Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Lizard

I belong to a group called Altered Minds, an inspiring group of artistic women who meet once a month and do fiber arts and everything else you or they can imagine. Each month there is a project that someone in the group teaches. This time it was a lizard made of fabric around a florist's wire armature. We had a "Lizard Gathering" at the meeting today. Here was my contribution:

First, I made the armature out of the wire. Then I covered it with strips of the upholstery samples I had from the furniture in my living room. I secured the strips with black thread. The feet are made out of beads I had from a friendship bracelet project I'd done a few years ago. They are tied on with hemp string.



Then I put a head on it and wrapped the whole thing with some gold thread I pulled out of some drapery trim I had from a photo shoot. The eyes are small shell beads. I think they look like iguana's eyes darting in different directions.



Finally, I tied on some gold at the end of the tail and sewed on a scrap of red ribbon for the mouth.



There were over 30 lizards at the gathering of all sizes and decor. One even had three heads. A frog and scorpion crashed the party as well. The Altered Minds will soon have a blog, so I will point you there once that is up. There you'll be able to see the gathering in its entirety, along with the artists themselves.

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Punched Copper

I needed a screen for my salt lamp during the night. So, I got a sheet of copper and punched out a design of "Om," a religious symbol for Hindus and Buddhists and also a mantra many people chant during meditation. Here's the process:

The copper sheet was the size of a sheet of printer paper. I found an "Om" symbol online that I liked and printed it out that same size. I put the printout over the copper and traced it with a dull, rounded pencil to make lines on the copper. Here's what that looked like:



Then I used an ice pick to punch out the outer lines and a quilling needle (of course) to punch out all the inner lines. That looked like this:




So when I put it in front of the salt lamp in the darkened room, I got this:




Neat, huh? I'm going to mount it with two or three other opaque panels and make a screen that will sit around the lamp. When I solve that puzzle, I'll post it.

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Quilled Asclepius Staff, (More) Snowflakes & a Shamrock

I've been working more and more on my quilling, so here's my latest:

First, more snowflakes:

A beautiful white one:


And for scale, here is the same snowflake with a pencil:


Here's a blue one I made with some different kind of paper that is thicker and a little more difficult to work with:



And a purple one:




And my whole snowbank:



Then, for a doctor friend's birthday, I created a Staff of Asclepius:



Finally, in keeping with the season, a St. Paddy's Day shamrock:

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