Update on Walking Stick Z

I did not blog on Thursday.  I was working outside attempting to finish the wood burning on the walking stick.  I wanted to complete the wood burning this week because a coastal storm was forecast to come in this weekend and bring rain. Unfortunately, it did not get completed.

I was about half-way through with the remaining Celtic Knot Work when I had a tool malfunction.  The tip for the wood burning tool screws into the stylus.  As the tip is moved along the wood, it loosens the tip and it has to be tightened from time to time.  I use a pair of needle nose pliers to tighten it; no need to wait for it to cool down that way.  Anyway, on this occasion the tip seemed wobblier than usual.  I picked up the pliers and tightened the tool as usual.  The tip broke off from the screw base and the screw shaft was still down in the stylus.

I was going to head out to buy a new tool, but my husband wanted to try to get the screw piece out of the old tool first.  So I waited while he tried to drill down into the stylus and pull the broken bit of screw out.  He had tools called an Easy Out which are made for the specific purpose of pulling out broken screws.  I did not think it was going to work because the piece was just too small.  By the time he drilled through the screw, there was really nothing left for the Easy Out to grab hold of. So I was off to the craft store to purchase a new wood burning tool.  Waiting for the drilling out of the screw took a  bit of time.  It always takes extra time when working with small parts.  So that took up a good twenty to thirty minutes.

Then I went to the craft store and spent more time.  I can't walk into a craft store during a fifty percent off sale and not look around, so that was more time wasted.  And of course there is the time to get there and back to account for as well.  So there went more of the day.

Once back from the craft store I headed outside to do more wood burning.  I wood burned another section of the remaining knot work, but it took longer than normal to do the same amount of work.  Here is why.  I purchased the same wood burning tool, a Versa Tool, which has wood burning tips, a hot blade, and a soldering tip. I wanted to purchase the same tool, because I wanted to make sure that my tips that I already owned were going to fit.  I would not want to be changing to a different manufacturer's wood burning tip in the middle of a project.  I purchased the same tool made by the same manufacturer.  However, the manufacturer had made an improvement that was not all that great of an improvement.

My old Versa Tool was great.  It had a long electrical cord on it and the switch was set well back from the stylus.  From the base of the stylus to the beginning of the switch was nineteen inches of cord and a long cord between the back of the switch and the plug.  The long cord length from the base of the stylus to the switch meant that the switch was well out of the way of the project.  The new Versa Tool was a different story.  Instead of just an on and off switch, they had improved the switch by making it a rheostat.  A rheostat switch is one that has variable settings.  This allowed the heat setting to be set to varying temperatures according to what is needed for various materials.  That actually was an improvement.  The problem with the new Versa Tool was where the switch was positioned. As I wrote earlier, there used to be nineteen inches between the stylus and the switch.  The new Versa Tool only has ten and a half inches of cord between the two points.

The shorter length of the cord between stylus and switch can cause problems.  My projects do not lie flat.  They are generally three dimensional.  The problem is that I am at times holding the stylus above the flat surface.  With the reduced cord length, it means that the switch is sometimes hanging from the cord above the surface rather than lying on the surface.  When the cord is above the surface, the switch adds weight and puts tension on the wrist. The cord and switch may also be swaying back and forth which makes it difficult to make accurate marks.  On some projects, such as my wood burning project, I may be able to sand out a mistake.  In other cases, a burnt mark on a project could be a fatal error and the project would have to be revamped from the artist's original intention or scrapped entirely.  It took much longer and much more effort to wood burn on my project with the new Versa Tool.

Another problem with the shortened cord is that as I was moving along with the wood burning the switch would catch on part of the project.  When the switch would catch, it would jerk my hand, causing an error in the wood burning.  As I said above, in this project an error can be sanded out.  I have plenty of errors I made on my own that needed correcting.  They happen. It is even more annoying to have to correct errors that were caused by a deficiency in the tool. If the tool was properly designed, the switch would not be catching on the project or swinging in the air.

I worked as long as I could, but the morning was pretty much shot.  My hand and wrist were tired.  It is better to stop when you get tired.  Once your hand and eyes get tired, you are more likely to make mistakes.  I had to get on with my day in any case.  As much as I would like to spend more time on my projects, my responsibilities await me.  I had to put my things away and get going.

Since I was unhappy with the way the new Versa Tool was made, I took the time to send a nicely worded email to the manufacturer.  I explained the problem with the shortened cord and how it affected my work. So far, I have had no response from them.  I will let my readers know if I do hear back from them.  It is unlikely that I will get any response, but I do try to politely address a problem if I see one.  I expect that the savings of eight and a half inches of copper wire on every project saves them some money, or at least keeps the tool at the same price as before.  Copper prices have been going up.  I am really tired of this whole downsizing the product but charging the same price model that has been in evidence the last couple of years.  The product price is not a value if the product is no longer what I need.

