Category: Craft

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.

Jacob’s wool swatches

On By CarynIn Craft

I started on the swatches for Jacob’s wool, and then finished them all in a day, even the nålbinding. I must have thirty other projects I’m not working on. Hm.

Photo description: four squares made from hand spun Jacob’s wool: knit (top left), crochet (top right), cut open nålbinding (bottom left), woven (bottom right)

I had two large cakes of yarn, and two small nostepinne balls, so I used the smaller amounts to make the swatches. I hope to make something wearable out of the larger cakes of yarn.

Zoom Loom Jacob’s wool

On By CarynIn Craft

I used my hand spun Jacob’s wool yarn on my new Zoom Loom. I did the three preparatory wraps a little looser this time (as instructed) and it helped ease the way when it came to weaving.

Photo description: three layers of wrapped Jacob’s wool yarn on a 4 inch Zoom Loom
Photo description: Weaving started with a six inch needle
Photo description: finished plain weave square

I’m in awe that these little woven patches lay flat, both with the Samoyed yarn and the Jacob’s wool yarn.

Thank you

On By CarynIn Craft

As a Thank You to Sugar the Samoyed’s family for sharing Sugar’s fur for my fiber study, I sent them a crocheted heart and the remainder of the yarn.

Photo description: small hank of Samoyed yarn and a crocheted heart with a leather center with the name “Sugar”

I designed the leather heart using Adobe Illustrator, then cut it from vegetable tanned tooling leather. Having precision cut holes was awesome to make a blanket stitch around the edge. I then crocheted into the stitches using a single crochet in the back loop.

Nålbinding Samoyed

On By CarynIn Craft

I am happy to report that the Samoyed dog yarn I spun does well in nålbinding. I was afraid the yarn wouldn’t felt, and my favorite way to join in yarn for nålbinding is to unravel a section on each end, trim the ends so I have two sections on one side and one on the other, build up twist in the short end, linearly braid the ends together, let the twist come back into the braided section, then rub it between my hands to lightly felt it. (Hm, that sounds more complicated than it is, I really need to do a blog post on it specifically.) It is a belt and suspenders and sticky tape way to join yarn, but it is strong, and almost undetectable, especially after incorporating it into the work.

Photo description: Nålbound tube using a Finnish 1+2 stitch and Samoyed three-ply yarn
Photo description: tube cut open to make a rectangular swatch

This is one of my favorite nålbinding stitches. It is easy to remember and I feel like I have a connection with my Finnish and Scandinavian DNA.