Raku Pots

When I was a full time student, I took first year clay. After I graduated from the textiles program, I went back and took second year clay. I could have gone back for third year but the student loans were adding up and I figured that it was probably time to find a job. Sigh.

I spent the first day that we were making pots focused on throwing. It was not quite like riding a bike. The first pot that I threw was beautiful. The second was alright. And the third ended up in the muck pile. Peter gave a throwing demonstration and along with the explanations I started to remember a bit of what I had learned about 17 years ago.
I managed to get some measure of control over the forms that I was throwing but by no means was I in complete control.

I had taken a night class in 2000 so I had thrown since my student days. It was good to get back to it. I just counted and I threw 17 bowls! Oh my!
One of the other things that I really enjoy doing is building boxes. I hand built some during my 2000 night class and was planning to make some more this time around. Peter showed us a couple of videos and one of them had a fellow that uses an extruder. After a quick look at the extruder forms that the school has, I decided to make some extruded boxes.

I made some little boxes and some bigger ones. There were also some end bits that I thought would make interesting as small vessels.
Here are two more boxes and a vessel of sorts.
Another box.
On Wednesday, our last day to build, Mira came by and made a cup. She came back on Friday to glaze it. Liam came with her and I gave him a bowl to glaze. They both turned out really well.
Yet another box.
This one is my favorite box.
One of the other things that I made years ago was a mold for fish. I built clay fish and a friend helped to make a plaster cast of them. I brought the mold in and after I had made some fish I offered the mold to anyone else that wanted to use it. By the end were were referring to the fish as "those damn fish". They were slightly awkward to place on the small bricks because the backs were slightly hollowed out but had a hanging flap of clay on the back that made them uneven.
More fish. I think that my two favorites are the two in the front.
There are a few more pots that are less successful that I didn't take pictures of. Now I have to find a place to put a bunch of these. And of course there are some of you that will be getting some when you visit.

Raku

Since Christmas, Mira has been taking a night pottery class. The first part was "pottery for teens" which she didn't like very much because her classmates were more interested in running round the school and socializing than with actually making pots. SO when the second set of night classes were ready to run, she asked if she could be in the adult one. I talked to her teacher and he said that it was fine because she actually had enough focus and was serious enough to be with the adults.

The class was 7 weeks but on the last week they really couldn't make anything so Chris decided to do a raku firing. Raku is a quick firing method unlike the conventional firing methods that take more than a day to slowly bring the kiln up to temperature and then hold it there and then let everything slowly cool off.

The first thing that you have to do is put on protective clothing. The kiln is really hot!
Then using long metal tongs you put the pots in the kiln and shut the door and wait 30 to 45 minutes.
The tongs are grabbed again and the hot pots are taken out and put in a garbage can containing crumpled newspaper and sawdust.

This creates quit a bit of smoke and the newsprint and sawdust catch fire.
After about 15 minutes, the pots are cool enough to be quenched in water where they cool enough to handle and get scrubbed off!
Here is Mira with her pot.
She was not happy that it was her last class until the fall.
But I am taking a raku class this summer! It is part of the Edventures program that is running this summer. I am teaching a temari ball workshop and as an instructor I get a discount on any one workshop that I would like to take.
If you are going to be in the area this summer, you should check out the long list of workshops that are being offered.

Goodbye March!

The last assignment that I had for my class was to make something out of materials that were not fabric and then translate them into fabric.
I had a few ideas kicking around my head but nothing really concrete until I walked by the library where the librarian had just put out some packing material that had come with some new books.

The light went on, the wheels turned and this is where it ended up. Very "non-fabric"!
Now came the fun part. Translating it into something that was made of fabric. It only had to be loosely translated so that made things a lot easier.
It reminded me of a down filled vest, so that is where my idea started.
The original had the usual advertisement of the product and the warning labels that "this product is not a flotation device" and "keep out of reach of children". I decided after much deliberation that I wanted poems of some sort that spoke of winter and cold. A few google pages later I came across the haiku diaries and found the words that I would use. I asked for and received permission from Rachel and Jenna (haiku artists extraordinaire) the use of some of their winter haiku's. ( I don't know if the 's is correct or if haiku is one of those "plural and single all in one" kind of words, so I will just use haiku from now on)
I made a silk screen (even though the screen mesh is some frighteningly synthetic material and not at all silk) and exposed some of the haiku on it.
Here is a close up of one of the haiku.
And printed them on the organza. I debated what colour of organza to use and finally decided to use a tan colour. It reminded me a bit of dirty, melting snow.
Then cam the fun of assembling them. I tried a couple of different things but they did not turn out at all satisfactory. So out came the stitch ripped and out came the seams.
I decided to pair each haiku fabric piece with a plain piece and create pillows quite like the air filled pillows of the original vest.

