Last weekend I took part in a fun workshop at Handcraft Studio School in El Cerrito.  Watercolor quilting.  Yes, watercolor quilting.  It was so much fun!  We learned how to use special fabric dye to create an abstract watercolor painting on 10" squares of fabric.  Then we made a quilt sandwich and learned how to free-motion quilt using the painting as inspiration.  Some people did abstract quilting and some people made recognizable images, but they were all wonderful.  

I chose to stick to a single color in a couple shades, since I'm not too great at color mixing on the fly.  It was perfect, though, because it allowed me to really focus on the patterns that emerged from the paint and find interesting ways to emphasize certain shapes and lines.  The quilting on the back is just as interesting as the quilting on the front (maybe even more so since my paintings aren't that interesting).

Ashley, the instructor, is a professional quilter who teaches classes on Creativebug that are great for learning to make quilts.  In the workshop, she gave some tips on how to free-motion quilt without having to buy all the fancy tools, and recommended a few tools that she wouldn't want to do without.  She said the watercolor quilting class will appear on Creativebug sometime this year, so that is definitely something to be excited about!  I'll need some reminders for sure.

​Meet the newest kit now listed in my Etsy shop!
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The weaving kit, the third in my series of Maker Kits for Modern Kids, comes with everything you need (except scissors and a bit of tape) to make at least three beautiful woven projects.  The instruction booklet includes photographs illustrating the processes for basic weaving as well as tapestry weaving.  Plus, you'll get a package of wood beads that I dyed by hand in coordinating colors.  The version listed in my shop is the mini version (with a loom measuring 3.5" x 6"), with the large version (with a loom measuring 6" x 10") to be listed soon.
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Every kit comes packaged in a sturdy cardboard box.  And, because details are so important to me, I added a special wrap closure with yarn and wood buttons to keep the lid secure so the pieces never fall out.​

​With each successive Maker Kit for Modern Kids, I have increased the earth-friendliness of the materials.  Everything in this kit, from the box to the materials inside, is reusable, recyclable, or biodegradable.  Even the "plastic" bag with beads is made from plants.  I want to continue this theme with my next kits as well.  (I have a really fun kit in the pipeline that I can't wait to share.)

​If you'd like to purchase a weaving kit for yourself or as a gift, please visit my Etsy shop and I'll mail it out right away.  Thanks for your support!

Well, I finished my first official big-time craft fair this last Saturday.  I was excited and nervous to find out I was accepted into Patchwork show, and both those feelings continued until the day of the event.  During those weeks, I finished hundreds of stitched envelope and note card sets, thirty-something zipper pouches, 48 weaving kits (my newest kit addition), scrap fabric earrings and necklaces, bunny ear teething rings, and other projects.  I lost track of the number of hours I spent making things.  Add to that the work of buying, preparing, setting up, taking down, and putting away everything for the show and you end up with a lot of hours.  

Despite all my efforts, I didn't really sell much.  I sold several of my Maker Kits for Kids, particularly the Stitch Kit and Stamp Kit.  I also sold a few stitched envelopes and a zipper charm.  All told, it was about $600 in sales.  After subtracting the cost of goods sold and the cost of renting space and buying displays, I don't think it was worth it.  I got lots of compliments on how pretty everything is, how unique the kits are, and how talented I am, which was nice.  But I'm starting to doubt myself and my ability to earn any real money selling at events like this.  The only thing that might make it pay off is connections that lead to future sales in my Etsy shop or teaching gigs.  While I wait for my last two events of the season, I'll try to work on a few leads and see what I can make happen.

A good-sized part of any sewists fabric collection is scraps, pieces that range from long strings trimmed to square up edges to odd-shaped sections left after rounding a corner.  Add in all the bits of thread, yarn, and selvages that go in the scrap bin and it becomes an out-of-control heap pretty quickly.  I occasionally dip into my bin for pieces large enough to sew with, but those unsewable pieces left behind have been getting out of control.  After finding an unframed art canvas on the sidewalk, I had an idea how to put some of those bits to work.  

