In June of 2016 I was experimenting with the 3Doodler, a pen shaped device that extrudes hot plastic, like a 3D printer, but hand driven rather than computer driven. I decided to make a walleye fish, for my Dad, to experiment with construction.
The biggest frustration with the project was the tool. The version of 3D doodler I was using needed more breaks than I did, and I would have to walk away and let it rest, which is not ideal in the middle of a creative storm.
In March of 2016 I crocheted and embroidered a Roman military helmet with face guard for my sister, who teaches ancient history.
I did not record my sources, so am not sure what specific style I was emulating, if any. It did amuse me greatly to make it.
In October 2015 I was volunteering at my kids’ elementary school library. They had stacks of old dust covers for books and we had the idea of making a library sign using the colorful printed paper. I selected portions of book covers with coordinating colors and made each letter of the word “library” a different color of the rainbow.
I did write on the back of each letter the names of the books that went into making up the color. The owls were made to coordinate with a backdrop of a collection of owls that was already displayed at the library.
In August of 2015 I was assembling cube shelves and kept whacking my fingers with the hammer driving in tiny finish nails. “Necessity is the mother of invention” and I came up with a different way to hold the nails to have less swearing. I felt so strongly about it I made graphics and probably shared it on social media. Here the public service announcement is again today: how not to hold a small nail.
In either case, if you completely miss the nail head, your fingers are going to suffer. Another alternative is to use a needle nose pliers to hold the nail, keeping your fingers completely out of the way.
In July 2015 I was making custom wire baskets for a shelving unit in the house. I would draw out the size needed in chalk on the patio, flatten out 1/2” welded wire hardware cloth, and cut it with metal snips.
When I cut the hardware cloth, I left one side of the corner seam with a vertical wire, and the other side with horizontal wires free for a half inch. When I folded the sides up, I used needle nose pliers to loop the horizontal ends around the vertical wire.
I experimented with ways to keep the hardware cloth from scraping the wood shelf. I sewed fabric to corners as one solution, and ran hanger wire on the bottom like sled runners on other baskets.
Critters and Craft 