Some Final Experiment Results from the Sphere Mold

Waterproof plumbing tape sticks where other tape peeled off.

I had a few final thoughts and a final experiment on my sphere mold.  My goal was to create a low cost sphere that could be used as a base for making mosaic gazing balls.  The sphere had to be able to stand up to the weight of glass and grout, and be able to withstand outdoor weather conditions.  I had hoped to create a mold that could be used to cast numerous balls.  As I blogged last time, trying to create a sphere with expanding foam was futile.  However, I don't consider it a waste of time.  As Thomas Edison is quoted as saying about the light bulb, "I have not failed.  I have found 10,000 ways that won't work."  I will continue to experiment until I find what does work.  I merely have to rethink the situation. 

In the last blog post showing the still wet, sticky foam that remained inside the sphere mold.  I had left it to dry wondering whether the foam could be removed from the mold.  I had coated the mold liberally with mold release.  Once dry, the foam did not release from the mold.  I guess that was wishful thinking on my part.  After all, the product is designed to stick in cracks and not come out.  However, that started me thinking in a new direction.  Suppose that each mold was a one off mold rather than a reusable mold.  What if I sprayed foam to fill each half of the sphere mold.  When the foam was dry,  maybe use a saw to saw the foam level with the top of the mold.  Then glue the hemispheres together with construction adhesive.  That might possibly work.  I guess I will have to experiment. 

My next question is whether the mold itself would be waterproof enough.  It is raining this morning.  I am going to toss the mold pieces outside to see how they hold up outside over time.  I have seen papier mache' pieces designed to be kept outside.  The glue made them waterproof.  So I have some hope of the mold lasting in outdoor conditions.  Whether my method works or not remains to be seen.

Another experiment was to find out if a different tape made a difference. As I blogged last time, the mold was highly resistant to both masking tape and duct tape.  Both tapes tended to curl off from the mold.  Long time readers know that I generally wrap my sphere base in a reflective, waterproof plumbing tape before gluing on the glass and grouting the ball.  It may not matter if the mold is completely waterproof if it is covered in two additional layers of materials.  The waterproof tape has a very thick, sticky adhesive.  It is much stickier than either of the other tapes. I tried the waterproof tape.  It worked.   The waterproof tape is not peeling up off the ball.  So maybe, if I made taped foam filled hemispheres together I would not even have to purchase some construction adhesive.  Hmmmm......It sounds like another experiment is in the cards.

(Note:  the reflective, waterproof tape is not the reflective tape that is used to tape dryer ducts and air conditioning vents.  Its shiny exterior looks the same, but the adhesive is different.  Make sure the tape is marked waterproof.)

Now that I know the waterproof tape will stick to the ball, I also had another thought.  Suppose I had made the mold as I have blogged about.  Then I cut a hole large enough to remove the ball.  Then I filled the ball with sand or gravel.  Then glued the piece of the mold I had removed to extract the ball back in place.  That ball would be as solid as could be.  The waterproof tape, silicone used to glue on the glass, the stained glass, the grout, and the sealer for the grout would pretty much make that ball impermeable. It sounds like another experiment is in the cards.

I am sure the everyone wonders why I persist with trying to make spheres out of ridiculous materials.  The main reason is that I like to make gazing balls, but they are expensive to make.  I like to keep my hobby costs down.  For the mold I was making for these blog posts, the costs came to roughly $1.74 cents worth of glue. $3.38 for the spray foam, and some scrap flannel.  Playground sand - $3.99 for a fifty pound bag.  Or aquarium gravel is $2.09 for a five pound bag.  Child's ball to use as a mold - $1.99.  So about $11.10 for this project.  (Cost figured using the figure for playground sand.)  I have not checked to figure out volume, so it could take two bags of aquarium gravel.  I count the flannel at no cost the costs for the material had already been absorbed in other projects.  It would have been thrown out if I had not used it for this project.  I expect that many people  have some old flannel shirts or an old flannel blanket that have seen better days and could be used in a project.  Roughly eleven dollars is a lot less expensive than some of my options.  Sometimes I can find a bowling ball for free, but many sell for as much as $35.00. 

