I’ve been waiting for the ring and it’s awesome! That clay is intense and the texture effect was such a cool choice.
Would you be willing to elaborate a bit on what we’re looking at? Coasters? Round tuits?
No matter what they are, they look like they were fun to make!
They’re called leather rounders, usually used for tooling practice, but they can be used to learn dyeing as well! After theyve been tooled and dyed they can be used as coasters, or decoration, or just to show off your skills.
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These are “rounders” which can be used as coasters or for anything, really. They make good samplers for tooling, dyeing, etc. they are (I think) 4” diameter.
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My 2nd laser cut box. Gift for niece in which to hold treasurers. 3-in cube. Came up with a lid that is flush to the edges of the box and snaps in place. The cutouts are a commercial stencil file.
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I just bought a micro bird a couple of weekends ago. Drove it from Crescent, OK and drive great. It was converted into a party bus by the previous owner. I unscrewed some of the seating and found a random mound of dog food. Who builds around a mound of dog food? I don’t get it. Also, 4 dead mice. Ah, the glamour. Will be converting it into an RV!
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Going to speculate that was a temporary ‘feature’ during build time that got covered over in a fit of short-sighted expedience during crunch time.
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Or that the aforementioned mice were stashing it there.
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If so, those would be some really forward-thinking mice.
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They were so close to being well fed, but were found on the other side of the bus. RIP
Rats definitely hoard food, I imagine mice would too. Somebody likely poisoned the mice, so they died without getting to eat the food. Or they died of some terrible contagious disease.
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Stephen Kings “The Plague RV”.
I’ve been meaning to post this. I took the metal etching class a few weeks ago, taught by Amanda @MrsMoose, and I think it’s gonna be perfect for pursuing some project ideas I’ve got.
In the class, we used the jewelry disk cutter to cut out copper disks, applied an acid resist (one was on blue laser-printed pnp paper, and one was using free-hand oil-based paint marker). Let the pieces hang out in the acid for awhile, clean off.
So then I have neat little disks. I could have punched a hole and made into jewelry. Don’t need more jewelry. Ahem.
Instead, I took them home, used my metal hole-punchy thingy (technical term, lower right of pic, best gadget ever), then banged them in a dapping block to dome them, gave a little hint of color with a wash of alcohol inks to bring out some of the designs, sealed everything with some renaissance wax.
Voila. Buttons.
And a fun new obsession.
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I made some new laser height pucks for the new lasers at DMS.
At the request of @merissa I made them 6mm high. I also included a 5.5 mm height (like the old puck) for those using thinner materials.
Now one can adjust the focus 1/2 mm higher by using the thicker side of the puck.
I semi-successfully highlighted the thickness using a bit of acrylic paint.
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Very creative!
01234
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So, I found a use for one of those buttons I posted recently…made this last night.
I needed some sort of protective case for my nål (fiberarts tool, nålbinding needles, often made from bone or antler. See pic.) Didn’t want to accidentally break or lose one when tossing things down in my project bag.
–read further for all the expanded blather–
Functionally, an altoids tin and some padding would work. So, of course, I felt compelled to make a Thing instead. I mean, the leather cabinet was Right. There.
This project actually wound up incorporating several things I like to do around DMS.
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For the padding inside, to hold the nål, I used a skein of brown wool I had spun, and crocheted a squooshy textured mat to weave them through and be padding
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for the rigid component, this is like my second leather thing I’ve done all on my own, so I needed simple construction (no boxes) like a book or cover. There’s a big bag of scraps that are super heavy stiff leather like left from armor-making. Perfect.
All the pieces I liked the color of weren’t big enough, so okay, piece it. I rather like the three color thingy I wound up doing.
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worked out the design and mechanics after measuring the little crocheted padding thingy I made, add bit for ease. Hm. Guessing some on thickness and bend-radius take-up…turns out guessed pretty decently. Yay me.
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cut out and stitch all the leather. That turquoise piece had a wave in part of one edge. Hm. Liked that, so trimmed it all like that. Debated dyeing edges of covers dark, but decide to wait and see (turns out I like that bit of brightness at the edge, balances the brighter bits of the ties, so will leave as is).
My lesson on this one…daaaang, that super hard leather is unforgiving when trying to pull needle through while handstitching (holes have no give). Interesting. But I’m pleased that my covers and all that were all perfectly cut and matched up good like in my head.
- keeping it together. My original plan was to sorta have this book shape with folded padding inside, then make a close fitting bag from suede (even brought it with me) to hold it. Buuuut, really, when it was closed, everything felt secure, so I actually don’t need bag and just need some sort of closure. The obvious is a long leather tie wrapped around. Okay enough, but…obvious. Hmmm…
Wait. I’m having an idea. Those buttons I made. Ok, like that. But need decent thread to sew in button, and something to tie all together. Leather? Hm. Hey! The fiberarts cabinet is Right. There. Handspun thread/ties will add a dash of color and another element of Me.
So I grabbed a drop spindle, and some bamboo from the fiber cabinet, kind of a turquoise similar to spine, and spun a little bit of heavy sewing thread from bamboo. Then I took some funky textured fiber I’d prepped for a different project early that evening at our fiber group Fiberfrolic. Spun some textured yarn from that. Like it.
- final assembly. Also need some way to distribute pressure along the side since it’s like 7" long and pressure only at the center, over time, I wondered if it would change shape and be less secure later. Plus aesthetically, it seems like it needs…more…for visual balance.
So first things first, sewed on the button I made the other day with the bamboo I just spun. Ok done. Now, the ties…I could have just had one point of contact on side, but actually punched four holes so that I could spread it out visually. Fairly pleased with how that looks. It was a momentary inspiration to do that, but I can see using that idea again. And I like the way it looks.
All in all, pretty pleased with it, learned a few things for practice, and incorporated several of the things I like to do separately, all mixed.
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My favorite part, aside from the pics!
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