Although the canvas was already decorated, it was all very light and, I knew, would blend well into whatever I decided to put over it.  Over the course of several days, and with the help of my son and a couple other kids at the park, I got to work making my own scrap art.  The first thing we did was to color a bit with crayons directly on the canvas.  It wasn't much (and most of it isn't even noticeable on the finished piece), but it was a great warm-up.  Next up was some white glue and sand.  I told the kids to draw with glue and then cover it with sand.  They had lots of fun with this.  They tell me Spider Man is there, as well as some family members and random squiggles.  The final layer was done by just Goen and myself one evening.  He wielded the glue bottle and I handed him bits and pieces to put on top.  I made a few adjustments and additions here and there as well to make sure everything was stuck down and there were no awkward gaps.

The piece is now hanging behind our kitchen table where we can see it every day.  The combination of color, texture, and dimension makes me smile whenever I look at it.  I loved the process of making it and I'm pretty happy with the result as well.  I'll probably have to make a couple more, though, if I want to put a bigger dent in my tiny-scrap bin.  

Several weeks ago, in my newsletter, I mentioned wanting to make my own watercolor paints using this recipe, but using a custom-made box for a travel set.  Well, I did it.  I bought a couple different plastic hinge-lidded containers, the kind that click shut.  One was a bobbin case and the other a pencil box.  I made additional dividers by hot gluing in pieces of plastic from washed-out food containers.  Then I mixed the paint base and poured it into the compartments.  Right away I could tell that I should have spent more time gluing because the paint base was getting through.  I kept going anyway.  I added the food coloring to each compartment and mixed it with a plastic stick.  The clear containers made it easy to see where I needed to keep stirring.  I filled each compartment to within a millimeter or two of the top, and I'm so glad I did.  By the time the paints were set and the excess liquid on the top soaked up with paper towels (a fun art project in itself), it was actually much lower.  There was a little color mixing because of the gaps, but it wasn't too bad. 

Goen and I did a test of the paints yesterday.  They look pretty good.  A couple of the colors weren't as dark as I would have liked, so next time I will add more food coloring to those.  It's really trial and error with this if you're not measuring precisely and keeping notes (which I'm not).  The pencil box set is our at-home set and holds several paintbrushes.  The bobbin case is my travel set to take to the park or wherever.  I'm still trying to figure out how to make my own paintbrushes that can unscrew to go in the case and then screw back together and be long enough to use.  I'll let you know what I come up with.  In the meantime, definitely give this watercolor activity a try.

You know how there are some projects that your kid likes to do, but that you find boring, and vice versa?  Well, I found an art activity that my 2 1/2-year-old and I can do together and both enjoy.  Stamp-making!  It's nothing fancy, just some wood blocks, glue, and foam pieces, but it made for hours of fun and art.

One of the benefits of being married to a teacher is that fellow teachers are always getting rid of interesting things.  One of those was a bag of 2 x 2 blocks that had been cut from a strip of lumber (yay for free stuff!).  None of them were exactly square, but that didn't matter much.  In fact, almost any wood scraps will work, so check your garage or the scrap bin at your local hardware store.  Then I bought a package of large foam tangrams from the dollar bin at Target.  I like the smaller pieces rather than a sheet of foam since they can  be held and cut more easily.  After opening the package, I let Goen loose on the shapes with a pair of scissors (setting aside a couple for myself to cut more specific designs).  He happily cut away while I used plain white glue to attach the shapes he cut onto the wood blocks.  Most of the pieces he cut were completely random triangles and quadrilaterals, but I placed them on the blocks to make interesting patterns.  I even pulled out my hole punches and punched holes in the foam to make dots and "negative space" dots.  Cutting stripes and curves created interesting designs, but my favorite was cutting spikes and chevrons.  I will say that the foam is hard to cut in a curve with regular scissors, so don't expect to make intricate designs.  Another fun thing is to use a pointed tool to etch into the surface of the foam.  You can get way more detailed here than with cutting.

I did two stamps on each block to maximize the number we could make, though you could probably do them on more sides if you don't go all the way to the edges like I did on many of them.  There were so many foam pieces that it actually took us several days to glue them all (in fact, we ran out of blocks before we used all the foam).  By the third day of stamp-making, Goen was actually gluing pieces right alongside me.  After the glue was dry, we used do-a-dot paint markers to ink the stamps.  There are pros and cons to the paint markers, of course.  Lots of paint comes out so it inks the foam quicker than an ink pad, but it can also glob around the edges and prevent perfect impressions.  Also, rubbing the paint marker across the foam shapes roughed up the sponge tip quite a bit.  However, considering that I was doing this as a kid-friendly craft, I think I would still go with paint markers and get out the ink pads when the kid is in bed.