The costs for Hypertufa in round numbers:  concrete mixing tub, $12.00, portland cement $11.00, pete moss $10.50, vermiculite $12.00.  That comes to $45.50.  This is presuming that you already have a hoe and a trowel.  A half-sphere mold can run $20.00 to $35.00.  If you have a lot of patience, you can get by with a single mold and cast the half spheres sequentially to get two hemispheres to glue together to make a ball.  Otherwise the costs for the mold doubles.  The other problem with casting Hypertufa is that the materials are generally sold in large batches.  For example the portland cement comes in ninty-four pound bags.  Sometimes you can find them in fifty pound bags if you are lucky.  That is a lot of cement compared to what is needed to make a ball.  And once you open the bag, the clock starts ticking on the shelf-life of the product.  A Styrofoam ball at the craft store can run about $17.00.  Larger ones can cost much more.  So perhaps you can understand my quest for a less expensive option. 

Sooner or later I will get around to experimenting on spheres again.  I am planning to put my current project outside to check to see just how waterproof the mold really is.  Other than that, I will begin working on the toy-sized lamb project.  It may take a few days to get started, but I should have some photos soon.  I also have a couple of other projects to blog about.  Check back on Thursday for the latest.

Sphere Mold - Part 3

Registration marks on the mold.

Last time I posted I blogged about experimenting with making a mold of a sphere from flannel and glue.  My first experiment was whether I could make a rigid mold using those materials.  And yes, the mold held its shape once the mold was cut open and the ball removed.  The mold release allowed the ball to pull away from the mold, leaving me with a hollow sphere.  So far, so good.  Step one succeeded. 

Mold wrapped in layers of tape.

Foam flowed out of the ball  mold.

My next question was whether once the mold was separated into half spheres whether the mold could be put back together again.  With that in mind, I made and numbered registration marks at the four points of the mold's equator before cutting the ball open.  I had this question in mind because a previous experiment with a papier mache' mold had shown me that the lip of the mold was too thin.  It was hard to keep the hemispheres in place because the lip was so narrow.  The new mold cast with three layers of flannel and glue (see the two previous blog posts for more information on the construction method).  When I cut open the mold, I could see that the thickness of the mold was three-sixteenths of an inch thick.  It was enough lip to place one hemisphere on top of the other and have it stay there...more or less.  In future molds, I think I will put down at least five, maybe six layers of flannel.  I think that it would be easier to put the mold together if it had a slightly thicker lip.

Before I put the mold together, I had to think about using a mold release.  My hope was that I could reuse the mold to make a number of balls.  In any case, I wanted the ball to come out easily even if I never made another ball.  I coated both halves of the mold with a generous layer of petroleum jelly.  Was petroleum jelly going to work?  It did release the flannel mold from the original ball.  How a different casting material would react with that mold release I did not know. Again, an experiment to see what I could see.

Foam removed from the mold, mostly in one piece.

Foam leaked slightly from under the tape.

My plan from here was to put the mold back together and fill it with an expanding spray foam insulation.   Before putting the mold together, I cut a small hole in the top of one hemisphere so I would have a place to insert the spray foam nozzle.  Then I started putting the mold back together.  I guess this is one case that poor planning lead to something akin to slapstick comedy.  When I was making this mold, I was only playing around with some scrap materials in the studio.  I was working without a full plan, although I had an idea for putting the mold back together.  I know that professional quality molds have bolts that bolt the pieces of the mold together.  I was not planning to go that far ahead with this mold.  I had really only trying to see if a mold could be made.  My thought was that we had a lot of clamps in the downstairs workshop that I would use to clamp the hemispheres together.   I knew that the clamps opened a couple of feet wide.  What I did not think about was that the depth of the clamp was only about three inches.  My ball was roughly eight and a half inches.  Once I actually pulled out a clamp and examined it I realized that there was no way that the clamp was going to clamp onto the ball.  Then I had to come up with a Plan B.

Lower hemisphere.

Upper hemisphere.

Plan B was tape.  Lots of tape as it turned out.  As it turned out, the glue saturated flannel was practically impervious to both masking tape and duct tape.  I was trying to tape around the equator.  It was a rather trying experience.  I would line up my registration marks and get the ball set just right.  I'd get tape about three quarters of the way around and the first pieces of tape I had put on would start peeling off.  I would go back and try and press the tape down.  Too much pressure would cause the top hemisphere to fall off.   I would put the hemisphere back on and the tape would fall off.  It was probably hilarious if you were watching it, but not so amusing if you are trying to put something together.  Anyway, I finally managed to get the ball together by wrapping my body around it like a contortionist to hold the ball in place and then wrapping a long piece of  tape completely around  the ball so that the tape could stick to itself. 

