Thursday, October 5, 2023

A Tale of Two (or more) Pumpkins

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Looking for an autumn craft, I came across the Instagram account of Timm Sevitz, a former member of the Crate+Barrel display team and a current craft whiz.  In one of his posts (https://www.instagram.com/p/CwslWW8rNsj/) he demonstrated little yarn jack o'lanterns. These were geared to children - half a toilet paper roll wrapped with a chunky yarn and then embellished with a twig stem and cut out paper eyes and toothy grins. From my winter attempt at crochet, I had a ball of thick varigated wool felting yarn on hand in appropriate atumnal tones, and I gave it a try.


Immediately I was hooked. Below, meet Pumpkin Number Two, which quickly led to more than a dozen pumpkins! I eliminated the pumpkin face for a bit of sophistication. And I also used four to five (about 60 inches or 150 cm) lengths of yarn together to speed up the wrapping. This was especially handy with a fine yarn, like the acrylic-alpaca-mix for the taupe pumpkin on the right. For little kids, a single length of a really chunky yarn would be easier.

What captivated me about making these pumpkins (and I hope will interest you, too) is how adapting to the materials available informs what you create. I had limited yarns and often only small quantities of any one yarn. I did try a pumpkin in a single colour - a fuzzy novelty yarn in white.



I preferred the look of ones done with a varigated yarn (like above) and, once I realized I could create my own varigated yarn, had so much fun. It was a great way to use up odds and sods of random leftovers. Thickness or ply didn't really matter - the focus was on the mix of colours.

A special yarn could be saved for just the outer layers - like this one below (and a darker version) found in a thrift store. The label says, "An unusual Irish import textured yarn in a multicolored blend." The under layers were a combination of creams and taupes that coordinated with the textured yarns.



Below, you can see winding the specialty yarn over the under layers.

Another yarn-saving tactic I used was to line the inner side of the toilet paper roll with a folded paper napkin. This bulked up the hole and creating a tight fit for the twig required less yarn. I also remembered making velvet pumpkin pin cushions one year as Christmas gifts. These I'd embellished with wire tendrils. And since I seldom let go of potential craft supplies, I had a box of wire on hand! To create the tendrils, I wound the wire around a pencil and then stretched the spiral a bit to make a more interesting shape.



About this time, I got the idea of making a smaller pumpkin and constructed a little tube from cardstock. (This also works great for the larger pumkins if, like me, you go a bit crazy and run out of toilet paper rolls!)



Now I was wondering how fabric strips might work!



I tore the strips to get a rustic, thready look, although the neat-freak in me was appalled! To get a rounded shape, I padded both the inner core and the outside of the paper roll with scraps of quilt batting. The inner padding made getting the strips through a bit of a pain, but a crochet hook helped.


My favourite of the cloth ones was the tiny one done with strips of an old grey t-shirt. I twisted the strips as I wound and the bumps, to me, really resemble the contours of a pumkin.


I don't think I'm quite done yet with making pumpkins - it's occured to me I could create a varigated look with strips of different fabrics. Or by using the multi-coloured selvages, which I often trim from yardage and save. But if you've followed me this far, I'm sure you're pumpkined out! I want to wrap up this blog, though, with appreciation and gratitude to all the artists and creators who share their work on social media. Their posts are a never-ending source of inspiration, comraderie and enjoyment! For more of Timm's whimsical crafts, check out his web site: https://timmsevitz.com/

Thursday, September 21, 2023

Not My Cup of Tea

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I'm always wanting to do a series of prints and/or collages showcasing tea in some way. Sadly, none of my ideas have ever developed into anything satisfying. Here's one that started off promising:


I had so many patterned papers - some my own prints and also origami and found papers - and the cup as a simple graphic shape appealed to me.



It was enjoyable coordinating the patterned papers! I also experiemented with three cups:

And a square card with two cups:

A bit of back story here. I used graph paper to get a symmetrical shape for the cup.

And I used a hole punch to create the handle. The punched out bits were a possibility for the dot I like to add to finish off the piece. I also made a viewfinder and went on the hunt through my mountains of paper for possibilities.




