It's Day 11 for me here in self-isolation (for those who don't know, I'm immunocompromised).
Gundel is tired of me wanting to smooch her all the time. Her look seems to say "DO something, something that doesn't involve me! Stop running after me!" That's cats for you.
These times definitely feel strange for all of us, strange and scary, and along with them come strange thoughts (and strange dreams which is the reason for me sitting here at 6 am writing a post about soap).
When I refilled one of my soap dispensers last night for example and checked how much soap I still had, it made me think of handmade soaps. I still remember the good times when postage from the US to Germany didn't cost an arm and a leg and I ordered one of my first handmade soaps from a shop on Etsy whose exact name I can't remember at the moment - although I'm almost sure it had the word "soap" in there ....
Anyhow, I wondered if I maybe still had some extra soap bar in the house and guess what, I do!
Nothing can go wrong now, can it?
If you wonder why I would have something like this, well, all I remember is that it was from a fleamarket stand in Esslingen maaaany years ago where we also got an old wooden Coca Cola crate for bottles. Collectors, eh? From what I could find about I'm thinking that this soap is probably from WW II or shortly after, but I couldn't find as much as I would have liked. I did finally end up in a wet shaving forum, so now I know that using vintage soap from the 1900s should be completely safe, and go for it if you find vintage aftershave as long as it still smells right!
As I said, nothing can go wrong now.
In my last stash tackler post I told you that my wire muse had disappeared which was one reason for me to embrace needle felting as a new outlet. In fact it was not just the wire, but jewelry in general. Somehow I felt stuck and couldn't think of anything new.
In my mind I have a few different projects - all non-jewelry, some with beads, some with felt - lined up, but I'm having a hard time to even start on them, like making a pattern for example.
The needle felting was a good way of emptying my mind and allow the creative child in me to play without any goal or plan. I already know that the child likes to be all over the place, it made a large and a tiny voodoo doll, a black cat head and a lion head, and it had so much fun doing it!
I also mentioned that I had no idea yet what to do with all that colorful roving. Bunnies? After all colorful bunnies were and are good enough for Steiff, so why not for me? Colorful "paintings"? The felted ball for Gundel after all?
Or - gasp - colorful jewelry?
You may wonder how I didn't have that not so unusal thought right away. I don't know. Of course I figured I would probably turn the both heads into pins eventually, but simple jewelry? When I was looking for an idea for the January Art Elements challenge, though, which has berries for a topic, I kept seeing raspberries and blackberries. I began mixing colors, but instead of a berry in the making I found "cabs" and "beads" in front of me.
From the start I had known that I wanted to add beads to the felt in some way because everything looks better with beads, right? When I saw the Waldorf style fairies of a friend and the beads she had added to one fairy's skirt, that only confirmed it.
Maybe I also had some bigger beads or pearls that would work with the felt components ... no pearls, the holes are too small for the headpins ... crystals maybe .... oooh, that mookaite with the purple .... and some beads on the felt .... actually this is the fast motion version as I got sick for two days in between.
This is what I have so far, two pairs of earrings and a pendant, very different from what I usually make, and I like that because it was kind of liberating. It's like going on a field trip just for the fun of it, like the time we were on a school trip to Berlin 40 years ago and a friend and I stepped on an S-Bahn and then randomly changed trains to see where it would take us, or that other time she and I were in London and did the same with the red buses.
Perhaps I'm still on one of those buses now, and who knows where I'm going to end up? ;-)
What is cobalt blue?
According to "Pigments through the Ages" a pigment made from cobalt blue glass has been known since the Middle Ages, but an improved form has been established in the 19th century. It was regarded to be durable and even recommended by one painter as a good substitution for ultramarine.
It was new to me that the name cobalt has a connection to the German Kobold which means goblin. German miners searching for silver were often deceived by cobalt or goblin ore that looked like silver, but wasn't. In fact the "Kobold" - after a mountain spirit according to an old tale - contains not only sulphur and arsenic which could be deadly when the ore got melted down, but also cobalt, a metallic element.
This particular color hue was the topic for our Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge, and here's what I picked from the pieces entered.
1 and 8 Ganison Atelier
2 and 4 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 and 6 Cat's Wire
5 and 7 RioRita
First of all, a very Happy New Year to all of you!
I know I have been around even more rarely than usual in the last few weeks, but we had a little crisis here at home and I spent what I had hoped to be a relaxing vacation with some holidays in between on and off at the vet's instead and running after Ponder with different kinds of food. Now it seems he's finally on the mend *knocking on wood because we have to see how he'll be doing without any meds now* and I have a little time for myself before I have to go back to work next week.
In fact I wouldn't have had much to show you, anyway, except a few beaded bottles. I guess my muse didn't like that vet thing much because she was out of the door like a lightning. She has not been ready yet to play with wire.
So it was a good thing that my wish of a needle felting starter kit was fulfilled for Christmas.
I have been wanting to try that for decades, I think, but with everything else going on I thought I didn't really need something new, not to mention that I didn't expect to be any good at it.
Now, however, I felt that it didn't really matter if I were good at it or not, and it's not as if the tools take up that much space. It's a large brown box with a small plastic box in it that holds all the tools, and 40 baggies with colorful roving - I didn't count them, but that was what the description said - and a foam mat.
It didn't take me long to try it out, and of course I started with making a (flat) cat using a cookie cutter for the general shape. That cat did take me long. I don't have the right feeling for the felt yet and when the perfect moment for stopping is. I kept poking and poking and poking ....
When making the second animal, a fat little rat that came out a tad more feisty looking than I had planned, I started poking myself again and again. I think it has to do with getting or let's say trying to get faster, without much success yet, but at least I didn't lose that much blood or turn Ratty into a vampire rat ;-)
This is the last one I have made so far. Don't ask, I just grabbed a color and went from there, but doesn't the gnome look rather comfy snoozing like this?
There are a lot of colors that I normally wouldn't use, so I have to think of something I can do with them. That's also why the cat is orange, I figured it was a good color for a first attempt that would probably go very wrong.
Everything I won't be able to use in the end will be felted into a ball for Gundel, she doesn't mind colorful!
It's mid-December and so far we didn't have any of that **** in my neighborhood. You know what I mean. That stuff in winter that I don't like. I'm not going to name it because I don't want to jinx it.
Instead we have rain and we have sunshine.
Now I know those beautiful photos of **** glistening in the sunshine, and I'm the first one to say that they look gorgeous. As photos. Not if I have to walk around in that stuff, not even with sunshine.
Of course this was just supposed to be a very smart (this is irony in case you didn't notice) introduction to this week's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge whose items are inspired by sunshine.
They may not warm you, but maybe they'll make you smile a little :-)
1 Cat's Wire
2 and 6 RioRita
3 and 4 Jewelry Art by Dawn
5 Bijou Bead Boutique
This week's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge didn't ask for Christmas green specifically, but I thought I'd pick the ones that fit the season best colorwise - and the frog. Because I love the frog. The one in the bottom row, that is.
As a bonus I added some Christmas frogs. No, don't ask me why Victorians felt a frog killing another over a bag of money is a good image for the season, but they came up with many more hilarious ones, believe you me (or if you don't, go ahead and google for some Victorian Christmas fun ;-)).
1 RioRita
2 Cat's Wire
3 Bijou Bead Boutique
4 Jewelry Art by Dawn
5 MC Stoneworks
