Category: Craft

Another round

On By CarynIn Craft

We’ve done another round of ceramic painting. This time I tried for flowers, daisy on one side and a sunflower on the other for my mother-in-law.

Photo description: ceramic mug painted with a white daisy on a blue background, before firing
Photo description: other side of the same ceramic mug painted with a yellow sunflower on a blue background, before firing
Photo description: sunflower side after firing, same camera angle

It was interesting how the flowers changed after firing, and something to consider when painting again with glaze.

The other interesting thing is the apparent shape of the mug. In the pictures above it looks like a standard straight sided coffee mug, but it isn’t.

Photo description: same mug, but photographed from the side showing the sloping angles of the sides better
Photo description: daisy side of the mug, after firing, photographed straight on

My favorite part is the ombre interior. It really amuses me to have the inside painted like a patina of coffee has already built up.

Photo description: inside of the mug showing yellow to brown glaze gradient

Bag progress

On By CarynIn Craft
Photo description: loop and twist bag in progress next to flax fiber

After about 14 hours of riding in the car, I figure I have put about 12 hours into my loop and twist bag that I am twining from flax fiber as I go. I like the work because I can enjoy the scenery as we drive. I can both twine and loop mostly by feel (I do look when I join in new fiber.) I’m drawing my fiber from the center of the bundle, which I don’t think is the best way, because I’m getting tangles that have to be pulled out. I tried from one end, but the tangles were worse. I should lay out the fibers like flax spinners do, but space in the car is limited, and flax fibers can be over three feet long. The plan is to continue to twine until I run out of untangled fiber, then clean up the tangles and twine the string for the closure.

Moist extremes

On By CarynIn Craft

When working with flax or plant fibers in general, it helps to have a little moisture. When I first started twining my flax bag on a car trip, I was using saliva. Traveling and licking fingers didn’t seem like a prudent plan, so on the next trip I made a sponge ring by cutting off the end of an inexpensive curler and trimming the hole with scissors.

Photo description: sponge ring to use to wet fingertips as I twine flax, made from a hair curler

As I twined, I noticed the skin on my finger was turning white. Weird.

Photo description: white marks on my finger

I looked again at the small spray bottle I grabbed as I madly packed for the trip. It wasn’t labeled “H2O”, it was marked “H2O2”. I had been moistening my finger with hydrogen peroxide. At least it was sanitized. Sheesh.

Photo description: small spray bottle with pink sponge ring and “H2O2” written in Sharpie ink

Throwback Thursday: ruffle scarf

On By CarynIn Craft

Today is a throwback with a current twist. As I was going through pictures from 2015 I found one in April of my first ruffle scarf. These scarves are knit from machine made lace. The lace comes wrapped like chunky yarn, and if you knit 6 stitches wide, just picking up one edge of the lace, the lace spirals out and around the central knitted core.

Photo description: red ruffle scarf from April of 2015
Photo description: purple ruffle scarf from July 2025

I just made another of these from yarn my Mom sent as packing material for a package. They can be a bit tricky because the lace needs to be fanned out to find the edge, but once I get the groove, it goes pretty quickly.

Ceramic painting

On By CarynIn Craft

My youngest is on a ceramic painting kick this summer. We go to pick up the fired piece, and paint another. Repeat. I’m learning about music theory particularly in the realm of Barbershop harmony, so I painted a mug in celebration of Harmonics.

Photo description: “Fluted mug” from Quiggly’s Clayhouse painted with glaze in shades of green and the word “Harmonics”, my signature mark and 7/25 written on the bottom
Photo description: same mug after firing

I like that the “Fluted mug” looks like a digitized sound wave.

Photo description: opposite side of the mug with the numbers 1 5 1 3 5 b7 1 9 b3

On the opposite side of the mug I wrote the harmonic series in scale degrees, because Barbershoppers are all about the overtones (in physics overtones and harmonics are different, while in Barbershop they are often used interchangeably.)

Photo description: inside of the mug painted ombre tan to brown with the words “Go Sing” on the bottom

It greatly amuses me to paint the inside of the mug like it is already stained with tea or coffee. And, of course, when I get to the bottom of the mug, it is time to go sing.