Happy Halloween

Candy corn


Crow and pumpkins

It's Halloween in the shop!
Have a happy haunted Halloween.

Halloween Drawings

Halloween drawings


Black cat


Cobwebs


Rest in peace


Flying bat ship

I drew these for Halloween and hung them in the shop today.

Wrapping

Furoshiki wrapped tissue


Tissue box

I just finished this furoshiki. It makes a really nice cover for a tissue box.

Shop

Furoshiki display


Furoshiki bag and box


Hon tsutsumi, wrap for 2 books

I'm making a display in the shop to showcase the furoshiki wraps.

Wrapping

Silk furoshiki


Wrapped box


Gift wrap

This is my latest furoshiki in orange and purple silk. It's all hand sewn and very light and soft.
This style of wrap is the Otsukai Tsutsumi or basic carry wrap.
I made it from recycled silk clothing - very sustainable.

Wallets

Blue cotton with white stitching


Burlap with toile interior

I'm making some wallets to go with my tote bags and these are the first two.
The blue has one pocket and a closure and the burlap has two pockets.

New Work

Furoshiki

These are finished and ready for the shop.


Army barracks bag

I got an army surplus bag with holes in it and decided to embellish it with stitching.


Detail

I really like the old Japanese mended textiles like these at SRI Threads and that's the look I'm going for. This is some of my favorite kind of stitching - very meditative.

Making Furoshiki

Fabric I bought today


Turning a hem

This is the fabric I bought at Surplus City today. I'm using this to make furoshiki for gift wrap in the shop.


Colorful prints


Florals

This fabric will be used to line my tote bags and wallets.

The Visit

Abby and Katie at the Verandah

Katie and Abby came for a visit! It's Abby's birthday so we had a dinner party.


The birthday girl

Cake and ice cream of course.


Dinner party time


Cake and ice cream

Wegman's vanilla cake is delicious!


Pancakes

The next morning we went out for breakfast before heading out for some shopping.


Our destination


Surplus City


Shopping with the girls

We love shopping here. They have everything! We got lots of fabric for projects.
I wish they didn't have to leave tonight. This visit was too short!

Snow!

Snow

It started snowing! This is a little early for us here in central PA.
It's going to be cold out in my studio now!


Snow


Snow


Snow

We ended up getting about 6 inches!

Working in the Studio

My work table

I started making some pendants and pins for my first kiln load.
I don't have a wheel yet so I'm hand building. These are porcelain. They are based on my coral reef pin designs.


Pins

The pins are flat and will have pinbacks glued on and the pendants are domed and will hang on chains.


Pendant


Pendant


Pendant


Pendants

I started out thinking coral reef but then they started to look like little moons.
Coral reefs in space?

New Studio

New kiln

I opened my ceramic studio today! I've been wanting a ceramic studio for a long time and this summer I was given a kiln (bless you Marcy!) and I finally got it hooked up and going (thanks E & N). It was lovely to spend the day out here making stuff.
Here are pictures of kiln moving day.


Moving day


Getting it in the garage


It's big!


Ready to wire

It's incredibly heavy - about 700 lbs. And I have another couple hundred lbs. of shelving and posts. Now I'm working on stuff for her first run.

New Wall Hanging

Autumn sunset

It's finished! This is hand sewn from cotton scraps given to me by a neighbor.

Coffee Tote

Coffee tote

Here is another tote bag for the shop.


Coffee tote

These are sewn from recycled burlap coffee sacks and lined with floral cotton prints from my fabric stash.