I started with masking tape but I could see that it was barely sticking to the ball.  I repeated the process with duct tape.  The duct tape did not stick to the mold well either.  After numerous wraps of tape I finally felt I had the mold situated so that it would stay together when the expanding foam was added.  It looked like a big mess.
 
I had some strong concerns that the ball might not stand up to the pressure of the expanding foam. I put on my oldest paint clothes and went outside.  I also wore rubber gloves and eye protection.  Who knows what can happen when something is put under pressure.  I was just hoping that if the worst case scenario happened, the foam would not get stuck in my hair.

The can of spray foam did not enlighten me as to how much area the can could be expected to cover. All it said was that it could fill a crack up to one inch wide.  However it did not state whether it would fill a one inch wide crack for a certain number of feet.  There was no way with the information available to calculate how much volume of foam would be created.  Without that information I just had to guess whether it was going to be enough to fill the sphere or whether the sphere would be forced apart by pressure from too much foam.  I decided that I would start filling the sphere and quit adding foam once I saw that it was getting close to the hole I had cut for the spray nozzle.  My hope was that as the foam expanded it would fill the rest of the cavity and any excess foam would flow out of the hole for the nozzle. 

I added the foam and it did fill the cavity and then start to overflow out the hole.  There were a couple of places on the equator where the tape did not seal well and a little bit of foam about the size of a grape emerged.  The rest of the foam flowed out the intended hole.  I was wiping the excess foam away from the hole for about twenty minutes.  I did not want the foam to harden before it was finished expanding.  When the foam settled down to blurping more slowly and looked like mud blurping at a hot spring I went inside and left the ball to its own devices overnight hoping that it would dry up and seal off the hole. 

The next morning I went outside to see what had happened overnight.  The foam had continued to flow from the ball and formed a mound flowing down the side of the ball.  I took the ball inside to work on it at the downstairs workshop table so could use the shop vac if the foam made a mess when I cut it off the ball.  As it turned out, I did not need to use the shop vac.  The whole block of foam pulled off in one piece.  Apparently it was not very amenable to sticking to the mold either.

I used a utility knife to cut through the foam around the seal of the mold.  The mold was starting to move easily.  I was getting excited.  Then I opened it up and was in for a big disappointment.    Apparently the flow of the foam acted as a siphon.  There was barely any foam left in the mold.  Fortunately just before I opened the mold, I decided I should put down plastic for "just in case".  What foam that was left in the mold was still sticky wet.  Although it was supposed to be set up in twelve hours, it was still quite damp at nearly twenty-four hours.  I guess with hindsight I am lucky that the foam had flowed out of the mold.  That would have been a real mess to clean up if I had opened the mold and it all just fell out onto the worktable.  Note to self:  always unmold your experiments outside.  Anyway, the lower hemisphere of the mold held some foam.  The upper sphere was coated with a thin layer of foam.  I left them on the workbench to finish drying.  Just to see if the mold release was going to work. 

So that is the end of the experiments with this mold.  You win some, you lose some.  Conclusions:  the flannel and glue worked to make a rigid mild; future molds will need to have brackets of some sort for bolts and nuts to hold the mold together; spray foam may not work as a casting medium because it needs air to help the foam set. 

So there you have it.  An experiment gone awry.  But it did give me some insight into mold making and casting, so that is worth something.  Check back on Sunday for a blog post on a different subject.

My Sphere Mold

Ball mold cut into hemispheres.

Last blog post I wrote about trying to figure out a way to make a better sphere.  I make mosaic gazing balls.  The balls need a sturdy base to support the weight of the glass and grout.  I have been experimenting to find a way to make a base for the bowling balls that fit the following criteria.  It needs to be relatively inexpensive, easy to make, and sturdy enough to hold up in outdoor conditions.  To that end, I keep experimenting to see what is out there that will facilitate my crafting while staying on a budget.  I am still looking for an easier way to make spheres. 

Interior of the mold.

Before the mold was cut open.

