New Shawl and Collaboration

Over the past few months I have been collaborating with a good friend of mine, Carmen, who is also in the same Artisan Co-op Market that I am in.  She is a talented crocheter and goes by "Stitches in Tyme - Contemporary Crochet".  I have been posting some of her pieces with my buttons and shawl pins on my facebook page but I wanted to share more about it here.

This is a shawl she recently made for me.  I had the yarn sitting around hoping I could find the time to eventually make something but never seemed to manage it.  So I was more than happy to give it over to Carmen when she offered and now I am so excited I have my finished piece and can hardly wait to wear it!

Isn't it lovely?  It is also super soft and drapes so beautifully.  The yarn is from Colour Adventures and in a Cupcake blend which took 2 "cakes" to create.

The shawl sticks are from my Snap Decisions Collection which have a snap base and you can interchange the decorative snaps.

Carmen has other beautiful shawls that she has created available in the Shuswap Artisan Market.  I have matched up some optional shawl pins to coordinate in case someone is looking for that perfect match.

Or if you would like Carmen to make something special for you, she does custom orders.  You can see more of her creations on her facebook page here.

Carmen also crochets hats, scarves, finger-less gloves and unique baskets, just to name a few.  We have also teamed up by adding a snap base, instead of typical buttons to some of her hats.

This is so much fun as you can choose your preferred accent design and interchange them for a whole new look!  We have a selection available in my online store and if you would like Carmen to make you a different color or design with an added snap base, just contact me or Carmen with your request.

Sweater and Shawl Accent Pieces at Kelowna Yarn & Needlecrafts

We have been busy making more shawl and sweater accent pieces for the yarn shops that sell our work.  Our Sweater Guards have been a real hit and we came up with this display for the stores to show them off.  These pieces shown here are now available at Kelowna Yarn & Needlecrafts.

This is Rebecca modelling what she calls a "Shawlette".  It is really pretty isn't it?  It is kind of like a shawl and scarf combined and I love the beadwork on the trim.  This is a class project that Rebecca will be teaching in March at Kelowna Yarn & Needlecrafts.  She is also wearing one of our shawl sticks which makes a nice accent piece as well as a fastener.

Fibre Festival at A Twist of Yarn in Vernon, BC

We have been surrounding ourselves with flowers this week -- both in the garden outdoors and these new ones we have been making indoors.  These are our "Brilliant Blooms" shawl/hair sticks in our new display ready for the Fibre Festival in Vernon this Saturday, May 24th.

The Fibre Festival is put on by A Twist of Yarn and it should be a fun full day.  There is lots of activities and we are especially looking forward to see the sheep sheering and felting demos.

We will be there with our large selection of buttons, shawl pins and scarf jewelry and I will be demonstrating how we make our flowers and ladybugs.

More Butterflies and Owls

There has been a big demand lately for items with butterflies and owls.  These are more butterflies this time  made into shawl sticks.

And here are more owls made into shawl sticks as well.

Whenever I make a new item such as these owls, I like to take a photo showing basic construction.

I then print it out on an index card with more instructions such as clay thickness, clay color recipes used, etc.  I then keep it in this mini album that sits on my desk for a quick reference guide.  It is important that I do this and not just trust my memory for when I need to make more.

Here are more owls that I made using Judy Belcher's Knitting technique on CraftArtEdu.

My friend, Cynthia Blanton, lives miles away at the other end of the country, but thanks to the internet and e-mails, we feel much closer.  We seem to have a lot of similar interests -- at least where polymer clay comes in.  She has been playing with Judy Belcher's tutorial as well and you can see some cool items she has made on her blog.  I love her "knit" sweater which would pair quite nicely with my knit socks.

I should mention that all of the above items (except Cynthia's adorable sweater of course) are now available at The Falkland General Store.  This is a real gem with lots of great supplies and gift type items for the knitter or anyone else who just enjoys cool stuff!

Decorative Brooch Shawl Pins

Our stick shawl pins are quite popular with the local yarn shops that sell our work.  The sharp pin allows them to fit into the tighter knits or looser weave fabrics where a typical shawl pin will not.

I quit making them for awhile as I found they were quite labor intensive for the price point we can get for them.  Since we were receiving more requests, I decided to remake the design to not only increase production time but come up with more styles as well.

New Design

Original Design

These are now available in the local yarn stores.  If we catch up on our orders we may have a few to list later in our Etsy Shop.  You can see more designs on our website.

New Stick Shawl Pins for Fall

I've been working on some new scarf or shawl Stick Pins in fall colors and patterns.  The sticks we use are very sturdy and sharp so they go through most looser weave type fabrics as well as tight woven knits. They work great on anything from a scarf to a shawl, shrug or sweater.

Follow up on your comments

Thanks so much for your comments on the pendant I posted.  Some of you recognized Julie Picarello's technique.  I took her workshop almost 2 years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it.  It is the only workshop I've ever taken and glad I did for the experience and fun get together with other fellow clayers.  Some of you mentioned how her style and technique is now popping up all over the place since her book came out and may be a little over used for a while but that is okay.  I still love to play with stacked, layered and textured clay and experimenting with a way to create more of an abstract look.

This brings me to the bet Dave and I made with each other.  I was playing with my clay layered stack and decided to formulate some type of scene.  When I showed Dave my pendant, I asked him what he saw and at first he didn't see anything -- go figure!  I then gave him some suggestions as to what I saw (which I had some liberty as I did make the piece - ha).  I showed him the sky, the hill, the possible water at the bottom ---  He did see the sun!  yippee!  On the other hand he did decide it was a sunset over a moonscape --- he felt calling it a landscape was stretching it a bit.

We then made a bet.  I said I would post a photo of it on our blog and ask our followers what they see and compare who is right ---

To settle the bet ... any of the comments that mentioned desert, sun, etc. were a point for Dave. 

Any of the comments that referred to scenes or landscapes were a point for me.

We eliminated the faces, fish, birds and whatever -- except for the FraggleRock comment.  Dave insisted on a point for that one!  (In his opinion FraggleRock was the best TV show ever made)

As for the comments on Facebook?  Well -- let's just say they are just wierd!  Ninja turtles???  lol!

All in all we settled on a tie -- (for now...)  It was fun though to see how so many people can look at the same thing and all get a totally different impression!

So now the inspiration behind this piece....

I bought this gorgeous wrap style poncho shawl from a local artist friend, Jan Seedhouse.  Her work is fabulous and all made by her on her loom.  You can see the shawl in our blog post here.

So, I've been wanting to make some new jewelry pieces to go with my shawl.  I created some new bargello (which I will show you later) and decided to play around with some of the same colors.  Here are some photos of the pendant piece with my shawl to see how the colors coordinate.

Thanks again for all your comments!  We had a lot of fun reading them!

Tartan + Wool = Sheep

I finished another custom order this week.   a tartan in blue and green with a red stripe, similar to the ancient tartan her husband wears.  I was already planning my next tartan cane and looking for color combination ideas, so this is how my latest tartan came about:

I love the colors in this plaid as they are very striking yet also warm and soothing.

I was asked if I could make a shawl pin in the form of a sheep using this tartan cane.  She explained how as a knitter and the wife of a Scotsman, sheep have a special place in her heart.  I never made a shawl pin before -- or a sheep either on the other hand -- but I loved the idea and decided to take the challenge!

Once I drew out my pattern, the rest fell into place.  I made a veneer in the tartan and cut out my design with it.  I added the face and ears last.  I found the perfect steel pin that I covered in clay that actually glides through the knitted sweater or shawl beautifully.

I'm extremely pleased with how the whole piece turned out and now I will have to make a shawl pin for myself!