Linnea 'Ea' quilts...

Craft Project Wednesday is a 2012 recurring blog post where I present a craft project I'm currently working on. Inside us all, no matter what we look like on the outside, there is a sugar-dependent brain screaming for more glucose. Okay, for it's also screaming for a lot of other things, but trust me about the glucose. We're all sugar addicts. Now, the craft course I'm currently enrolled in is inspiring in a lot of other ways than just about the  polymer clay  millefiori -technique. Take a look at the photo here under: Except for the "raspberry mousse cake" in the upper left corner, which 'typical' finnish cookies do you recognize in the photo? Did you get a sudden craving for cookies? Or chocolate? Or both? Or nothing? Damn, then you're mentally stronger than me! Well, YOU just go ahead and TRY making miniature food out of polymer clay and we'll see who's managed to NOT be desperately hungry for sugar afte...

Okay, first things first with this technique. You'll need a fridge, something to form it with (clay tools or thing you happen to have in your kitchen, like cocktail sticks and your rollling pin), and an oven. The mass needs to be heated up in order to become hard. You can use many types of acrylic masses for this technique, since there seems to be quite a lot of brands around. The ones that seem easiest to find around stores here in Turku are Cernit and Fimo. However, there seems to be a difference between brands, regarding the plasticity of the mass itself. Fimo, at least, is much more temperature stable than Cernit. This means that the mass doesn't "smear" as much and doesn't get too sticky and get stuck to things (read: you, the tools, the sheet of baking paper you use to protect your table...). It also means that you can use it for longer without it becoming too "droopey" and ruin the thing you're creating. It helps if you can put it in the f...

So, only three "lessons" left in the course I'm taking. Weird to think it's soon going to be over. It feels like it just begun. Today, I got to varnish most of my 'beads', and some buttons I had made at home last week while I was ill. Trying to stay still enough - I was shivering like a crazy person! - while painting small details on a surface that drank it like *snap* Needless to say, you got some interesting "splashy" areas on some of the buttons... But, the artwork aside, I think it's been fun trying to design something usable with the clay. Even though I'm clearly not a "clay person". I can understand the fuss, because you get to see very clearly how good you actually are at designing something with your own hands, but I don't think it's for me. Painted, dry and ready to get varnished. If you look really closely at the photo, you'll notice that the teapot leans slightly to one side. The bottom isn't ...

 ...and it's called " Modelling Jewellery ". It's held by the Turku Työväenopisto, and is going to be held on every Monday until the 17th of October. In the course description, it says that it's about " The basics of three-dimensional plasticity, modelling unique ornaments and jewellery from different modelling clays and learning to combine multicolour clays. " This means I have 15 minutes to get by bike from this course to the one in Argentine Tango. Mondays are gonna be busy days for the following weeks. I noticed that it only takes me about 5 min (by bike) to get to tango practice from the house that this course is being held in, so it wasn't as bad as I thought it would have been. I mean, stressful. Why did I want to take this course? Because I wrote on my "Non-faves of 2011"-list  that cernit-clay sculpting is a non-fave of mine. This way, I get to try out different types of clay/polymer modelling, and get to use more borrowed to...

Argh, to many skeins and bobbles to keep track of! - my original comment about this non-fave I consider myself to be more of a crocheter (a hooker, if put correctly. Yeah, you go ahead and laugh, but apparently it's a word used to describe oneself in crocheting circles) than a knitter.  There's nothing wrong about knitting, but I still like crocheting more. But, there are still a few things that you can't learn to do without resorting to needles. Knitting needles, not the other kind. In light of this non-fave, I decided to try my hand at making the Totoro mittens I've seen knitted at least once on the Nekku and/or Turku Ravelry knit-meets. Riikka made one pair in lovely soft dark merino wool, and she had made a pair in green wool too . And since they were so lovely, I really wanted a pair of my own. So little left! Only a few more rows! This was how far I had gotten on Monday the 15th. I was so proud, and more than a little impatient to loose my "knitted ...

Even more needles, and I can feel them creeping in under my nails! - original comment about this Well... where to start? As mentioned before , I talked with Maria . Thanks to her, I did get to borrow - not one but - two embroidery hoops. The sizes of these actually defined how the embroidery turned out in the end, since I actually didn't have that much  pre-planned for this project. Oh, had made a few sketches in my notebook, and read up on embroidery in the book " Bonniers Stora bok om Broderi" . It's a really  good book, I might add. A summary of the history of embroidery, pictures of different techniques, and example projects - this book is really extensive. I couldn't have done this project without it. One of the embroidery hoops. Well, about the projects. I had made two knitting project-bags (just regular bags that are supposed to hold your knitting when you lay it aside for a while) out of some spare fabric I once bought from IKEA. The hoops fit thes...

In January, I posted a list with all my personal crafts "non-faves". For those of you thinking "huh?", this is an excerpt of what I wrote then: These "non-fave" things are supposed to be things and techniques that you yourself haven't yet wanted to try out , because of lack of time/childhood traumas/other personal reasons etc. The reason for the list is that YOU are supposed to try out these techniques during this year, and see if they were as bad/awful/Armageddon as you imagined them to be. I'll be posting more about my non-faves (see the list here and below) soon, so stay tuned. You'll be able to find them under the tag " the none-faves of '11 ". Fair-isle knitting and Intarsia Doily(-crocheting) Cross stitching Embroidery Cernit-clay sculpting Seed pearl beadwork

In January, I posted a list with all my personal crafts "non-faves". For those of you thinking "huh?", this is an excerpt of what I wrote then: These "non-fave" things are supposed to be things and techniques that you yourself haven't yet wanted to try out, because of lack of time/childhood traumas/other personal reasons etc. The reason for the list is that YOU are supposed to try out these techniques during this year, and see if they were as bad/awful/armageddon as you imagined them to be. Well, since spring is on its way soon (I hope, even though it started raining slush as we all walked home from dance practice), and I hope to actually get some of these techniques off my chest, I did some planning regarding the non-fave list.  Tove, remember our 'talk' (more like write :P) about lists ? Mom's embroidery book (which I gratefully borrowed). Do note the amount of micro-post its' on the pages. I like to make my "research...