Emboridery

This week I was sick and needed something to do while sitting and groaning, being totally ignored by my family unless they wanted food.

I decided to embroidery a piece I had been dreaming up and went to work.
Here is a picture of Klimt's Tree of Life.



I drew out my version onto a piece of fabric and got to work in stem stitch (which is not my strong point) and was delighted with the outcome, but of course I had to embellish more.



This was about half way through.  I filled in the green knots a lot more as I felt that it needed to be more lush The concept is spring through winter.  I had just started on Fall here with the red knots.

Now I am done with the leaves and I am working on lettering the seasons around the edge.  I am using chain stitch ( my favorite) to write the words.  When that is done I plan on decorating them with more embroidery; blooms for spring, a sun for summer and so on.  Ambitious aren't I?  Yeah.  I am already thinking about my next project.

What am I going to use this for when I am done?  Well I don't know.  I thought about a pillow, but I really don't want someone sitting on my hard work.  Maybe I will frame it.  I don't know, I will probably give it away. 

On a side note, I went out to make glass beads yesterday.  I bribed Meghan at the beginning of summer.  I told her if she would practice her flute that I would give her bead lessons.  Well, she has practiced (only a few times) so I took her out and let her make some beads.  She did pretty well for her first time, and with practice I think will be great.  This is definitely a parental supervision only activity though and I hate giving up my own time at the torch.  Maybe I can set up my old Hot Head for her to use. It is a beginner torch and will be great for her to learn on, but it is noisy!   I will see how it goes.  I learned my lesson after she was gone though.  I have a habit of getting really close to the torch to see, too close actually.  A piece of hot glass popped off my rod and landed on my lip.  As most everyone would do I used my tongue to push it off; bad idea!  I burned my tongue too.  As any respectful beadmaker would do, I finished the bead before going in the house for ice (it is not a bad burn, just not in a good place). Glad I did finish too because it turned out pretty cool.  Pictures soon.

Change of Plan

I was going to post the instructions for the eraser stamps. Life got in the way. My 16 year old son, Brandon called to ask me to bring a text book that he had forgotten this morning. I don't know what it is with my kids but they are so unorganized. I only take them their stuff half the time as I feel that they should learn to get it together. The other half I take pity on them and give in. Today was one of those days.
So today I will share some pictures of another of my passions. You already have seen the bead in my header, the toadstool. It is made from glass and I made it. I have a torch that gets very, very hot and I melt rods of glass in various colors to make beads (I am trying to break into marbles but so far they are not very round, which kind of defeats the purpose). I wrap the beads around a mandrel, a metal rod dipped in a release agent so the glass doesn't stick to the rod. Then they go into a kiln to be annealed. This makes the glass stronger as heating it disturbs the molecules. It is so much fun and I have a wonderful studio, a garden shed that has been finished with sheet rock and has a heater, air conditioner and exhaust fan. My private get away.
My torch uses oxygen and Propane, I use a tank of gas like the one on a grill and two former medical concentrators hooked up in tandem for the oxygen.
Well enough of that, here are some pictures.