I found another craft to tinker with!

Polymer clay!

I bought some clay in Albany a while back. But it was all white and I wanted to try colours. I have art pastels and used those to add colour to the white polymer clay. I wanted to make something small but the clay got so hot in my hands it was difficult to work with. I found out later that Fimo is much better for detailed work but Sculpey is a bit softer and not so good for smaller details. Anyway, I made a cute little gnome house to try it out.

It's certainly cute but I still don't have a handle on dealing with the clay before it gets impossibly tacky. So, for my birthday I bought a lot more clay (still Sculpey. There didn't seem much point trying anything else when I already had Sculpey) and some more tools. But even with the colours I had I had trouble wrapping my head around what I wanted to make and what I could actually manage.

I tried cutting out medallions and impressing tatted motifs on to them. Of course, totally forgot to put a hole at the top to hang them from. I tried pushing coloured clay into the tatted impression but that didn't workout as well as I had hoped. I tried making a pendant with lots of flowers on it but I used a phillips head screwdriver to mark the tops and actually the pendant looks like a horde of molar teeth covered in murky paint. So as you see I haven't really been very satisfied with my experiments. I used ink and watercolour paint to colour in the impressions. Not bad but not brilliant either. 

The only pendant that I liked I ruined when I had to fix the back because it cracked. I tried to protect the clear coating I had put on the design when I recooked the new back but...it didn't work. It went kind of bubbly and cloudy. Not happy...

But, nothing daunted, I tried some more. I had a lovely mould with heaps of faces so I thought I could play with that...

I like this better than anything I've done so far although it still frustrates me that the flowers became difficult to handle as my hands heated up the teeny pieces of clay. And as for trying to get them to attach to the face...Arghhh! As you can see with the face, my big, hot, clunky hands have battered it around a bit, flattening the detail.

I still have hope! I decided to try something different. I tried using stamps dusted with chalk to make more medallions. I'd have used ink pads if I'd had any that were any good but they had all dried out from lack of use. They're nice enough but not really very good.

And with the new cutters I have I added leaves to the flowers on another face. I tried adding colour to the lips but I don't think it worked very well. Sigh.

 I'm enjoying playing but I get so frustrated when my expectations fall dismally short. But I will not be defeated! I've ordered some more colours and maybe I'll manage to get a pasta machine so I can condition the clay that way instead of in my hot little hands! But there's a huge potential here for a lot of cute little creations...if I can just come to grips with the medium!

Polymer Clay! Great stuff!

See you all later!

Dx

Late! So late!!

But I couldn't think of anything really earth shattering to share since last time so instead I've decided to be quick and brief.
I have been knitting like a machine with my combo beanies. I'm really starting to use up all that combined cone yarn I turned into more knittable 8 ply weight yarn. I made some headway on the lace socks but unfortunately knit holes in my fingers so I've had to put it aside for a bit. And I finished the first character on the third line of my Monty Python Cross Stitch.
All on all, pretty productive week I thought!
See you all later
Dx

Okay, I may have knit a bit too much this time...

I know, shocker, huh?

I've finished all these beanies over the last 2 or 3 weeks. I've used up all the Moda Vera Bouvardia ball I bought on a whim and loved watching the colour change as I paired it with the dark grey of the combo yarn. I thought it worked really well. And it feels gorgeous!!

And as well as all that I've also finally packaged up the beanies I need to send to my niece and youngest son. All nicely labelled and wrapped up ready to trundle down to the post...on Monday.

So, after I'd finished the last Bouvardia beanie I thought I'd do some more of the sock I've been slowly working my way through. I'm knitting up the extra gusset stitches after doing the heel and that's really not that interesting. And they're on 2mm needles. And there's a certain amount of tension because the gauge is firm.

Alas! I have knit HOLES in my fingertips! I'd like to pretend that this is a new thing but my family will loudly refute that claim. I OFTEN knit holes in my fingers. Indeed, I even fashioned a couple of finger thimbles to wear to counter this very thing! But I forgot and by the time I remembered, the damage was done! My skin splits where there's been constant friction and pressure and there is NO PAIN quite like the pain of poking yourself in your open, abused flesh with a pointy metal needle!

So I thought I'd better give the knitting a day or two off to give my skin a bit of time to think about what it's done and get back with the program! I mean, damn it! I have stuff to knit!!

In the meantime I've finally gotten out the paracord I bought when last in Albany and looked up all these instructions for paracord bracelets I'd been saving on Pinterest. I had even bought the right clips for it too! The hardest part though was figuring out what to do with the left over strands when you got to the bracelet end. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to tie a knot (Tried that. Looked clunky. Didn't like it.) or somehow slip the cords behind the back. In the end, that's what I did. It took the broadest wool needle I had and a pair of pliers but I managed it!

They look pretty good, don't they? Well worth the experience and now I can thing of heaps of other applications and really wish I'd bought more colours. Bother!

And last of all, I finally finished 3rd character 2nd line on my Monty Python cross stitch. After not really picking it up at all for over a fortnight, I thought resting my fingertips would be a good time to pick up a sewing needle instead.

There he is! Slightly underwhelming but you can't have everything. Next is the Green knight. But we see how I go with that tomorrow maybe.

So there you are. Manic knitting resulting in physical harm brings on a Paracord experiment and leads on to Dogged Cross stitching!

Yes, that pretty well describes my week.

See you all Later

Dx