Friday I was up early.  The rain had not yet started and was forecast to begin around eleven am.  I hoped I would be able to complete the wood burning before the rain started.  I was out wood burning before eight o'clock.  Unfortunately, the forecast was a little off.  The rain began a little after nine. With only three and a half inches of know work left to be wood burned, I had to pack it in to wait out the storm. 

As storms go, it was not a bad storm here.  It was mainly coastal flooding.  It rained on and off all day yesterday.  There may be some rain today, but it is mostly just cloudy.  In a day or so it will be dry enough that I can go out and complete the wood burning.  I will show a new photo once the wood burning is complete.

Check back on Thursday for a new blog post.

Embroidered Denim Jacket and Autumn Scenes

Embroidered Pansys.

I have had a really busy week.  I did not have time to do any work on my walking stick.  However, the week ahead is more or less clear, so I hope to spend some time on wood burning this week.  Even though I could not work on the walking stick, I was able to work on a couple of projects in the evening.  I thought I'd share one of them today.

Right now, denim jackets are very fashionable.  I have had this denim jacket since the last time they were fashionable.  It is nice for an early autumn day, but I hardly ever wear it because it is so plain.  This year I have been seeing some embroidered jackets in the magazines.  I decided to update my jacket.  Either I have committed to a long term embroidery project or else I have committed to purchasing a new jacket.

I decided to start embroidering on the cuffs and bottom band of the jacket.  I guess the flower I have chosen to embroider is a Pansy.  Really it could be anything.  It is just a generic flower.  I work on this in the evening when my husband and I watch television.  I am wondering if I have not taken on too much of a project.  In some places I have to sew through five layers of denim.  At times I have resorted to using a pair of needle
nose pliers to grab hold of the needle and pull it through the fabric.  At this point I am thinking I should have used the sewing machine.

I have just a few more flowers to embroider on the bottom band.  When they are finished I will have completed this segment of the project.  I could stop there, but I may do a little more embroidery on the front of the jacket.  The vertical seams would lend themselves to some climbing flowers such as Morning Glorys.  After that, I think I will quit.  I tend to get bored on projects and I am already thinking about a new project.

Mosaic Sphere.

It is almost time to start wearing a jacket.  The afternoons are warm, but the mornings are cool.  This week the low temperatures will be in the upper fifties (Fahrenheit).  Autumn Equinox is just three days away.  The trees seem to know it.  This morning there the Dogwoods had started to turn red.  A few yellow Poplar leaves have fallen in the back yard. It won't be long before the breeze turns chilly.

Acrylic paint on ball, glass mosaic and enamel painted disks

In four to six weeks I will be watching the news for the freeze warning.  I bring my glass gazing balls before the temperatures dip down to freezing.   When I was learning to make mosaic
gazing balls I read that water can get in
between the glass and the grout and freeze, causing the grout to crack.  It sounds true, but I am not sure if it is really true.  The mosaic disks in the picture with the painted ball (the disks to the upper left and right of the painted ball)  have been out there for years and have not cracked or lost any pieces of glass or rock.  However, the balls take a long time to make so I would rather bring them inside rather than have them damaged.

Arcylic painted ball has survived both freezing and hot weather.

 The painted balls can stay out all winter. The painted disks have been out there for a number of years as well.  In the last couple of years the red paint has started to fade.  The disks were painted with bake in the oven enamel paints.  Overall, I would say they have held up well.  The painted gazing balls were painted with acrylic paints.  I am waiting to see how they do over the long run. 

Walking Stick Z - Part 9 & Road Trip Photos

Today's blog post is primarily an update on the Walking Stick Z project.  I was able to find time this week to get outside and wood burn another strip of the Celtic Knot Work onto the walking stick.  I measured  my progress this time.  So far I have wood burned forty inches of knot work onto the stick.  I have thirty more inches more to go.  Then that portion of the project will be finished. 

I am still going back and forth about whether to wood burn a poem onto the project.  There is plenty of room to have a poem spiral around the walking stick.  I have been working on a poem, but at this point I have not come up with something that I think is satisfactory.  I keep getting little snippets of ideas, but nothing has gelled yet.

Completing the wood burning will not complete the project.  The stick will need some close sanding to remove a few mistakes made along the way.  The it will get a final sanding.  After that the knot work will be painted.  It takes a while to get the stick painted, but not nearly as long as the wood burning.  After that the stick will be stained with an antiquing medium.  Then the stick will be given a sealer coat. 

Wild Flowers

Watching a long term project like this is somewhat akin to watching paint dry.  I thought I'd add in a few more photos from my latest road trip to keep the post from being boring.  The photos are somewhat out of focus because they were taken from a moving vehicle.  By the time I see a shot that I want to take we have either come up on it too closely to get the picture in focus or have gone beyond the scene.