For new readers, a quick recap of what I have done over the last few years in my quest to create mosaic gazing balls.  Detailed directions for crafting the objects are available in earlier blog posts.  I have used bowling balls as a base, cast spheres in Hypertufa, and even figured out how to create a papier mache' sphere that was covered in Portland Cement as a base.  The bowling balls were easy to use as they were already manufactured, but they are not easy to come by.  Mixing Hypertufa was a lot of work.  I was casting in a half-sphere mold because full sphere ball molds are expensive.  Mixing the Hypertufa and joining the hemispheres was messy work.  Plus the Portland Cement was only available in fifty pound bags at the hardware store.  It was a lot more than I needed.  Creating with Hypertufa was only affordable because we already had the concrete mixing trough from doing some home repairs.  The papier mache' base was had to be covered with layers of wire mesh and covered in Portland Cement.    Getting the sphere to retain its shape while covered with wire mesh was difficult, but the project has been able to stay outside summer and winter for the last two years.  All of the projects worked, but all had a degree of difficulty or expense. 

Yes, there are mold making materials available, but silicone mold materials for something the size of a ball would be expensive.  Plus a silicon mold would need to be reinforced so that it would retain its shape when filled.  Casting plaster around a ball would require cutting the mold open with some sort of power tool, creating a lot of plaster dust.  Still, that option is on the table for experimentation at some point in the future.  What I really want is something I can work with in the studio without creating a lot of mess.  Or at least made with only a minimal mess even if I have to work outside.  So this time I set out to try to create a spherical mold that I could use multiple times with inexpensive materials.

I decided to attempt to make a mold using what materials I had around the house.  I did not know for certain that it would work, but I strongly suspected that it would.  In doing some research on papier mache' I learned that people used to make small boats out of paper and glue.  It is hard to imagine what it was like to have the courage to attempt that.  However, small paper and glue boats were a way of life only a few generations ago.  If you could make paper and glue into a rigid, impermeable object, why not cloth?   If it failed, the main thing I was loosing was the time involved.

I used some scrap flannel and glue.  I purchase glue in gallon bottles at the hardware store because that is the least expensive way to buy it provided that you plan on making lots of projects that involve glue.  My mold project only took about two cups of glue total.  The flannel was left over from another project.  In fact, the flannel used in the last project was left over from a previous project.  So getting some of this old material out of my fabric stash was a win in any case.  My real question was how many layers of fabric was it going to take to make the mold rigid enough that it would not collapse when the ball was removed.   When working with my papier mache' ball base I learned the hard way that it would take more layers than I thought to make the structure retain its shape.

Sometimes you just have to guess.  (Note: to see the detailed instructions for creating the mold for see the blog post for Thursday, March 17, 2016.)  I decided to try three layers.  It was an arbitrary decision made solely upon that was how much scrap flannel I had available without cutting more from a larger piece.  It seemed quite rigid, so I decided to give cut the sphere in half and see what happened.  It worked better than I would have thought.  In fact it was so rigid, I had trouble cutting it open with a utility knife.  If I make another one, I will use a cutting blade with the Dremel tool. 

The inside was smooth, although you can see where the pieces of flannel are lying next to each other.  I am not sure how much those lines will appear in a cast object.  For my current ideas of application, I don't think it is going to matter.  In some places it was still slick from the mold release, but that will not be a problem.  I will be adding more mold release when I use it in the future.  In theory, this mold should be waterproof.  I guess I will find out about that as things progress. 

The outside of the mold is not a thing of great beauty, but for this mold, I was not particularly worried about what the outside looked like.  If I make future molds, I may keep that it in mind to make a smoother exterior.  I have a few ideas about how to use my new-found mold.  I will be blogging about them soon.  I have to make a trip to the hardware store before I use the mold.  I think I will be able to show you my first cast ball by the Thursday blog post.  Either that, or I will be blogging about the failure of the experiment.

Check back Thursday for the latest on the ball mold experiment.  Once that has been completed, I will begin working on the small version of the sheep/lamb.

My Quest to Build a Better Sphere

Ball covered in glue soaked flannel.

As I mentioned a few blog posts ago, I am working on a few projects at one time.  I am also playing a bit to decompress after finishing an intensive project.  At times like this I come up with some weird ideas.  I just want to play around with bits and scraps and see what happens.  At the moment I am playing around with a ball and some leftover fabric.  Hmm...., fabric some glue, and a ball....what could I do with that?  Lots of things actually.  I may have to make this project more than once to test out these ideas.

Concrete over papier mache' ball from 2014. Photo taken this morning .

