Craft Space near completion

 Spring in the mountains of Western North Carolina can be a busy time of year.  The countryside is coming to life with flowers, new lambs and gardens begging to be created.  Keeping up with it all can be a daunting task, but we are moving steadily along.  Evening hours are dedicated to making the Craft Space more tidy and with greater accessibility to supplies.  We are almost there!

The rack to the left holds my watercolor, mixed media and sketching papers on top along with alcohol and pigment inks, brushes and supplies to go along with these media.  There is a hanging storage on the left end of the rack that holds acrylic paints and sprays similar to this item available on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/TEMUORG-Hanging-Acrylic-Organizer-Supplies/dp/B0DKHLBHYW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2HHV2TUT1KT03&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.CNDwu64TaUgOAwNEShFC2oEs1qYDR3pBpp6Ei2AU-HOTrG9IaVLf3j2pTIN7YiOSfxHStqRYCtSDJ7-FMeDEKtSML8Bdnm0SLljDAhVfUpclc4jtjcK5n3GPVvl-5PgI.NjiSES5Km2X_jc9O7Y2YPvvSGds7FKF2S8prFZ2wZd4&dib_tag=se&keywords=clear%2Bpoly%2Bover%2Bthe%2Bdoor%2Bhanging%2Bacrylic%2Bpaint%2Bstorage&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1775952451&sprefix=clear%2Bpoly%2Bover%2Bthe%2Bdoor%2Bhanging%2Bacrylic%2Bpaint%2Bstorage%2Caps%2C160&sr=8-1&th=1

Watercolor and oil paints are also on this rack along with giftwrap, tags, bags and papers as well as sewing supplies located on the lower shelves.  

The next rack has beading supplies mostly but also some items that rather form a transition to the rack that is along the side of the next wall.  This space is dedicated to tatting on the upper shelves and paper crafting on the lower shelves  The large carrying case with the pink top has more beading items including findings that merge tatting with jewelry making.  

Across the room is this:

The lateral file holds my tatting books and reference materials.  The desk over it has a tempered glass top which eliminates any need for a glass mat for applying inks when I am paper crafting and the cutting mat has a grid that allows me to make measurements as needed for determining sizes when considering smaller paper and mixed media items.  Most of my brushes, markers, pens and pencils as well as pallet knives are also in this area.  

One thing I learned about the internet, especially in the early days, was that nothing there was sacred.  If you found it, (IT being patterns, tips, techniques and so on) it was best to print it out and store it somewhere because websites come and websites go and at any time, what you just found might never be accessible again.  The notebooks on the shelves over the desk hold the items that I have found over the years.  Some of them are duplicated, but as Granny once said: "Better to have and not need than to need and not have."

To the left in this photo you can see the screen for our server on which I have stored many of the videos and other information from our business.  Here too are all the electronics for our household such as internet modem, wi-fi router and central printer.  These are not specific to the crafting, but in  today's world, the internet makes almost everything possible.  

In the coming months, I am going to be giving presentations on several crafts including tatting.  Area weavers have asked if I would give a demonstration and teach them the basics of tatting.  For that I have set up my video station in this area as wel so I can create a visual to help them stay on task with the technique if I cannot give one-on-one instruction during the session.  Currently the video set-up looks like this photo:

The table is on casters for ease of movement and the camera is above the space ready to tape the moves that demonstrate the chosen technique, not just for tatting, but for any medium.  Under the table is an asortment of shoeboxes that contain adhesives, punches and embossing powders that remain accessible when I need them primarily for papercrafting.  When the camera is not attached to the table, I can  move the table into the center of the room and add a tabletop overlay for cutting fabric.  This allows for dress-makeing, quilting or painting of larger objects.  (Yes, all of these things are in the works!)  Off to the right is a rack that holds papers and cardstock as well as my sewing machine, notions box and a few items for floral work.  Of course the broom is for tidying up after the day is done.  

This is the result of more than 25 years of dedicated crafting.  While the organization has been coming together, the crafting has gone on.  You do not see a "comfortable chair" in here.  No, crafting can be dirty work that for me, at least, is often best accomplished standing up or sitting on a stool like the one in the photo above.  There is, however more to come about that "comfortable chair."

