the glass studio being finished and so I've lost some time to making glass beads (which I'm very happy about).

But the real issue was the brioche stitch used for ribbing the bottom of the body and end of the sleeves.  I found this so hard and kept making mistakes and as it uses a yarn over, mostly ended up undoing the whole lot and having to start again.  By the end I'd got the pattern in my fingers and finally worked out how to fix a dropped stitch, but it was by far the longest part of the process.

Can you spot the mistake?

 

I'm not sad I kept undoing it, the finished piece looks great, but there is one small miskake on the right sleeve which I've left as I couldn't face undoing it and starting again.

I used 4 balls of Stylecraft special double knit in graphite with the detail in turquoise (much less than 1 ball).  It's a lovely colour combination and I'm really happy with the fit too.  I guess the only bonus of it taking so long is I won't have to wait so long for the cooler weather so I can wear it.

Glass Casting In The Studio

 

While I've been happily playing with glass beads in my studio, since I attended Glass Summer School, I've been wondering if it's possible for me to do any casting in there too?

I only have a baby kiln, which is perfect for my beads but could it deal with a higher temperatures and bigger pieces of glass?  Only one way to find out!

 

So I bought myself some materials, and gave it a go.  First I made a very simple design in clay, then made a mould with plaster.  Then I let the plaster dry for ages.

 

Then I worked out how much glass I could need and smashed a blue bombay sapphire bottle that I'd liberated from someones glass recycling box and filled it up.  It looked like something out of superman's ice cave!

 

Then I set the kiln to heat to it's very top temperature of over 1000 degrees and waited to see what would happen.

I love that my kiln has a small window, so when I went to check on it, I could see, first the glass slumping, then making massive bubbles before settling down.

 

It then took hours to cool down, it was actually the next day before I could take it out of the kiln.

It's not as smooth as I was hoping for - this might be becasue my kiln didn't get hot enough, or because I'm using a glass that I don't know the col of, but I still think it's pretty cool.  It looks like ice.  

 

I'd like to try it again with a different glass. I've got some offcuts of clear ballseye which would be a known entity, but I'm not sure I want to run my kiln that hot that often.  Something to think on.

Also the edges were pretty uneven, so I'd want to be able to grind them down too.

 

So a positive experience, but not quite the finish I was thinking of.  I still have some ideas I'd like to try, but I'm not sure my kiln is up to the task.  Which means find someone with a bigger kiln which I could use or buy a bigger kiln....

Glass Buttons

 

 This week I had a play with a new set of mandrels - these have two prongs and allow you to make beads with two holes, like for instance a button.

I got two sizes as I wasn't sure which would work best.  Plus I had two ideas in my head so again one might work better than the other.

 

My first attempt was proably a bit too small and so shattered when I tried to get the glass bead off the mandrel.  But 'im outdoors made a little jig (a piece of wood with a slot in it) and gave me a baby hammer and the next lot came off nicely with a little soak in water first.

And I've found I can either make something a little rounded or with a bit of work something flat with strong edges.  The ones in my photos I tried making with stripes of two coloured glasses, but you could decorate them in any way you want.

 

This is exciting for me, thinking about up coming knitting projects that will need buttons.  I can find it hard to find buttons of the right size and colour so this opens up a whole new world of button choice for me!

I love it when disciplines intermingle.

Glass Beads and Metal Leaf

Beads with copper leaf

 

Now I've got some time again, I had a lovely afternoon in the studio experimenting with glass and metal leaf.

When I was at The Glass Hub a couple of weeks ago they showed us some of the effects we could make by adding different types of metal to our work.  I particually loved the copper leaf which turns blue and bubbles.  I made a paperweight with copper leaf in it and it now has pride of place on my desk.

But could I do the same at a smaller size with my beads?

Beads with aluminium leaf

 

I bought some copper leaf, but while ferreting for something else in one of my drawers found some metal leaf from a project ages ago to make a star to go on top of the Christmas tree.  It didn't say what sort of metal most of them were but I thought I'd give them a go too.

I tried all with clear glass and then on vanilla, encased with clear as I know that vanilla has a tendancy to react with 'blue' colours.

Beads with variegated red leaf

 

First up was the copper leaf.  This gave the lovely blue and bubbles I was expecting with the clear glass, but then looked a bit muddy on the vanilla.

Next was some aluminium leaf.  This kept it's silver colour and made lots of bubbles.  It's an interesting look on both the clear and the vanilla and will be something to play with more I think.

The next set were called variegated red.  This one turned blue in the clear glass and sort of muddy on the vanilla.

Beads with variegated blue/green leaf

 

Variegated blue/green did the same.

And lastly was imitation copper leaf which also went blue in the clear but with streaks and muddy on vanilla.

Beads with imitation copper leaf

Interestingly the copper leaf I bought was loose, so while hard to work with sticks to the glass easily.  The other books of leaf all had the leaf attached to paper, which makes it easier to work with then working on paper, but did mean the paper set on fire when I touched the hot glass to the leaf!

I'm going to keep playing with the copper and aluminium but the others will be going back in the drawer for another day.