strawberry soup

my brain is soup today, a sort of strawberry miasma.

above - is a closeup photograph of a piece of mid-century italian glass. a rubino oro plunged dot candy dish. a favorite object.

below - vintage plastic strawberries.

i ask you, what would possess someone to buy plastic strawberries?

these vintage fakes turned up at an estate sale and i cannot stop thinking about the irony of plastic strawberries. these even have their original price tag still attached, they were never even used - for what? what was the decorating plan?

what could be less plastic than a fresh juicy strawberry? what could be more fleeting than strawberries? plastic strawberries - it's just weird.

chocolate cherries

felt beads.

other then when you skewer a finger with your felting needle these are really fun to make.

i like the idea of these mixed with glass and perhaps i will follow the lead of steph at vlad the bat's attic and make some pet fur felt beads...

the dog of the futurists - or - napoleon dynamo

napoleon in motion.

a tip of the hat to giacomo balla and his painting 'dynamism of a dog on a leash' (1912)

rakish earrings

can you believe it?
i just learned how to rake glass. i vaguely remember some mention of it in a beginning bead class but i had never actually done it - until last week. now i am a raking fool.

these lentils were first decorated, then raked and finally pressed.
they started with a base of messy (cim's) sangre, then ribbons of carrot red and an iridescent violet blue glass from double helix called psyche were added.

february snow deluxe

i wired a necklace together today using all the dirty snow lentil beads - 16 in all.

it's a bit over the top in terms of luxe - but i love pearls.

each hand pressed glass lentil is like a little painting.

every bead started with a base of dark ivory glass wrapped in ribbons of cims canyon de chelly,

then other bits of color were added here and there. finally, each bead was decorated with lines and dots of double helix psyche.

i did not use a traditional press, but rather a pair of stainless steel ice tongs to shape these beads.
i wanted these beads to be more organic than the uniform ones that are made a press.

the entire necklace is constructed with 26 gauge sterling silver wire.
each bead has a tiny hand faceted opal tucked into each end to stabilize its wrapped wire link.

the necklace.

sweet revenge

it's weird how you meet people through their blogs.
i was immediately drawn to the blog vLaDtHeBaT's aTTiC because steph has a pet chicken - i knew from her art, her patterns of speech, her photos and her lovely jewelry that we were moving in the same orbits. never mind she's in belgium.

i sent her a birthday gift - and she replied "revenge is on it's way."
look what arrived in today's mail - she sent me a present back.
the package has a drawing of 'cocotte' on the back.


inside there were trinkets for jewelry, a small package for miss margaret and some sweet soap.

and there was this, a magnificent necklace that she made.

i am pretty sure that is not my birthday - but it is the middle of wretched february so i will accept all the joy that arrives in my mailbox.

isn't it gorgeous?

i adore all the amulets and gathered bits of treasure she's put to work on it.
thank you so much for my not-birthday gifts.

the mandarine

there were mandarin oranges at the market this morning.

kraftwerk - craftwork

miss margaret just called, from college, to say that she was spending her afternoon twiddling the knobs on one of kraftwerk's original sythesizers. how cool is that? imagine, she is the same age now that i was when i was a complete ralf and florian loving art student. what kind of class is she taking where she gets to use this rock artifact? sonic arts.


kraftwerk 'pocket calculator' 1981 (live)

for your craftwork

i torched some glass buttons, designed presentation cards for them and tucked them into bed on etsy.

swamp witch necklace

i hammered this together yesterday and named it after the old jim stafford song 'swamp witch' (black water hattie). i loved this melodramatic song as a pre-teen. it's about a sinister bayou voodoo woman.

the links are all sterling

the little green beads on the ends of my lampwork beads are some sort of murky jade salvaged from an estate sale necklace.

i like how the glass distorts the threaded wire to look as though it is bent. glass is such mysterious stuff.

this piece is headed to the memorial art gallery's museum store.

she's got a big heart

front:


back:

an end of the day bead made with all the stumpy rods, popped off bits, leftover fine silver foil, un-used frit and whatever else that was within arms length of my torch.
it is 3 1/4" long.

swamp hollow

a very large hollow bead.

it is part of a set of swamp inspired beads.
i used lots of different colors of transparent glass in these beads - but primarily kelp, light gray and light topaz. i also used a vetrofond oddlot color called swamp moss. each little piece of glass also has a sprinkling of raku frit and intense black wrapped trails.

a couple of the lentil shaped beads even have 'frog eggs' on them.

button - button

who has the button?
i do.

this flat blob of glass is my first lampwork button, it's a bit wonky but i love it. it was made with dark ivory glass, raku frit and fine silver foil and is almost 1 1/2" inches long.

it was made off mandrel with these:

the handy andy tungsten tweezers by andy ray at galactic glass.
this is a fun tool - it's for making holes.
just squeeze the hot glass and wiggle.
(the tool not your butt)

bookish

oh valentine.
yes dear husband - i love the book. thankyou!

this book - "making connections" by susan lenart kazmer is amazing
and so is her website.

i haven't stayed up so late reading a book since harry potter.
certainly you can see that this woman and i are on the same excessive wavelength. the book is absolutely full of interesting technical bits for making cold connections and wiring things together. but it's the spooky bits of stuff, her charms and talismans, that had me just pouring over the book well past my bedtime.

m&m

a very unusual color palette for me

- and strange content.

using inexpensive wire is liberating - to make a huge bracelet like this with sterling wire would just be brutal on my wallet.

this whimsical bracelet is constructed with a load of my lampwork glass beads but there are also lots of poly clay beads and (gasp) even some plastic beads. hell, there are even some commercial glass beads (the little flower murrine).

there are also wood and mother of pearl beads.

because sometimes nothing succeeds like excess.

mitten munching monster

i finally got around to knitting a second pair of the red and white mushroom inspired fingerless gloves - this pair was for me. alas, i only wore them once before one was destroyed.

meet abilene.
a nine month old weimaraner puppy. seen here with the things she's supposed to be chawing on.

i was over at my friend margaret's house, not to be confused with my daughter margaret or my mother margaret, for wednesday crafting day. she was quilting and i was wiring a new overly decorative bracelet when miss abby went into my bag and took a mitten. the cuffs were homespun and must have had a deliciously 'sheepy' tang.

unfortunately i do not have enough of the red to knit another one - so i will send the orphaned mitt to daughter margaret who lives to wear mismatched gloves and socks.
do i knit another pair?
it's already mid february... how much winter could there be left?

got any more of those scrumptious mittens?

water babies

a large haphazard set of lampwork beads.

usually i painstakingly construct sets of matched beads -

then sometimes i just realize i have a bunch of stray beads that work together perfectly.

lots of different glass colors here:
opalino glass in blue, pink, nile green and white, cims kryptonite, heffalump and crocus, transparent teal, pale aqua, double helix psyche, fine silver foil and some raku frit.

a big necklace is coming soon, maybe with dusky opals, laboradite and some muted jade?
suggestions please. maybe moonstones?


it's nearly midnight and if i had gone to bed at a reasonable time for an old lady i would not be looking out my window, towards the streetlight, watching a few slushy snow flakes falling through a heavy fog. who has ever seen flurries and fog? winter is not giving up easily.


water babies - a silly symphony - 1935