Category Archives: Arty Stuff

For posts mostly about art

Knit Project #1 DONE

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Yesterday I bound off my first knitting project, and late in the night I finished weaving in the ends. It’s done!! I have cast-on, knittedknittedknittedknitted endlessly it seemed, bound off, and woven in ends. I do still have to wash it, which I plan to do a bit vigorously to felt it a bit, and I will have a nice broad cowl-type scarf that can be worn with a handmade scarf pin. So for all these years I said I couldn’t knit, now I can.

All it took was figuring out that I needed to work on circular needles instead of straight ones, and Continental-style instead of English-style. Perhaps it’s because I have crocheted off and on for many years, but Continental just makes so much more sense, at least for knit stitch.

Project #2 is already cast on as of five minutes ago — a much narrower scarf, in a pattern that will have me mastering the purl stitch both in stockinette and ribbing. Plus I couldn’t choose a simple pattern, no — I decided to do one that involves short rows to get ruffles, which means I’ll have to get the hang of the wrap and turn (which in truth doesn’t seem that difficult from the instructions, so I am not sure why people are kvetching about it online).

Not only that, I have project #3 and #4 already in mind — the Moebius Scarf a la Cat Bordhi and the simple shawl pattern I got at Lovin’ Knits a couple of weeks ago, both of which I already have yarn for so that all I need is the needles for the moebius.

Once I get four or so scarves/shawls done, perhaps I feel ready to go on to my next goal — SOCKS, first with commercial yarn and then my ultimate goal, HANDSPUN HANDKNIT SOCKS. Yum.

This is a Job For the Karma Fairy

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Last fall at the Atlanta Bead Expo, a customer saw my stainless steel European 4-in-1 chainmaille cuff on my wrist and fell in love with it. I really didn’t want to sell it, because it had been a bugger to make and I knew it would take me a while to make another to replace it. She finally did talk me into selling it to her right off my wrist (for a pretty penny, of course, and it did take me a year to make its replacement).

She stopped by our booth this afternoon at the Down the Street Bead Show, and told her that she had worn it constantly, until someone STOLE IT from her. She didn’t know who, or why — maybe they thought it was sterling silver and much more valuable monetarily than it is; maybe they just really liked it themselves. Either way, I told her that if she ever found who did it, I wanted a crack at them also (DH suggested with a baseball bat, mind you). I sold it to her because of her reaction to it and her appreciation of the energy and time and labor that had gone into it.

I hope the Karma Fairy ensures that the thief gets no joy out of that bracelet, and that it eventually finds its way to someone who recognizes and appreciates its true worth.

So I CAN Knit

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For all the years I spent doing textile arts, I never did learn to knit. I tried to in junior high — got a pair of big chunky wooden knitting needles and some kind of god-awful acrylic yarn and tried to learn. It was a mess. I thought about trying to learn several times after that. I had plenty of friends who knit and who would offer to teach me, but I never really got the motivation. I just kept saying, to myself and to them, “oh, I can’t knit. I tried but it was a failure.” I could never seem to juggle the two needles and the yarn without dropping things or catching one needle on something or poking bystanders with a wayward needle or just, in general, feeling insanely clumsy.

The trouble is, I quit weaving but was left with all this wonderful handspun yarn that I’d created over the years. I gave away most of the commercial weaving yarn with no regrets, but I wasn’t going to just let handspun wool and silk and alpaca go. Besides, there was always the idea of handspun socks. THOSE I wanted to be able to make, special socks out of my special yarn, made by me from fiber to finished product.

I studied. I researched. I read and observed. I found out that you could knit with circular needles, even if you were knitting flat — no more dropped or poking needles. I discovered that you didn’t have to hold your yarn in your right hand and “throw” it around the needle. Instead, there was Continental knitting, where you held the yarn the same way I was accustomed to holding it when crocheting and you didn’t have to let go of a needle to throw the yarn. Maybe, just maybe, it might be possible.

So I got some commercial sock yarn and two circular needles and got Andrea to show me what to do. It still didn’t work, but I was getting closer. What I needed to do was start simpler, just do a few practice pieces, calling them scarves (you can call any long skinny flat piece a scarf, after all), and drilling the stitch motions the same way I drill bellydance moves, over and over until it becomes ingrained.

Larger yarn, a larger needle — two and a half skeins later, I do believe I have the knit stitch down. When I finish this skein, I have one more to use if I wish. Then it will be on to the next skeins and mastering purl stitch itself, plus switching back and forth between knit & purl like you have to for ribbing and other stuff. I may never go so far as to knit a sweater, for me or anyone else. At least, however. by this time next year I can hope to have my toes caressed by the little luxury that is handknit, handspun, one-of-a-kind socks, knit by ME and breaking the “I can’t knit” curse after all these years.