The toughest part for me was staying "hands off" and letting him do the inking and stamping (and gluing) by himself.  It's not about making it "perfect."  Lay a sheet or towel down if you're worried about a mess.  But, really, the best thing is to just make sure you use washable paint or ink.  Oh, and one other tip.  Don't tell your kid not to paint on themselves.  I tried that and it just caused him to "hide" on the carpet next to his chair where he was far more likely to make a mess on the floor and walls than if he was at the table painting his hands.  Tables are easy to clean, walls and carpet are not.

I had so much fun making and using these stamps.  I made repeating patterns by rotating the blocks to see how they would look.  Some of them were so interesting that I want to digitize them and design some fabric through Spoonflower.  I've already got my impressions made.  I'll let you know how it turns out.  In the meantime, get stamping!

A while back I found an adjustable knitting board at the thrift store and immediately saw its potential to be made into a weaving loom.  I've wanted to get back into weaving for quite some time.  I have a full-size, four-heddle floor loom at my parents house, but I've never had a place to put it in any of our apartments.  So, you can imagine how excited I was to make a loom that was both simple and portable.  Since our table saw is in storage at my sister-in-law's house, a couple months passed before I was able to move forward with the idea.  Finally, over the first couple weeks of January, we (my husband helped, of course) were able to put it together.  Here are a few pictures showing how we did it.

I decided to make my frame loom a little over two feet tall, so I bought 4 1/2 feet of 1 x 2 lumber (at about 60 cents a foot).  The great thing is that you can always make more sides of different lengths depending on your project.  After taking apart the knitting board, which was held together with wing nuts and bolts, I marked where the new holes were to be drilled at the front, taking into account the width of the wing nuts. 

The new construction method required four sets of bolts and wing nuts, so more had to be purchased.  The hardware that came with the knitting board was metric, so I opted for buying all new standard 1/4 - 20 pieces rather than pay the exorbitant price for matching metric hardware.

Using a table saw, my husband cut the wood to size.  Then, using the same table saw adjusted so that the blade was only 1/2" above the table level, he made many side-by-side cuts to create a channel the same width as the knitting board pieces.  A router would have been way easier and more precise, but, use what you got, right?  Once the sides were cut and channeled, I used the holes I drilled in the knitting as a guide for drilling the matching holes in the side pieces.  The corresponding holes are labelled to make it easier to put together.  To assemble it all, I laid out the side pieces, stacked the knitting board pieces in the channels with their corresponding letters, and bolted it all together. 

Now I can warp my frame loom...as soon as I have a spare few minutes...

 
​This past Sunday I had the opportunity to attend a block printing class at Handcraft Studio School in Emeryville.  Although I have been following them on Instagram for some time, ogling every class offering, and going to their artist-led garage sales, this was my first time attending as a student.  I was so excited to take the block printing class as it was at the top of my list of classes to take there.  It's always sold out months in advance, but a couple last minute cancellations gave me an opening.  I grabbed at the chance.  It was the perfect timing, really, because I recently purchased a stamp carving tool and tested it by carving on a couple erasers (you can see my second attempt here.)  Although my stamps turned out fine, I realized I could use a little help and professional expertise when it came to technique and materials.    

When the time came for the class, I arrived a bit early so I could feel more settled and so I would have a chance to look through my sketches for ideas.  As soon as I got there I realized that another local artist I follow on Instagram was there as well, and it was fun to meet her in person.  It was so awesome to be surrounded by other artists and makers and the inspiration that comes with it.  The class started with a brief introduction to the different tools and methods.  Then we moved right into sketching and transferring our designs onto the stamp block.  I chose an abstract design where the sides fit together a little like a puzzle piece.  I took my time with it and tested it several times to make sure I got the impression I wanted.  The process of block printing is time consuming, though.  At the end of the class, I had barely printed a couple square feet of fabric, if that.  

I'll definitely be doing more stamping and printing on fabric, though.  It's so much fun to sketch a simple design, carve it in rubber, and then repeat it onto fabric for an interesting effect.  It will also give me more interesting stuff to put in my Etsy shop.  After all, who wouldn't like a hand-printed coin purse or stuffed animal?  It'll take some time to get to that point, but I'm really looking forward to the testing phase.  Until then, I'll be ogling the classes and workshops for next year.  If you live in the area, I hope you'll join me.