Hi, This is my first post in a long time. It has all been motivated by the holliday ornament swap.
There is a cool flickr group which has great pictures.
These little birdies were really fun to make. Making the ornaments was a great way to learn some new embroidery stitches and come up with some fun new designs. Also, the project was great because I had all of the materials on hand. I can not wait to see what ornaments I will be receiving.
posted by Virginia
As readers of this blog already know well, flea markets are favorite sources of inspiration. Here, a couple more flea market ideas:
1. Recently I purchased a bunch of vintage silver flatware for $1:
It reminded me of Cornelia Parker, an artist who steamrolls silver and creates floating installations from the results (photo courtesy if ICA Philadelphia):
And the results:
Thirty Pieces of Silver, 2003
(courtesy of the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London)
I was thinking about creating something Parker-inspired from this silver — but have not gotten around to it yet.
2. I bought this tiny plastic toilet at a flea market some time ago, for no reason but that it looked nice and only cost fifty cents:
Little did I know that a few months later it would be useful when David and I made a recreational attempt at claymation, which you can see at
http://www.youtube.com if you search for a video entitled “Man Meets Toilet”
posted by Virginia
If you’ve ever used a vacuformer, you know how inspiring it is to see hot sheets of plastic lower onto and adhere around every corner of a mold. Vacuforming plastic around molds is a super-common way of mass-producing all kinds of products.
I recently had access to one of these fun machines and started thinking about less conventional ways of using them. After talking with other vacuforming enthusiasts, I found out that my ideas weren’t necessarily so original, nonetheless they offer a starting point for discussion.
1. underwear:
Vac-u-forming styrene over any kinds of textured clothing (in this case, infant underwear) creates a monochrome 3D shadow that’s appealing to look at and touch. Could be a good wall-hanging, wall covering, other uses…
2.Entrapment
Translucent plastic is vac-u-formed over just about anything you want, and its curves encase the item. It’s important that whatever you entrap is porous, so that it doesn’t impede the vacuum function. Here, I entrapped some of those clear plastic balls that are often used as retro oversized “grapes”. The plan is to remove the foam squares behind, which were there simply to give the plastic a square base, and mount the entrapped balls on right-angled pieces of wood, as bookends.
3.Small stools
I made a series of small outdoor stools that were really an excuse to play with smooth organic shapes, by vac-u-forming styrene sheets over urethane foam molds. My aim was to make the stools uncomfortably small, yet applying pressure to the sitter’s rear in comfortable places. This stool is 8.5 inches at its widest, which gives you and idea of its size. The foam-sculpting and vac-u-covering made for an easy way to test the ergonomics; the stools are strong and stable.
Note: The vac-u-former I used was a DIY creation. You can build your own. You’ll need a workshop, instructions, and a couple grand in materials. There’s some good info about how to make them at this site:
http://www.tk560.com/vactable4.html
Posted by Katey
This Sunday we went to a couple of estate sales and we got a few things. One thing I always like to buy is old needlework. We got an x-mas tablecloth and napkins with some embroidery. I find it kind of heart braking how little money old needlework sells for, knowing the kind of hours that went into making it. But, at the same time this makes it seem like a good investment. Used needlework has a high hours of labor to cost ratio. It is funny to think about this.
The thrifting was a little thin, but it had been so long since we had been to estate sales and so it was very satisfying. I like getting to look at all of the odd stuff people have. Plus it is fun to see new neighborhoods and houses. Who knew Foster City had canals running through it? Seriously peoples’ back yards have these little canals running through them. It is so cool. I always associated Foster City with an old run down Foster Freeze (burger and shake shop) and never thought it was a sunny suburban Venice of the south bay. Incidentally nothing was purchased at the Foster City house, but it was fun to see the back yard canals.
Nick decided to purchase a bunch of odd kitchen tools. Now, we can slice an entire stick of butter in just one push. This should really make things more efficient around here.
I saw this entry from Beatrix P. Marmaladecheeks on this last whiplash “color competition. It is part of a counterfeit crochet project, which in itself is a pretty interesting project. But, it was not the counterfeiting aspect of it that caught my attention. What struck me was that in the act of copying the patchwork variable pattern, ms. marmaladecheeks created a really rich crocheted surface. The affect is really different from the original and I think it is totally better. Much more complex. You could use this technique by taking any collage of patterns, say a photographic collage or even a quilt and then recreating it in another textile medium of any type, not just crochet. This would be a great way to create a rich textured surface.
Beatrix P. Marmaladecheeks’ bag
Original Bag.
Remeber these?
I just got this one as a gift. I love the colors and the pattern.
Wow, that was a difficult transition to make. But now here you have it, a real blog, which can be commented. Some new craft posts coming soon.
As promised here is the design process for the Kabbalah bracelet. So I started off by looking up images of yarn on google images:
Then I looked at the yarn I have around and did some initial sketches. Mostly the sketches were too rope like. Looking at the actual yarn i had I realized I needed elongate the twist shape.
Then to refine the drawing I did some sketches in Illustrator. I wasn’t sure if I wanted a knot, or a plain piece of yarn. These were pretty rough sketches. I printed them out to get a better sense of how they would look. I still wasn’t very happy with them. So then I started sketching on top of the print out and came up with a pattern I was satisfied with. I decided not to go with the knot, because the scale of the yarn detail and the size of the knot would not work in embroidery on a bracelet.
So then refined the sketch in Illustrator and printed out a few sizes of the yarn. I wanted to make the pattern as large as possible to cut down on the embroidery time. But when I taped my prototypes onto my wrist, the pattern of the yarn was completely lost as the bracelet wrapped around my wrist. I also played around with the border size and shape in the prototyping process.
During design, doing quick and dirty prototypes is a good way to make sure the final product (which presumably requires more time investment) comes out how you want it to. Making the bracelet prototypes yielded some unexpected information such as the yarn pattern size to wrist diameter relationship, which I would not have figured out otherwise.
That said, I still think the final product could have used some more refinement. In order to make the pattern work with wrist curvature and still make it possible to be easily embroidered, I had to shrink back down the twist size. This I think makes the bracelet read more like a piece of rope than a piece of yarn. I think if I were to pursue this further, I would abandon the embroidery process, and go to a silkscreened pattern, which would better suit the shape of the design.
I know, I promised more info on the Jumbo Kabbalah bracelet and it is coming.
But in the meantime, a friend of mine made a short movie about Oedipus, told through live action vegetables, with Oedipus the potato as the star. Netfix started carrying this movie, and then they found it was a short and are saying they will take it down. Well, it is a very entertaining movie and if you have Netfix, please check it out, so that the movie will remain in the Netflix library. Of course you can always watch the movie on his site as well http://www.oedipusthemovie.com/. But to support independent filmmaking, please check out the DVD from Netflix.