I sewed up most of the seams, leaving only enough open to stuff the pillows.

With what did I stuff them? Feathers of course! These are lovely polka dot feathers that I found at the dollar store. Nature is truly amazing!

After all of the stuffing, I hand stitched the openings closed and then stitched together the corners. I then decided to make a couple of smaller pillows to act as the closure area.
And the final product! I am not completely happy with the end result. I like the idea, I like the haiku, I like the feathers. But the final construction leaves a bit to be desired. But there is only so many hours in the day and so much energy in my old bones, so I decided to leave it for now. I think that when I get it back from marking, I am going to pick the bottom apart and reassemble it to more resemble the original. I am also going to sew all of the adjoining seams. But seeing as all of that sewing will be hand sewing, I am going to wait until I have a little more spare time and things are not as hectic.

Thanks again to Jenna and Rachel for allowing me to use their words.

Oh, and the name of the vest is simple "March Vest" which brings us back to the title of this post...

Good bye March!
Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!

Great Balls of Pollen?

Back to the heat setting experiments....

You remember the heat setting that I was doing back in early February?
This was the piece of fabric after I had filled it full of nails. The poly organza was laid over each nail and a small rubber band was wrapped around it. I went through the entire jar of nails. "How many nails?", you may ask. Let's just say that some things are better to remain a mystery.
After binding the fabric, I put it under the heat setting machine. As I mentioned before, the heat setting machine is basically a heating coil and fan. The idea is that the heat slightly melts the polyester fabric and when it cools down, it stays in what ever shape it was bound.

In this case it was poky bits that looked like some close up photos of pollen. Which is what I was aiming for.
I made a form out of reed from a basketry class that I had taken a few years ago and stitched on the fabric
It was a bit of a challenge to cover the entire ball, but with some creative clipping and stitching, I was able to get full coverage. This little guy is probably about 8 inches high.

The problem was that with full coverage I was missing the detail of the beautiful basketry that was the base. So I made a larger one and covered it with the clippings and some of the leftover fabric. I think that this one is my favorite in the series.
Next came the other pollen type. The fabric for this was a silver poly organza that had been bound and scrunched on a piece of PVC pipe and steamed to set it. I read about steam setting synthetic fabric in a sewing magazine while I was looking for something completely different. Instead of using the heat set machine, can bind and then steam your fabric using a vegetable steamer. Let's face it, vegetable steamers are easier to get then a heat setting machine.

This one I had great difficulty with. I first tried to cover the entire ball with the fabric but it ended up looking a bit messy no matter which way I put the fabric on.

So I cut it off and made swirls which looked great when there was only one, but looked silly when the ball was full of them. So I trimmed them to make then narrower. But that didn't look any better.
So finally, I cut them off again and laid the narrower strips along the ball to sort of mimic the inspirational pollen photo.


And there you have it! Great balls of pollen. So far the response has been positive. Very positive. So positive in fact that several of my class mates have asked me to show them how to make the basket forms. It looks like there is a workshop in my future!

Leaf Pillow

I must be insane.......

163 leaves have been printed for my pillow. And with the material that I am using (basically fake suede) and the printing ink that I am using (Speedball metallic gold) you can only get one good print before you need to rinse out the screen and re-coat the edges with tape.
One print.
163 leaves.
Yup.
Insane.

Here are some of those leaves that have been printed. On the left are the cut ones, on the right, are the ones to cut.

I made a pillow that was the approximate shape of a pile of leaves. And I started to sew. And sew. And sew. And sew...... you get the picture. It strated to go much quicker when I realized that I didn't need to sew all of the leaf spines down, just the main central one. And later if I needed to sew more of the leaf, I could. A lot of them will be overlapped any way and would be tacked down by the stitches on the top leaf.
Things started to get much quicker.

I am now more than half way through my leaves and I still need to put a bottom on my pillow. There will only be leaves on the top and sides of my pillow. The bottom will be a solid piece of fabric with leaves that overlap the edges.

It is due on Monday so I have a lot of sewing to do in the next 24 hours!