Tatting for the Fair

 Last fall, my friend served as a volunteer at the Mountain State Fair in Asheville, an event that I have submitted entries for the Tatting competition in years past.  She indicated that there were so few entries in the “Tatting"  catagory of Arts and Crafts that she feared that category would so go away in the not very distant future.  She encouraged me to find something that I could enter in the fair next year.  So I set about it.  

Over the years, I have collected tatting pattern books by various authors.  One such author is Ineke Kuiperij, a lady in the Netherlands whose books came across the Atlantic with my friend and tatting colleague Riet Surtel-Smeulders when she would journey to the US from her home in the Netherlands to visit family, attend Palmetto Tatters Guild’s Tat Days and other area events.  Sadly, Riet passed away in 2025 and the world has lost another grand master of the craft.

I looked through Ineke’s books and found one particular pattern that I felt would challenge my skills and be an appropriate entry into the competition this coming fall.  It is in this book and an image of my chosen ornament is shown on the cover in the upper right hand corner.  

The piece is complex and created in 4 panels.  Each panel has 5 independent sections which are joined as the piece is tatted along.  Beads are added at intervals.  I chose Liz Metalic in size 20 and the color 313 (SandDollar) with Hemitite beads size 4 mm and black onxy beads size 6 mm.  The pattern was written for size 80 thread and I knew this finished piece would be larger, but it was one I wanted to showcase.  

Judging how much to wind onto my shuttles can be a challenge as well and on the 4th section of the 1st panel, I cut it so close that I had to make the last ring a Split Ring even though the pattern did not call for it:

Thank goodness for crochet hooks and split rings!

Christmas is a-coming!

 With Yuletide upon us, creating gifts, tags and other things for the holiday has taken on a sense of urgency.   From my perspective, a hand-made gift holds special meaning.  The person who created it was thinking of the recipients especially and putting their personal energy into that special item while it was being made.  It is almost as if the item holds a blessing for the person for which it is intended.  

Even Christmas items hold a special feeling when they have been created by the home-owner. Our wreath this year began with a base of artificial greenery on a wire frame to which I added some apple wood branches from an apple tree felled during our encounter with Tropical Storm Helene when it came through her 16 months ago.  I added pine cones found locally and decorated with glitter paint, wild, dried flower stalks that I think are from the artemisia family and bits of lichens that I found on fallen limbs from a nearby silver maple.  

The gold mini-poinsettia flowers were artificial, but added some sparkle that was more muted on the pine cones.  The red ornaments were given to me by friend Sharon Tabor, a fellow-tatter and who created the tatting on them.  The bow has both burlap and acetate ribbon.   Hanging on the south side of our main entry, it will bless the house all all who enter by it.

Playing with Alcohol Inks

 About a year before our relocation alcohol inks came into my craft stash.  On my own, I made no progress using these inks.  I had created a few backgrounds but they had not been quite what I had hoped.  Mary Polanco is a YouTube Creator (Mary Polanco Designs) and associated Facebook Group (MPD Community).  She recently posted that she would be conducting a class on the use of alcohol inks and I enrolled.  

The day of class I assembled the suggested tools which included alcohol inks, specialized, non pourus papers, a manual blower and 91% alcohol or commercially prepared blending solution.  In the past, I had added these inks to alcohol gel applied on gel plates and pressed watercolor paper or card stock onto the gel plate rather than putting the liquid ink directly onto paper and floating it around in the liquid alcohol or blending solution.  Somehow I cannot help but believe that using the gel this way gave poorer results.  Here is a sample of what I came up with as a result of the class:

The upper 4 were inks applied to the back side of photo paper and the lower 4 were created using the front side of the same Canon photo pater.  Over all the backgrounds created on the back of the photo paper were much more to my liking.  They were more difuse with special effects that arose from spraying alcohol over the images after they had dried.  I did use a less concentrated alcohol sprayu (80% rather than the 91% or 99% as was recomended.  