One of the reasons this series didn't go anywhere is because I collaged whole cups, gluing one on top of the other. This made for a thick, unbalanced card. (I had to use a rock to weigh down the cards to lie flat for these photographs!) Plus, all the various grains of the different papers and the substrate were at odds with each other, creating even more lumpiness in the finished card. Back then, I didn't realize that was the problem. Armed with a bit of hindsight, the other day I gave it another go. First, I stacked the cups. And played around with getting each cup nestled into the one below.

With the original try, I know part of the problem was I didn't set the cups deep enough - they had a sort of floating look to them. But I also had to remember these chunky cups would have a thickness to them and that had to be apparent in the stacking. I saw them as pottery rather than fine china so the wall of the cup would be substantial.

So this second time around I worked on getting a good stack. Then I marked where each mug slid into the one blow, and cut off the excess. 

I'd like to report this made all the difference - and it did. Somewhat...

I prefer three cups - four made the composition a bit crowded - and the card laid much flatter. I did go with a smaller dot - the hole punch piece seemed too much. But I go back and forth on that decision. There is a pull to use the big dot.


However, as is often the case, there is a past due date on some ideas. I discovered stacking patterned paper cups no longer fascinated me! But I did enjoy the second try - there is always something to be learned looking back at old work. 

Next post, plan to be deep into a new project! See you then! As always, thank you for following my art adventure!

Thursday, August 17, 2023

A Few More...

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Here are a few more designs that didn't make it into production. First up, cherries that always reminded me of earrings!




These two used origami paper for the collages. The following two were made with my hand-printed papers.




The turquoise "gingham" paper was printed with a block made with adhesive-backed foam. I printed horizontally, re-inked and printed vertically. I made several of these blocks with various widths of stripes.


I have a thing for gingham - it's fresh with a graphic edge. Might still do something with the gingham paper down the road.

Next, here was yet another attempt to work with postage stamps. I have so many (mostly gifted) and, to me, they are small works of art. Started with handmade Khadi paper in cream and tan. These little rectangles were the perfect size for notecards - loved the natural deckled edge. 



After stitching the postage stamp to the Khadi paper I chose coordinating threads and stitched a loose angular border. But the changing out of the top thread was tedious. Pretty sure this is why I gave up on this design! With hindsight I should have had several cards on the go at the same time and stitched the same colour on each card before proceding to the next colour.  



Remember the Mushroom series from a while back? Here are two designs I didn't pursue.


This mushroom didn't quite fit with the other mushrooms shapes. And it was fiddly to create. The fringed black edging was a separate piece and had to be cut for each individual mushoom cap. But I still really like this one. The paper was just right. And that was another issue - finding a print with a mottled area and a stripy area. (I was really trying to use up prints I'd already created - I have such a mountain of collage paper!).

It was easier to find papers for these Shaggy Manes.




Again, I liked these little guys and they were really fun to make! I'm can't even recall now why I felt they weren't quite right for the series. That's how it goes. Decisions are made and we move on. It can be educational - and interesting - to look back now and then. Thanks for following along and I'll see you in the next post. Cheers!

Thursday, July 27, 2023

Didn't make the cut...

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I'm doing a bit of studio tidying and coming across abandoned projects - the ones that never quite gelled. Like Lemonade

I'd carved the lemon slices and then a batch of strawberries. Plus a few blueberries.

I tried a number of ideas - like below - printing the slices as grapefruit. Here I had fun folding the notecard off-center and lining up another print on the inside flap.



Also played up the circular shape and used a Japanese cutter to make a batch of round gift tags.


Printed the stamp as lemons, oranges and grapefruit in rounds and crescents.



Then with the strawberry stamp:



I know at one point I also tried working in a few of the blueberries but, unfortunately, seem not to have kept any samples. I keep coming back to this composition (below) but still not enthused. Second photo shows the back of the notecard as well.



For now, everything is getting filed away again but, who knows, one day I'll have a glimmer of an idea and pull out the stamps and try something new with them. Although, maybe this idea was doomed from the start - since it's a lemon! (Sorry, couldn't resist...)


I like looking back on old work and thinking, next post, I might share a few more ideas that didn't make the cut. Meanwhile, thank you so much for following my art adventure. See you soon!