Great New Contest for Those who Love to Sew!

Check out Burdastyle for a brand new, and very top secret, contest. In today's newsletter I found out they are going to send out patterns to a variety of sewers to be altered, and those who do the best job will have their work featured! Sounds pretty exciting to me! I entered my name and now I will cross my fingers in the hopes that I get picked. The lucky entrants will also be sent the fabric they will use. Go to Burdastyle.com for more information, and good luck!

The best way to learn is to teach

Sometimes being a teacher teaches me. Right now I am teaching all of my students various forms of linear perspective, which can get pretty tricky indeed. My grade 11/12 class is learning how to draw in 3 point perspective, and sometimes I get confused as well. Today I realized that I had given out some misinformation when one student asked me to explain a certain angle that she had draw following my instructions. It didn't take long to realize I had lead the whole class astray. I managed to figure out my mistake by working through the problem in front of the class. Now I will be sure to remember it next time, and I think I have cemented my learning in that area from the experience. I am a firm believer that in order to really learn something you need to roll up your sleeves and work through a problem via trial and error. Experience is the best teacher.

Cake as Art

I just made my first attempt at decorating a cake with Fondant. Luckily I had already backed the cake the night before, because the process took me 3 and a half hours last night. I was exhausted when I was done. I wanted to be creative, and I think I achieved that. keep in mind this cake was for a boys 19th birthday, so it needed to be fun but not feminine. No flowers. After this experience I have decided that I will never try to become a cake decorator for a living. Strangely working with the fondant was like working with clay. You had to make a fondant and water mix to "glue" pieces onto the cake much like you would do with clay slip. You had to handbuild everything and let it dry to a point where it would hold it shape, not unlike you might do with clay to make a mug handle, for example. I decided to buy the fondant colors already made instead of trying to color them myself. I am actually thinking of taking the picture I took of the cake and making an art quilt, as I love the colors and the feeling of fun I get when looking at it.

On a side note, I bought all the supplies for the cake, including the checkerboard cake pan and fondant, at Michael's Crafts. I should also warn you they are not cheap! This cake is going to be eaten tonight by my son, his friends and my family as we have a little surprise dinner for him at The Keg. I can't wait.

Green Challenge

With Earth day upon us tomorrow I thought a good topic to discuss would be options for those creative types who want to be Green. You might want to check out knittingdaily.com where they have a green challenge and also feature a new knitting book called Knitting Green. While I haven't personally gone through it yet it's gotten some good reviews and contains several neat projects. Another book that I have recommended in this blog is the Alabama Stitch Book which is all about using old t-shirts (or organic cotton ones) to make something new. I have made 2 projects from this book and LOVE it.

Unfortunately in the world of fine art many of the materials we use are toxic, such as paints that contain cadmium, turpentine, bleach, etc... I for one have been bad for sanding pieces of pottery or mixing glaze without a mask on. Very bad idea! Breathing that dust can cause lung disease. Alternatives are becomming more available however, such as low odor turpentine, natural plant dyes, organic cotton, and the list goes on. I recently saw a new art book that gave recipes for making your own paint and other concoctions. It's called Green Guide for Artists. It sells on Amazon and is also carried by Chapters. I have seen sculptures made from recycled materials, and multi-media pieces which also have recycled elements.

If you know any other great Green art resources I'd love to hear about it.

Latest Creations

As I mentionned yesterday I have done a few things creative, such as use up the last of a block of porcelain clay (I use Tucker's MCS Cone 6) and threw 2 bowls and a small vase. They came out of the kiln this afternoon and I was glad to see the glazes turned out OK, especially the ultra clear (cone 6) on the white bowl. I've had a few issues lately with areas turning white. The other bowl was Pam's Blue (coyote glaze) and the vase was a combination of Blue Rutile and True Celadon around the upper lip ( I think Laguna).  Although I have tons of chemicals to make my own glazes I am using the commercial glazes now because I simply don't have the time to weigh and measure and then cross my fingers for my own concoctions. My favourite glaze is called lavender filagree from Laguna ( crystalline cone 6) and when fired correctly produces amazing small gold crystals. The only drawback is that it's not food safe, so it is purely decorative. One final note. For the sides of the Pam's Blue bowl I used shaped cardboard that something had come packed in and pressed it into the sides. Enjoy!

Correction!

Recently I wrote a post about one of my new favourite books "Chic and Simple Sewing" where I stated that size large in the book was an 8-10. The author, Christine Haynes, who was kind enough to read my blog, pointed out that a large was actually a 10-12. My apologies! While I am on the topic of that book, I have been working away at grading the pattern for the wrap dress up to a size 16, so I am hopeful that my second try will be much more successful than my first. I just like the pattern so much that I decided it was worth the extra time and effort. I hope to cut it out in the next couple of days. Happy sewing!

Re-vamping my webpage

So I looked at my webpage today and all I could think was BORING! I built the whole thing from scratch using html code four years ago. What I couldn't figure out my students helped me do. While it's not bad it certainly lacks pizazz. I did manage to put a really cool animated icon on the opening page today, and I re-wrote my artist statement, although it is pretty sparse at the moment due to the fact the creative juices have hit a bit of a standstill. It's not that I'm not doing anything creative, it's just that the creativity is someone else's. For instance, I'm knitting a cute sweater for summer right now, but someone else designed the pattern. I'm grading a pattern to sew myself a dress, but I did not design the dress. But wait! I did sculpt that porcelain angel, and I do have a vase and a couple of bowls firing in the kiln as I write this. Maybe it's not so bad after all.