Many creaftspeople recommend using Yupo paper when working with alcohol inks, but that is jusst out of my price range.  Photo paper is cheeper and more readily available.  However along the way I have found some Brea Reese brand Waterproof Panels in after-market shops.  Most of the ones I have are smaller (3" x 3") and seem a bit thick for cards, even though they state on the label that they compare to Yupo.  I was very pleased with the results of adding alcohol inks to one of these panel.  

Overall the look of the Yupo knockoff was exceptional and much better than when using the photo paper, expecially on the shiny side. 

Cutting out shapes of the photo paper was easy enough.  The presentation indicated that certain plastic or synthetic papers don't cut as well as other papers.  I was able to easily cut a circle from the photo paper using a circle die.  I glued a diecut sentiment directly onto the circle cut from the photo paper.  Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of the card created from my efforts.  Next time, T'm sure.  

Meanwhile I tried another technique also suggested in our class:  I stamped an image onto the paper.  I tried first with Versa Fine Permanent Ink in Vintage Sepia.  Because it is a slower drying ink, I attempted to speed up the drying process using a heat gun set on a low heat setting.  The pigment ink didn't completely dry and the effect whas not what I wanted, even after it was die cut.  It wasn't bad, but not what i wanted.  

The images on the left were stamped with VersaFine Pigment ink Vintage Sepia and Trinity Stamps Fern-tastic stamp and die set (top image, left) and a leaf from Altenew's Beautiful Day stamp and die set (lower left).  The  Outline is barely visible and it took a VERY long time to dry.  Even using a heat gun didn't help much and the photo papter curled quite a bit.  I have entertained the thought of using a black permanent marker to trace the lines of Sepia ink in an attempt to improve the finished product, but I have not done so at the time of this posting.  Attmept #2 using the largest pumpkin in Spellbinders Paper Arts's Charming Pumpkins clear stamp set and fussy cutting it out used a die ink (Altenew's Crisp die ink in Permanent Black) was a much better outcome.  All in all, I don't think I'll be using this technique in the future.  

During the Class Video, Mary showed an example of a card that had a cut-out section of regular card stock mounted over the alcohol ink background.  I found that MOST appealing and decided to follow her lead by cutting out some butterflies from my own stash (Spellbinders Delicate Butterflies Cutting Dies).  Alone the cut-out section looked weak.  So I went back and used the cutting dies that created the butterfly wings outline and body.  That went much better:

Of course there was the portion of the cut-out that was removed.  So I also made the butterfly wing outline for the 2 of them by cutting from the alcohol colored photo paper.  They weren't BAD, but one was so light in color that it, too looked washed out.  The other was of enough of a contrasting color value that it was as improvement.  These are seen here:

Based on this, I made other cut-outs of the basic form from one of the alcohol ink backgrounds that had bolder colors and the wing outlines from the darker brown used in the first example.  These turned out to be the best examples of this technique so far.  

 

These should compliment any sort of greeting card that I might make in the future.  

I did want to make one last attempt of die cutting photo paper colored with alcohol inks.  This time I used an intricate rose cutting die by Moments.  The most telling aspect of cutting this out was attempting to line up the cutting die to allow for the greatest amount of color on the rose pedals and the green areas for the leaves.  So the colors were somewhat off and it was a simple matter to dissolve a drop or two of the green alcohol ink into a watercolor mixing well with a few drops of the 91% alcohol mixative.  Then this could be applied onto the cut-out intensifying the colors in the best places.  This was an appropriate way to finish out the item for use on a later card also.  

The rose on the left was cut from the photo paper and re-touched with alcohol ink.  The rose on the right was cut first from green card stock then from pink card stock.  The pink die cut was trimmed to be only the pedals and buds and then that part was glued over the green die cut at the position of the flower and buds.  Either would make a lovely addition to a feminine card for many occasions.  Quite a good run on playing with Alcohol Inks!

A NOTE:  I do not receive any compensation for the items mentioned in this post.  This is merely for my personal recording and as reference to anyone who reads these posts.

 

Move in Getting Closer

 I am growing more excited by the day!