Sunday Adventures at Chastain

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I’m really tired out after this weekend’s show, but I do have to share today’s unusual event. Andrea and I were interviewed on camera today by two students from the Holy Innocents’ School media program. They were interviewing some of the artists at the festival for a feature on the school’s closed circuit broadcast channel just before Thanksgiving. I’m not quite sure why they chose us, since I was off visiting the porta-facility when they arrived at our booth, but they did. We did a nice tag-team job of answering their questions and trying to follow their rules, though we are far from experienced interviewees.

You may get to see the finished version of our interview at some point. I did ask them to send us a copy of the video so we could post it on the Copper Dancer Designs web site, properly credited of course, so we shall see what comes of that.

Beyond that excitement du jour, there’s not much to say about this show. We made friends with our festival neighbors, saw several of our former ones, sold some but not as much as we would have liked, and of course had yummy pizzas (apple, and white) from S&J’s Wood-Fired Pizza. I found out I’d been practicing my knit stitch incorrectly, and corrected it only to find that the correction actually makes it rather easier. The time change has me all askew, so the time has come as of now to go flop into bed & let my head hit the pillow.

What Makes an Art Festival Good, or Not

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This weekend is our last art festival of the year, at Chastain Park. Even though I do find them stressful, I usually enjoy the art festivals (at least when I don’t have four in a row!). Of course, some are better than others. So what makes the good ones good?

  • Easy load-in and load-out. Load-in sets the tone for the whole festival. By load-out I’m worn out and cranky and just want to get done and go HOME. Let me get as close as possible to my space, when I need to get there. Don’t let idiots block the roadway longer than absolutely necessary while they load in or out! Unload everything, move the vehicle, THEN come back and set up. Reverse at take-down.
  • LOTS of publicity. Get the word out, and people will come. If they come, unless we’ve totally misread the demographic, some of them will buy.
  • Vendor amenities. If you bring me water & a snack a couple of times a day, I love you. If you bring me coffee in the morning, my gratitude is boundless.
  • Good neighbor artists. There is very little worse than being next to a cranky sourpuss all weekend. Yes, it happens — the first bead show that Andrea & I did together taught us the importance of attitude! Good neighbors give you someone to chat with to pass the time, to share tips & ideas with, to watch your stuff when you can’t wait another minute for, well, you know.
  • FOOD. The vast majority of festivals have crap food — you know the kind, corn dogs, funnel cakes, cotton candy, and nary a non-potato vegetable in sight. It’s not always feasible to bring your own food, and the usual crap food is really not what you need to get you through the day.
  • Well-behaved canine visitors always brighten the day with their tail wags and slobber :-) .

Then there are the customers. Oh, the customers. Good customers, whether they actually purchase anything or not, make our weekend. We love big spenders, of course, but we also appreciate people that may just buy one small piece that they love. The kids that pick out one special key or vessel for themselves are totally precious. Sometimes the Right Piece isn’t there today for one of these people, but you know they will be back next time. The folks that look admiringly at our work but don’t have the discretionary funds today, well, that will change someday and hopefully they will remember and return. I love seeing my pieces go home with this kind of person.

At any show, we hope for plenty of those customers and not The Other Kind. You know them. They rearrange your display by picking up  and then just carelessly plopping items down wherever. They comment to their friends “oh, I could do that” (ah, but WILL you?). They look at your carefully crafted product and make remarks like, “Oh. That’s so…different.” Most annoying of all to me are the folks that start bargaining like you are at a flea market, making it clear that they have no concept that an artist’s time and skill are worth something. Those are the people that will not get a price break from me no matter what!

As for the weather, I take the outlook that I can’t do anything about it so I don’t let it bother me. I’ve been hot, I’ve been cold, I’ve been wet (not all at the same time, thank goodness), and I just try to take them all in stride.

There are festivals that I will return to whether I sell lots or not; there are festivals I won’t apply to again because they were a pain in the rear. Now you know why.

 

 

So many ideas, so little time…

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Last night I had an inspired idea for a new experiment to try with my glass. I'm not yet going to say what it is specifically because I don't want to give it away before I have a chance to try it out. When will that be? Well, not this week for sure because I have to finish up grading papers & projects & final exams, yuck. Fortunately, that's about how long it will take me to get the materials I'll need to give this a shot, and to read up on what's likely to be involved.

It's galling, though. Whenever I get a really cool idea, it's always at a lousy time. I can never just jump on it; there's always something urgent getting in the way. Hey, isn't that the way it always seems to go? Let's just hope I don't lose track of this idea before I get a shot at implementing it!

Patience

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I don't consider myself the most patient person in the world — far from it. I want things to get done, and done right, right now. To hell with waiting. I also have no patience with people that aren't willing to try, to put forth their best effort, when they are responsible for doing something. 

