Wood Working

I have also dabbled in a little wood work this last couple of months. I made 4 lucets, a medieval tool for making cord, If you are familiar with making rats tails where you use 4 prongs to make a hollow cord. This is the same thing except with two prongs.

Here are the four lucets two of which are the same. The swan I did two of  I also have a design for a dog and a dragon that I haven't yet finished

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These two photos show the swan heads. this is where you work your thread
in a figure of  eight type pattern in to a cord which you thread through the hole in the bowl of the tool.














The wood I used for the lucets is rimu. I used a pyrography tool to add more detail to the carved heads and finished the tools with danish oil.

Close up of the Horse heads

Whole tool

 I will post photos of the Dragon and dog heads as I finish them.

Close up of the pyrography on the bowl of the tool

Whole tool

These tools fit neatly in the palm of the hand and are turned as you work the thread around to create a cord.

Cross stich bags

I have made 2 cross stitch bags for Christmas presents this year, one for my grand ma and one for my mother in law. I did the cross stiches and then made them into front pockets for the bags i made to go with them.


The peacock bag is the second one I made, the pattern is from Lesley Teare's Oriental cross stitch. The cross stitch it's self took me about 2 months and the bag took about 3 hours to complete I used plain  coloured cotton for the outside and cream calico for the inside and handles.

The peacock half finished

The peacock finished

Peacock bag

close up of finished product

The First one I completed was the Willow pattern Bag the pattern was taken from a book called blue and white cross stitch, I don't remember the author. I borrowed the book from the library. The materials for the bag are the same as above except I used white cotton lining for the lining and handles. The cross stitch took 1 month and the bag about 4 hours as I was working out the design.

Willow pattern bag

Close up of the cross stitch

A Month of Books

I have completed 3 books and 2 small photo albums in the last month all of which were for sale at a recent market.

My helper (sewing frame for sewing books)

The 3 books were 2 small note books about A6 size and one slightly larger than A5

Front cover

A look inside

The paper on the covers is scrap booking paper and black buckram the pages cream parchment paper with red patterned end papers. This one is A6 size.

Front cover

A look inside

This book is sewn onto tapes and the covers laced in. Tight back leather spine and fancy synthetic book paper on the cover and hand marbled end papers from an experiment I did with marbling. The pages and size are the same as the above book.

Front cover

Inside the book

This book is slightly bigger than A5, I used scrap booking paper on the cover again along with green book cloth. The end papers are hinged on the same book cloth and have left over parchment paper from the 2 small books on the endpapers. The pages are varied thicknesses of trade aid paper.

The two small photo albums

Front cover

A peek inside

This photo album is sizes to fit 6x4 photos one to a page. I have used scrap booking paper again and synthetic book material for the hinged covers. I used Japanese sewing style to bind it. 

Front cover

 

A peek inside

This one is the same size as above and uses the same materials and techniques except for colours and the sewing style is slightly more complicated.

The books were trimmed with my new book plough that my husband made for me and works a treat, Thanks Hun. :)

none of these books sold at the market. 

a month and a half

Its been a month and a half since my last post and I have done several projects in that time. It is also a week to Christmas and I'm knackered. The veggie garden is less than successful which is a shame, something keeps eating the carrots before they have a chance to grow properly and the cats keep digging up the seedlings. Any way the projects.............

1st of November

Today is the first of November and there is much to do. Christmas is less than than a full two months away and there is much crafting to be done. With the potential of a craft fair coming up in December, I have a lot that needs doing. Suppose I should get to it then, hadn't  I  :)

Mums Birthday Present Complete

I manged to complete Mums birthday present in true fashion, on the day about half an hour before we gave it to her. I have limited photos but here is what it looked like part way through plus the nouveau  pendant which we gave as a birthday present to another friend.

the obsidian like pendent with flowers

the nouveau pendent which was finished with a bright blue cord

small round beads which were turned into earrings, and bracelet

There were more round beads made using the same flower cane but different style and of varying sizes. These were used in the earrings and necklace. 

Mum's Birthday Present

I have started to make mums birthday present and it has been very frustrating, I attempted to make look a look a like garnet out of polymer clay and failed miserably. but as I screwed it up I ended up with a very cool pendant that looks sort of art nouveau which is kinda cool. Ended  up doing a snowflake obsidian pendant and several other beads for mum, still have a couple to go.