Our new home is finished to the point that we are beginning to move in belongings!  I am beginning to sense that my new Art Barn - now a room in the basement - will soon be ready to hold my art and crafting suppies and provide me with the space I need for my creative endeavors!  

This photo was taken while we were still under construction, but it's clear that the structure is and Arts-and-Crafts style cottage that, like the Tardis of Dr. Who fame, is bigger on the inside!  Can't wait!

Here's how it looks at the moment:

The green item behind the stool is a drafting table that is folded down to conserve space.  The words of Mark Knoffler's song "Prairie Wedding" from the Sailing to Philadelphia album / CD (2001): "I know it ain't much, it needs a woman's touch" pretty much say it all!

The Twelve Snowmen of Christmas, 2024

The preparations for the 2024 Deck the Trees fundraising effort revolve around the theme of "Winter Wonderland." While the image above is only of five snowmen, a complete set of 12 have been finished for this season's Tatted Tree.  Some years ago - 2011 to be precise - Palmetto Tatters Guild's Tat Days Conference had a similar theme: "Tatting in a Winter Wonderland" which had artwork in the Logo that included a snowman.  This has prompted the idea that snowmen would be an outstanding addition to the snowflakes, angels and bells that have been gracing the Tatted Tree for the past 13 years. 

Patterns for snowmen are a bit of a challenge to find, but Sandy Scales and Barbara Foster have written  a free one that can be found on the Handy Hands Tatting site here.   It is cute and fairly straight-forward to carry out.  Another such design is Wanda Salmans' "Button-centered Tatted Snowman" written in 2015.  This one, too is simple but effective.  Monica Hahn included 2 snowmen patterns in her Dover Needlework publication entitled "Christmas Angels and other Tatting Patterns"  Debbie Arnold sells a pair of patterns in her Etsy Shop and a completed tatted snowman is available for purchase from Tatted Dreams by Jolene Etsy shop.  That was for the most part the extent of what I found.  If I missed anything, it's on me, but armed with these patterns I set to work.  

It took several months to finish them, but to date, I have completed a total of 12 snowman bodies from 3 different patterns including ones with button centers and an older pattern that I have modified so that it went together more smoothly.  If a hat was part of the pattern, such as in the Scales & Foster pattern, the over all appearance seemed rather stiff.   Some of the patterns did not include hats at all. So off to the land of images went I looking for something I could use to add whimsy to the finished products.  I found a few that I though might be suitable, printed them out, re-sized them as necessary and came up with 3 options that I thought might work.  They looked like this:

Craft foam sheets are cost effective and easy to cut through.  They are useful in many crafting applications and really fit the requirements in this case because they are light weight, solid construction and not translucent or transparent.  I traced off the reapective outlines for each design and cut each out so that I had hats that looked something like this once a hat band was added:

The hats aren't very big some smaller ribbons were in order.  Since I am confined to our camper until the house is finished, I have to rely on what craft supplies I can find in our storage lockers unless I want to purchase items I have no room for.  Each hat that was worked up ranged in size between 1 inch and 2 1/2 inches wide and no more than an inch high.  If the ribbons on hand were too wide, I cut them down to a suitable size before adding them to the craft foam "hats."  

For the most part, the items were something I could use easily, but the ribbon with the red pom-poms was going to require greater modification,  I cut off the red pom-poms for use as "buttons" reserving the white band for use on some hats themselves.  

With the 12 hats and respective bands ready to attach to the tatted snowmen, I used a fabric glue to put the parts together.

Any of the snowmen that did not have a face as part of the tatting or pattern was going to require adding sequins for eyes and mouth and something to indicate buttons on the "body."  

The hats taken from snowmen images really added a touch of fancifulness to these snowmen!  Lastly,  ribbon scarves and embelishments are added to the hats as well as hangers to mount them on the tree at the Monte Vista Hotel the first week of December.  More to follow once the date has arrived.

Getting ready another Tatted Tree for Deck the Trees, Black Mountain

 For the past 11 years, a group I have been a part of has participated in a fund-raiser called Deck the Trees.  It's a benefit for the fuel assistance fund sponsored by the Swannanoa Valley Christian Ministries.  Held at the historic Monte Vista Hotel each year (except 2020 when Covid-19 was in its height), this benefit has raised in the vicinity of $100,000 to help families on the edge have enough fuel for our mountain winters.  The committee announced the theme for 2022 as "Let Heaven and Nature Sing" back in August, a theme that is bit more challenging than some have been in the past.  

