Sows' Ears

My granddad said you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear, but as long as I have made things, since childhood, that has been my quest.  I painted a pueblo from red Georgia clay mixed with glue, on a board that had separated sheets of Xray film that mom brought home from her nursing job. Made jewelry from berries, roots and leaves and wished they wouldn't wilt so much.  This weekend, it rained like the tropics, so I settled down with my tin boxes of fabric scraps, old thread and sewing notions, and stitched till my hands hurt.  It was a lot like panting and drawing, and I enjoyed myself. The resulting textile assemblages came from an array of nearly exhausted sources, resuscitated for another spring: a feedsack cutter quilt, a shirt collar, the strap of a toddler's romper, silk, velvet, sewing thread, antique copper sequins, trim, and notions.  The rhinestone circles were cut from a burlesque costume and appliqued with the blanket stitch, the wild blue spirals from a feed sack print, the bee embroidered, not with floss, but with old sewing thread on wooden bobbins. The rhinestone piece is available in my Etsy shop, in time for spring.

La Cousette

Just off the bench, a garland suitable for wear or display. The "instigating piece" (Keith LoBue's turn of phrase) is the pyrographed and painted wooden case, which once held attar of roses, a souvenir of Bulgaria.  I captured it in hand wrought steel, added a red glass rosary with a ribbon needle, a fragment of necklace with hand painted roses, my kumihimo braid of old sewing thread, a delicious strawberry pin cushion, which I made myself, of silk velvet shibori; mother of pearl and bone buttons, and at the last, an antique tailor's thimble, which is seen in the more recent first photo, above.

Book and Cat Lover Alert

 'Just finished this little brooch, 2 by 1-5/8.  I love old books, doesn't matter the text, and I love the inscriptions in them, fancy end papers, and the marks of the years and damage they have sustained. So I've used a book cover from a children's book inscribed "to my niece, Aunt Sophie, Aug. 27, '86," in a spidery hand, and that's 1883 my dears!  The pin finding is nickel wire bent into a safety pin sort of configuration and secured to the cover with waxed linen tied through copper grommets.  From an old copy of Hiawatha I cut a stack of pages, mounted my miniature embroidery to that, and finished with a frame cut from the same text.  At the last, a lovely surprise appeared, just beneath the kitty a fragment of text says "strings of fish"!  That's when I abandoned using a tin frame I had cut and thought to rivet over the stack. As the saying goes, one must be ready to sail to Serendip when the opportunity arises.

Tool Porn!

Nothing so sweet as the best tool in your hand for the job you want to do.  Kevin's products raise the making of tools to artisanship.  Go see PotterUSA.com!  I am overwhelmed with desire for his jeweler's die press.  And then there's the beautiful saw frame with the pink grip.  Ahhh!

Hot off the Bench

Just listed in my Etsy shop at https://www.etsy.com/listing/222861458/hot-vintage-found-object-assemblage

The Bees Upon The Flowers

 

A handwrought steel fibula suspends a reliquary fashioned from the pages of an mid-19th c.children's book, sandwiched between two layers of tin reclaimed from a Chinese tea cannister. It is held in place using a marlinspike knotting technique called "mousing," that I learned from Keith LoBue, with waxed baker's twine threaded through tube rivets which also hold the assemblage in place.  Beneath that, a pair of antique mercury glass bugle beads on red silk.  I love the way the beads have patchy mirroring that is highlighted by the silk that shows through the places where it has flaked away; it seems to resonate with the foil on the printed tin.  The reliquary contains an embroidered bee I made, some silver glass beads that move around, and an engraved illustration from the story book.  I layered mica over the chamber and then poured resin over the mica for some magnification.

A beekeeper friend, Alan Hawkins, tells me that yesterday was the feast day of St. Gobnait, the patron of bee keepers.  I'm right on time, for once!

Seven Star Neckpiece

Here's a curious embellishment for the neckline.  A collarette of contemporary glass beads and found things, including milagro, measuring tape, bits of 19th c. text, end papers, a hand fashioned copper bail, a steel thing found in the street, a Victorian mourning button, and a number 7 key from an adding machine, which I expect is made of Bakelite.  Surprisingly pretty on, and when you turn it over, there's a steel engraved illustration of a little girl with her pull toy, from an 1800s children's book and my initials faintly scratched on the back of the star, by way of signing my work.