A couple months ago my husband did some computer work for some acquaintances of ours. Knowing that I was somewhat crafty, she offered him her old embroidery machine in exchange for his work. My husband doesn’t know much about these sorts of things, (nor in fact, did I) but she seemed eager to get […]
Read more "Mechanical Monstrosity"I love living in Virginia at this time of year. Growing up in south Texas, just about the only food items that grew “wild” were pecans and cactus, and contrary to the imaginings of Hollywood, prickly pear aren’t all that common in San Antonio. (I also don’t think they’re particularity tasty.) Around here, in addition […]
Read more "Mulberry Season"So I’m having to add a new category. This is by no means the first time I’ve worked in leather. I embossed some leather for the book that I made here. Looking back it doesn’t look like I’ve included that information of the other book that I made. I’ll have to fix that. Sadly, only […]
Read more "Leather"It’s May. The garden is in and the semester is over, so you know what that means right? Crafting Binge! That always makes me feel a little like Kermit the Frog as he introduces the Muppet Show. Nevermind. This week I’ve been working on two very different sets of projects. More of the other one […]
Read more "Wire Binge"Sometimes life doesn’t go your way, and sometimes, when you think life isn’t going your way, you find out you were wrong. Like this week: I had planned to make red lentils, and because I bought a huge bag of quinoa from Costco, and I need to find more ways to eat it, I decide […]
Read more "Serendipity"As this very cold winter begins to show signs of thawing, I have been working on a number of projects. I lost my computer last fall and so the pictures of my husband’s display board for his Cthulhu themed Chaos army have been lost. Most of my current projects revolve around the SCA. I have […]
Read more "This Sprang has Sprung"So this is something a little different from my usual fare. My husband is planning a new Warhammer army. This one has a Lovecraft theme. This is the new Cthulu model from Reaper’s new Bones line of miniatures. I wish that I had taken pictures of the model before I’d put the polyurethane finish on […]
Read more "Painted Monsters"Several months ago I taught a class on finger loop braiding to my local SCA chapter. In preparing that class I relied heavily on the work of several excellent websites. On one of them I came across a reference to some medieval instructions (in Middle English) for making these braids. Curious, I searched out and […]
Read more "Fingerloop Braiding"Late this last spring I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a lecture given by Carol James, author of the book Sprang Unsprung: an illustrated guide to interlinking interlacing and intertwining. This is one of four books currently published on the subject. (I currently own three of the four). I was introduced to […]
Read more "Spring into sprang"Ok, so it’ has been quite a while. This spring has been… full. I love teaching labs, but 3/4 the work for 1/2 the pay seems a tad unfair at times. Still, the semester is over. Ok, so I’m starting into the summer semester next week, but I have stolen some time to finally get […]
Read more "Long, long… longlonglong time"