In July of 2014 I was experimenting with making “viking knit” wire chains. I did a number of trials with different metals and gauges of wire. I stumbled across this picture that also showed the time it took to get a small section of work done.
I like viking knit chains, they have a nice feel and drape. The technique is looping, which years later I learned to do with yarn in a method called nälbinding. I still love nälbinding too. Neither are fast crafts, but they are satisfying.
I love trees. I have made many wire trees, and I feel I have a flare for them. In December of 2013 I made an ornament with copper wire and a brass loop with “2013” done in wire along a branch of the tree.
I like this style of tree. Larger versions do well as wall hangings, which, for me, is preferable to sculptures that take up horizontal space. The market for wire trees fluctuates, for while every craft fair and mall had a wire tree booth. So anymore I mostly make these when I want one, rather than to sell.
I received a synthesizer from a neighbor who was cleaning out. It has a “learn” function, something my 1928 upright grand doesn’t. What it doesn’t have is a music stand. (My upright grand has an awesome music stand that can hold many piano books.) I looked up the manual online and saw that the issued music stand was just a thick wire fitted into two holes. Hm. I took an old wire hanger, snipped off the hook, and bent the rest into the right shape. I took a second hanger and made a page stop at the bottom, which does not stop the sheet music from bending and sliding out the open wire frame. Hm.
To fix the open frame, I used a grocery bag to make a sheath over the wire. It works, and was a zero cost solution. A little washi tape on the channel works better than the wire to keep pages from sliding.
Sheet music is my crutch. I’m struggling with the teaching method on the synthesizer, since it only shows the note on the staff when it is played, not before.
In May of 2013 I was into making sculptural wood and wire photo frames.
I cut the frame from hardwood, sanded and finished it, then put a peg hole and dowel in the back to function as a stand. I drilled holes for the wires, epoxied them in and shaped them. I added tabs to the back to hold the photos in. Did I take a picture of the back? Not of this one.
My photo skills took a slip back at this time. Many of the photos for the other frames were blurry, or at a strange angle, and others were taken with photos in them. Some of the photos of photos were decent, but since I don’t post faces on this blog, it made them unsuitable for future use. In my past-self’s defense, I had two young children and I’m frankly lucky to have remembered to take pictures at all.
Back in December of 2012 I was into cutting up wine bottles and heating them up to melting in my kiln. I made an ornament from the base of a green bottle, cut a groove in the side with my wet grinder, and wire wrapped it. Using an engraving tool I wrote the first verse from A Visit from St Nicholas by Clement-Clark Moore in a spiral out in tiny lettering.
As I scroll my photo history, I don’t take every craft project for a throwback post. When I look at a photo, if there aren’t enough words in my head, it doesn’t get picked. There are some projects where I don’t remember what materials I used, or don’t have any in process photos to remind me how I constructed it. So I keep scrolling. Since I’m still picking projects from 13 years ago, I figure I have some leeway.
Critters and Craft 