I chose to acquire clear plastic ornaments that could be filled with not only tatting, but natural elements as well.  The journey to find the various elements began in September.  I first realized that the line "And Heaven and Nature sing" was from the Yuletide carol "Joy to the World" written in 1719 by Isaac Watts, an English Minister.  Locating the song in a hymnal was easy as was making copies that could be trimmed down to a reasonable size and used as a focal point inside the clear balls was a good place to begin.  One of the local charity shops had a hymnal lying on the counter the day I went in, and to my amazement, it was free for the asking.  I trimmed the copies down to the best size to fit the orbs and burnished the edges with a candle flame

The following weeks were spent looking for patterns that would create small snowflakes, musical notes and shapes that could also adorn the orbs.  Any that I couldn't find, I designed to the best of my ability.  Some time was spent looking around the neighborhood for acorns and pine cones that were small enough to fit into the ornamanets.  I also located lavender sprigs, hydrangea blossoms, moss and lichens to be used.  Here are some of the ornaments in various stages of completion:

Sewing project

 I found myself in the position of needing a costume.  Not just for Halloween, but for Swannanoa Valley Museum's Haunted History Tour.  Previously, I had introduced participants to a boarding house turned Bed and Breakfast as a guest of said boarding house in the 1920's.  However the property had been sold and had become law offices.  So a change in the story was in order.  To accomodate this change, I was determined to be a cleaning lady for the building that would give the history of the building since it had been built in about 1912.

There was nothing in the museum's costume holdings that would make this presentation beleiveable.  So a trip to the charity shop was in order.  I found not only a colorful skirt and sweater (think of Carol Burnette's cleaning lady from the 1970's), but also I was in search of an apron without having to create one from scratch.  A skirt with a flounce would do - so I found one and cut out the back of it out. 

My mother's Necci sewing machine, purchased in 1956, or there abouts had been my go-to for sewing since I had received it about 15 years ago.  But this time, when I attempted to fire it up, the motor would not turn the mechanism.  And so the nearly 70 year old machine would not be of any use to me.  Thank goodness for the modest Singer sewing machine purchased several year ago.  

Next was to find what whould make waistband and tying straps.  I found some fabric that I though might work:

 The border of this, if long enough would work for both.   And so it did:

I had enough to make substantial ties as well as a waistband.  This would create a suitable apron for our purposes:

All this created in just 3 hours including shopping.  Not IN the Art Barn, but a part of the creative process indicative of what the Art Barn is.

Hopefully, the Art Barn itself will be ready for using soon.  More to come!

New Times, New Blog!

Through the recent pandemic, I've been as isolated as I neede to be to protect myself, my family, my crafting buddies and my clients from becoming ill. Being this sort of confined opened opportunities for continued growth in the crafting world. This has brought me a lot of happiness and made some of it shareable with those I care about. The first thing I was able to do was to turn an outbuilding into. . . The Art Barn!! It's not very big - about 12 feet square, but it has 2 lofts for storage and with the shelving, craft table and organizational items, has been a life-saver - well more of a sanity-saver - over the past several years! Since setting everything up, I have been collecting stamps, dies, papers and other embellishments for creating hand made cards for all occasions. Christmas card greetings for the holidays are items I have created during times gone by, but I'm adding to my skills and collections. Cards for birthdays, graduations, special events and others can be pricy! I checked out Target several years back and at that time a hand-made card was more than $7.00. It doesn't take long for that to translate into $100.00 or more and the crafting items will allow many more than the 12 or 13 cards that $100.00 will buy. Even from other outlets such as Dollar Stores and grocery or variety stores, the occasions rack up quickly. Tatting contiinues to be my primary crafting focus, although I have also renewed my interest in knitting and sewing. I'm sure there will be more to come - with Autumn and Winter approaching, outside times will become inside times.