Road art: white cow

The field of wild flowers was on the road heading toward the cabin.  This was a relatively small patch of the flowers.  We drove by some fields of flowers that must have been the better part of an acre.  Between the wild flowers, golden rod, and ragweed it is no wonder I was having an allergy problem this year.

One of the photos is somewhat hard to interpret.  There is a life-size white fiberglass cow in front of a house.  I expect the farm is a cattle ranch.  Or perhaps the family that lives there just enjoys having a life size piece of road art in the front yard.  We come up on the scene so quickly that I have not been able to get a good picture of it yet.

The last picture is a white barn with a rusty
silo.  When we think of barns, the iconic image
that comes to mind is a red barn.  And it is
true that there are many red barns.  However,
I have found in my travels that I have seen
many more white barns than red barns.  It is a
case of our cultural ideal not necessarily matching reality.

I apologize to readers who see my blog on the Yahoo platform.  Lately Yahoo has been putting the photos in odd places on the email.  When I publish, the photos are all aligned on the right hand side.  I am not sure I can do anything about that.

Check back on Thursday for some pictures of another project I have in the works.

September Road Trip - Photos

Apples at the cabin.

Once again we have taken to the road.  This trip was a trip up to the cabin.  The old saying is that it is not the destination, it is the journey.  I love driving on the Virginia By-Way to get there.  It is wonderful to get away from the busy interstate and drive the scenic route.  I thought I'd share a few of the sights along the way. 

Apples in the yard.

The weather was warm and humid.  It was seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit when we arrived.  That was the warmest day of the trip.  The other mornings the highest temperature was seventy-one with a low of sixty-one.  Since we were working on the cabin, we were glad that the temperatures stayed in a comfortable level.

Everything is still green up there, but here and there you could see a little hint of red creeping in on the
Maple and Dogwood trees.  We have had a frequent rains throughout the summer and the vegetation has responded to that by being greener and brighter than I have seen it in years. 

All of the branches were as full as this one.

The apple trees are so loaded with apples that they are bent over almost to the ground. The photo of the green apples is the apple tree in the yard.  The red apples are one of the wild trees down the drive from the house.  Unfortunately, the apples were not quite ready to pick yet.  The flavor had not yet developed.  The apples should be ready in just a couple of weeks though.  I hope that we can get back up there in time to collect the some.  Otherwise, there are going to be some very happy deer and raccoon in the yard.

The hay is in.

One of the photos shows Kudzu growing over the trees.  It is a very fast growing vine.  The tall tale about Kudzu says that if a cow stays in one spot munching grass long enough that the Kudzu will rap around its legs and trap it.  Well, it does not grow quite that fast, but once it gets started it spreads like nothing I've ever seen.  It covers everything. Kudzu was brought to this country from Japan as a fodder plant for cattle.  I am not sure that the cattle like it all that much.  At any rate, the Kudzu escaped into the wild and really took off.  It seems to like the climate in the lower hills.  It does not grow above a certain altitude, so it has not come over the mountain to where the cabin is located.

Kudzu grows on everything.

Some of the photos show that the year is starting to wind down.  The corn is dry in the fields.  Barns are starting to fill up with hay.   Virtually all of the hay has been cut and rolled up into those giant rolls.  Pumpkins are starting to appear at outdoor markets and in decorations seen along the way.  It has been a fast year.  It does not seem like the first day of autumn should be just twelve days away. I have noticed that the daylight hours are now much shorter than they were just a couple of weeks ago. 

The mountains were very misty that morning.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures from the road.  I am sorry if some of them are a little blurry.  It is hard to get a good picture while the car is in motion.  By the time I see something that would make an interesting picture, we are almost beyond it. 


I will be blogging about my project again on the next blog post.

Another Halloween Flower- Crafting a Few Minutes at a Time

Black Crepe Paper Dahlia

Last blog post I blogged about making about making black flowers that looked like roses.  I had plenty of crepe paper, floral wire, and floral tape left over so I decided to make another type of flower.  This flower is a black Dahlia. If that name sounds familiar you are correct.  That title was used in newspapers, movies and books about a high profile, unsolved, Los Angeles murder.  So if you are thinking about doing really dark, scary, macabre Halloween decorations, you might want to include this one. You can find out more about the story by looking up The Black Dahlia on Wikipedia. (Note: the story is for adults only.)
 

A stack of accordion pleated crepe papers.

 I remembered that as a teenager my friends and I used to make tissue carnations.  I decided to try something similar with the crepe paper.  For this project you will need the supplies mentioned above plus a pair of wire cutters or heavy kitchen shears to cut the wire.