I seem to have gone off on a tangent. Back to the webpage. I am going to try to update a little bit every day so it is a bit less boring, although I still plan for it to be minimal.

Last item of the day is that there is a brand new spot for those of us who love fiber to visit and sign up for. It's called Feltbook and can be found at feltbook.ning.com. Not to be confused with facebook, although it promises to become just as addictive. I checked it out today and you can find lots of things to sign up for, and of course you can register your blog.

Happy Felting!

First Time for Everything

The last few months have seen me focusing largely on fibre with painting coming in a close second. Over the last two days however I have pulled out my porcelain clay and made a sculpture of an angel. I am not a sculptor and don't claim to be, although I do have a lot of experience with clay. Mostly I stuck to the pottery wheel. I only meant to make myself a little sculpture for fun, but along the way it evolved into something else. It has fallen apart several times already, which makes me more than a little nervous about what could happen to it when it is in the kiln. Clay is always somewhat of a crap shoot, because at any stage your work can be ruined. Maybe it breaks up in the kiln, maybe something goes wrong with the glaze. It isn't over until it's over. I have taken a few pictures of the angel at the leather hard stage which I will post hear. Not to toot my own horn, but I think I did a pretty good job. My final plan for the angel is to cover it either in a clear glaze or perhaps in a lavender crystalline glaze that I have. If it makes it to the end I may also make a latex mold of it and cast a few for around my gardens. I know angels are overdone, but I just couldn't resist.

Embellishments

Lately I have been noticing that everything seems to be embellished. The last two t-s I bought have various forms of embellishment. Naturally a lot of these things cost a pretty penny, so what's a girl to do? Well, do it yourself of course! I have been blog surfing today and found some neat sites that can help even the most challenged embellish their own clothes on the cheap. To see some nice embellished clothes, check out Anthropologie.com. The Burda sewing website is also a daily favourite of mine, and the blog today just happened to focus an article on embellishing. Check out the blog adventuresindressmaking.blogspot.com or another good one is a site called Primrose Corner which shows you how to make a sweet flower brooch.

What I have been discovering is that there are simply not enough hours in the day. Dare I admit that while I am teaching art in high school every day I may be carrying a knitting project in my pocket, or cutting up t-shirts on an empty school desk? I can usually justify this by saying it is important for the students to see that I am interested in being creative or that by watching what I am doing student's interest in piqued. They actually get very interested in what I am doing, even if I have an alterior motive that I simply can't help but be doing something with my hands all day.

As I make another extra panel for my Alabama Stitch Swing Skirt I have also started knitting a little halter top for summer. I just couldn't help myself. I don't believe in having one project done before starting another. I usually have several on the go at once.

Happy sewing and knitting.

Here is the skirt in the Alabama Stitch Book.

It's a Good Day

Ok, so today is turning out to be a pretty good day. The best news is that I scored awesome seats for the Simon and Garfunkel concert in halifax in May. I am on the floor right in front of the stage, 3 rows back! I can't WAIT!!!!! I know I am showing my age, because when I told my students about my great news their answer was "who"? I supposed there will be very few people there under the age of 35. I'm just really glad I got these tickets, because Simon and Garfunkel aren't getting any younger, and neither am I!

On to more good news, I am almost done sewing my swing skirt done in reverse applique and completely hand sewn. It's from one of my favourite sewing books, "Alabama Stitch Book." Now I am no country girl, but I can't help but love the designs and the fact that you can make everything from recycled t-shirts! You don't get much greener than that. The only draw back is that all this sewing by hand takes a really long time, but maybe it's good to have something that forces you to slow down in this age of everything done at the speed of light. It even gives me something to focus on while all the guys in my family watch sports. I hope to have a picture up in a couple of days. While the picture in the book is made with burgundy and grey t-shirts, I was forced to use grey and white because that was all I could find at the second hand store that day. It still looks great.

Check twice, cut once

Recently I bought a really nice sewing book at Chapters called "Chic and Simple Sewing" by Christine Haynes. After browsing the sewing section for over an hour I finally settled on this book because it seemed to have the best selection of patterns that wouldn't go out of date in a hurry. I was really excited to try the Classic Wrap Dress, and even more excited when I found 4 metres of really nice cotton pink fabric in the clearance section for $1.00 a metre on sale! Wow! A dress for under 5 bucks. I decided to make the largest size, which was a large, and busily cut out my pattern and began sewing for several hours. I immediately knew something was amiss when I went to try it on and couldn't even begin to get it to wrap around! My mother arrived at just that moment and was as perplexed as me. Then she asked me what size I had made. Well duh, of course I made the large. Then she said, "well what size is the large?". uh oh. had I really neglected to check that before I cut and sewed? Apparently yes I had forgotten. Upon closer inspection of the book I saw that large was actually an 8-10. Are you serious? I wear a size 16. So now I will have to grade the patterns, which I am NOT looking forward to. I downloaded some good instruction on how to do that from Threads magazine. I'll let you know how it goes. The moral of the story? ALWAYS check sizing not once, but twice.