Oddly enough, when it comes to doing fiddly little art/craft things, I have plenty of patience. I had so many people tell me this past weekend that they didn't see how I could do chainmaille jewelry because they "just wouldn't have the patience." If someone sees me doing something with seed beads, it's the same thing. Apparently, there is something about repetitive motion that soothes me. When I'm melting in the encasing glass on a bead, or melting down the stripes of glass for a twistie, or imploding a layer of frit on a maria, I can sit there for as long as it takes, gently turning and moving the mandrel or the rod to smooth and even out the molten glass. It's very hypnotic to watch the glass change and flow slowly into itself, and my mind can go off into a free-floating yet very conscious (necessary!!!) state. The same with chainmaille, as I build the pattern by sliding each ring into place with its brethren, checking the closure carefully to make sure it is smooth and even. Likewise with the seed bead stitching, placing each bead one by one into it's proper location to build the pattern bit by bit.

These activities fully engage my hands, but don't necessarily fully engage my brain. They require focus, yet leave room for mental flow. Add to that the satisfaction of creating something with my two hands and my tools, and I find the act calms my mind and body both. I suppose people equate that with patience, then.

But oh, my, do not try to convince me that I am a patient person when it comes to other people and their irresponsible behaviors that try to take advantage of the world!

I WILL Be Cheerful, Damnit!

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Yes, today's weather was warmer. In fact, it was a GORGEOUS late fall day. But I'm far from perfect, and having spent the weekend feeling kind of like no one loved my work makes it hard to keep up that good attitude. This wasn't the worst show we've done, sales-wise, but it was close. I did get a couple of good ideas for new items from a couple of customers, so that helped my creativity. Our next-door booth neighbor loved one of my pairs of earrings, so I traded to her for a couple of prints of her paintings, which will go hang in my office to brighten it up. I saw an old friend from the Etowah Guild days, a fellow artist from the Avondale show, and my alternate-Friday-night-meds doppelganger there scoping out the show for a Good Mews booth next year. I had half of a fabulous cupcake, and a few REAL onion rings, the good kind. So there was good in it all.

Every show deserves a minimum of two chances unless it's a badly-run complete disaster. This was spectacularly run. So we'll give it another shot and see what happens. Sure, it may be that our work isn't right for THIS market, and if that's the case we'll move on. But the show itself is very well run, and just on that basis is worth another try.

Now to survive the week ahead, the CCSC conference & programming contest next weekend, and onward to the bead show in two weeks — THEN I can take a deep breath and go looking for my creativity once again.

Y'know, this business of being an artist is pretty damn tough, but then again, so am I!

Don’t forget the attitude!

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Three years ago, at the first show that Andrea and I did together, we saw the importance of a good attitude to having a successful show. This weekend's show is certainly testing our resolve at sticking to that principle. It's pretty tough to remain cheerful and friendly when the chill has penetrated your very bones, you lost feeling in your fingers hours ago, you dread having to visit the porta-potty again because you'll have to bare your backside to the elements, and the many people that walk into your booth and say very nice things about your work then walk on without pulling out the wallet and taking a piece home.

So you look for what there is to be happy about. We did get into the show, even though we are pretty much newbies on the circuit. It's an opportunity to test out some of our new display and booth arrangement ideas. It's a local show — we get to sleep in our own beds with our own critters. We made SOME sales :-) . Lots of people were asking if we'd be back tomorrow (of course; we're not going to bail out when we committed to the full two days). We got to meet and pet and snorgle LOTS of wonderful dogs throughout the day!!! We get a free cupcake to split tomorrow. We get free coffee and/or donuts tomorrow. It's supposed to be warmer tomorrow. We fall back to standard time tonight so I get an extra hour's sleep. The show doesn't open until 11 a.m. so I get yet another extra hour's sleep.

How'm I doing?

All set up, come on down!!

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This weekend is a biggie for us — it's Copper Dancer Designs' first big outdoor festival! We're heading over to Chastain Park for the second annual Chastain Park Arts Festival tomorrow and Sunday. It's going to be coooooold, I expect, with tonight's low at freezing or just below. By the time I get there tomorrow around 9:15 or so, it'll hopefully be back above freezing. The high is supposed to be in the low fifties, but that's pretty darn chilly when you're standing or sitting around.

We set up for the festival this afternoon. It was in the low fifties, but it was damp and cloudy and a bit breezy. I wasn't miserable — I've been MUCH more miserably cold in my life — but it wasn't exactly pleasant. Once we got the tent up, we at least had some shelter from the breeze, and when the drizzle started we were under cover. We're confident now that the tent walls will block a decent breeze, which is comforting. Gary and I had to leave at 4:30, and leave Andrea to finish putting things out in the increasing drizzle (which was mixed with SLEET at points, eep!). The setup looks good, and this gives us a chance to work out more kinks in it, and get a better idea what is working and what needs changing. We can also get more pictures for our show applications for next year.

Oh, yeah, and hopefully we can sell some jewelry items and make a little money, too!!