Begin by cutting 12 four-inch long strips of crepe paper.  Fold each strip by using an accordion pleat.  Due to the small size, I found it easier to fold the strip in half length-wise then fold up each open end up toward the center fold.   Do this for all twelve strips.

Example of opening up the strip to a fan on each side of the wire.

Stack the twelve strips on top of each other.  They can be loosely stacked, but it is fairly important that the ends are even.

Cut two eighteen inch (or there about) strands of wire.  Wrap the strands of wire around the center of the stack of crepe paper strips and twist to secure the strips.  Wrap the strands with floral tape to create a stem.  I started experimenting using only one wire, but the stem was too flimsy on its own and the flower drooped.  Two wires and tape took care of the problem.  The picture only shows one wire, but trust me you will want to use two wires in order to hold the flower up. 

Once the crepe paper strips are secured with wire, open up the top strip of crepe paper into a fan shape.  Gently tear down each fold line on both sides of the wire.  Repeat with each remaining strip.  When you have all of the strips torn, your flower is complete.

Halloween Decorations - Crafting a Few Minutes at a Time

Flexible stems allow for shorter containers.

In between posts on the walking stick, I'm blogging on my series I call Crafting a Few Minutes at a Time.  I have run into so many people who say they wish they could do some crafting but they just can not find enough time.  My point is that projects great and small can be accomplished even if you have only a few minutes a day to work on a craft.  If you can find ten, fifteen, or twenty minute segments of time, to work on a craft you will be amazed at what can be accomplished.

There are only 62 crafting days until Halloween.  I count Halloween day as a crafting day because I

Loop with double sided tape.

know some of you have waited until the last minute.  Somehow time just seems to get away faster than expected.  My personal deadline is a bit earlier.  My Halloween decorations go up the first day in October.  I don't like to feel rushed, so I start crafting early.

Today I am blogging about a quick Halloween craft, a bouquet of crepe paper flowers.  However, don't expect your first flower to be completed that quickly.  There is a learning curve. Once you master the technique, you can make a flower in about five minutes.  Make a flower while waiting for water to boil or if you are

Making gathers.

waiting for a television program to begin.  You will have a bunch of these flowers in no time.  One decoration down and it only took five minutes at a time.  Even better it is not a very expensive project to boot!

I saw this Halloween craft in a book called Spooky and Bright by Hearst Books.  It is a reprise of crafts shown in Country Magazine.  I thought the crepe flowers would be a great project so I had to try it.  The mason jar is only temporary.  At this point I have not made a trip to the craft store to find a vase for the flowers.  However, the clear vase does help to illustrate a

Floral tape at the base.

point about the project.  Read on.

What you will need: a roll of black crepe paper, some floral wire, some double sided tape, floral tape, and wire cutters or heavy scissors.

Begin by cutting 18 inches of floral wire.  It does not have to be exact, but it needs to be close to that length.  Fold the wire in half.  Make a loop at the cut ends and twist.  Wrap the loop with a piece of the double sided tape.  (The loop is my own embellishment to this project.  The initial instructions just said to tape the ends.  I found that the loop helped hold the center in the shape I

Gently fold the petals downwards to open the flower.

wanted better than just taped ends.)

With the crepe paper still on the roll, place the loop of wire close to the top of the width of the crepe paper strand and press down firmly.  Wrap the crepe paper around the loop for four turns and gather the bottom by pinching the bottom with your fingers.  Then start making larger gathers, working your way around the flower, pinching the base of the flower as you move around the flower.  The more gathers you have, the larger your flower will be.  Fewer turns will give you something that looks like a rose but.  More gathers will make the flower become fuller.  When your flower reaches the desired size, cut the crepe paper from the roll.  Then wrap the base in floral tape to keep the flower from unraveling.   I estimate it takes about a yard of crepe paper to make a flower but I never unrolled one to measure it.

After the flower is taped with floral tape, gently pull the petals out and downward to open the flower.  Don't pull to much or the gathers will come loose.  If you leave the flower tightly wrapped it will look more like a but than a full flower.  That is it.  The flower is complete.  Make a dozen and you have  nice gruesome black flowers for Halloween.

At first I had a complaint with the stems being too thin and bendy.  Once I started trying to find a container for the flowers I saw that the thin stems were an advantage because if your container was short the stems could be bent so that the flowers would fit in a smaller container.  If you know the height of your vase, you could wire or tape the flowers onto wooden stakes or skewers.  Of course, that would add to the cost of the project.

I cost for a bouquet of flowers would be under six dollars.  I paid $2.49 for the floral wire,  $2.89 for the floral tape, and $1.00 for the crepe paper.  (2 rolls for a dollar at the Dollar Store) I did not use a full roll for the entire bouquet.  I still have plenty of wire and tape left over as well.

So that is one flower project.  I made another type of flower as well but I will show that one in another blog post.  Happy crafting.