  A few years ago I had been challenged to find something other than a bowling ball to use as base for making mosaic gazing balls for the garden. While it is  not impossible to find old bowling balls, they do not exactly grow on trees either.  I made a mold of a ball from papier mache' and used it as the base for a garden ball that I painted.  However the ball was rather cumbersome to make and required  extra supports from wire mesh to hold the Portland Cement outer layer.  I begin to think that perhaps there was a better way to make the support.  I set the idea aside until I was ready to work with it again.  I think that time has arrived.

My first thought is that if I could stiffen the fabric with glue and mold it around the ball, it might me stiff enough to hold its shape after the ball was removed.  If it did hold its shape, could I be able to use it as a mold?  If I was going to make a mold, could I use it to make some type of gazing ball substrate or as a base for some other project.  I decided that I would find the answer to that question.  And so the experiment began.

I had some small pieces of flannel left over from the Belsnickel project.  I cut it up into strips.  I had a ball that I covered with cling wrap and coated with a mold release product.  I mixed some Elmer's multipurpose glue 50/50 with water.  For the first course, I started adding strips to the ball and soaking them with the glue mixture.  I allowed the ball to dry completely.  It took about a day and a half.  I added a second course of the flannel, but this time a full strength layer of glue was painted on to the ball, then the strip of flannel was added and soaked with the 50/50 mixture.  The same thing for a third course.  Now I am waiting for the ball to dry.  It is almost there.

I plan to remove the mold from the ball soon.  Removing the ball will destroy it.  If I had thought about it a little more, I would have made sure I left an opening so I could deflate the ball.  However, I did not do that and the ball is covered in a solid layer of fabric.  Will it hold its shape once the ball is removed or will it collapse into a misshapen object?  If it does collapse, is there some way to make it more rigid and salvage it for the sphere project?  I won't know until I take out the ball.  Check back next blog post to find out.

For anyone who might be wondering if my ball with the papier mache' substrate has held up, I posted a picture I took this morning.    The ball was completed in 2014.  It is a hollow ball made from papier mache' and covered with Portland Cement.  Then it was painted with acrylic paints and sealed with an exterior sealer.  The ball has set outside summer and winter since the spring of 2014.  So far it has held up well.  The blog posts of the build of the ball are still online if you scroll back to the 2014 section on the main page of the blog.  The blog posts of my Hypertufa cast balls are also available.

Check back on Sunday and I will have unmolded the ball.  We will see what happens. 



     

Colored Pencil Holder

Since I have just finished a big project, I need to just work on quick projects here and there before I get into another intense project.  I plan to get to work on my sheep project soon.  In the mean time I decided to do a small sewing project.  It was a diversion for an afternoon.

I have recently joined an adult coloring book group in order to have some socialization time.  I enjoyed coloring books when I was a child.  It seems that other people in my age group are also fond of them.  Adult coloring books are a fad that are not only sweeping the nation, but overseas as well.  Coloring the pictures is a simple project.  There are coloring books with various levels of complexity.  Everyone can choose projects according to the amount of effort you want to put into a picture.

Every hobby has some sort of tools specific to it.  Along with a coloring book, you will also need something to color with:  crayons, markers, pens, or colored pencils.  Some people choose crayons for the array of colors and the connection with childhood coloring.  Other people choose markers for the intense color.  I prefer colored pencils because they can be sharpened to keep a fine point and they don't bleed on the fabric as some markers will.  The fine point is very helpful if your pictures have small areas to color.  Also, some craft stores and online vendors will sell individual pencils.  You don't need to buy a whole set if you run out of a color.

The one complaint I had about colored pencils is that they were hard to see the colors if you kept them in their box.  (This may not be a problem if you buy an expensive set that comes in trays.)  If you take the pencils out of the box for ease of spotting the color they are a nuisance to put back in the box.  When out of the box, the colors rarely stay in their color groupings for long.  I like having all my colors sorted so that all the reds, blues, yellows, etc. are all grouped together so I can make choices on which shade of that color I think will work best.  It is easier to do this when similar colors are all in one spot. 

I decided to make a fabric pencil holder for the colored pencils.  I would be able to see all the pencils at once.  The pencils could be kept in some color order.  Only one pencil (or a few) would be out at any one time.  When it was time to go, the pencil(s) could be inserted back into their slot and the holder quickly rolled up and put away. 

I will note that there are commercial pencil holders available.  For the most part, it would be less expensive to buy one than to make one unless you happen to have scrap material around.  Because commercial ventures are buying their materials in bulk, they are purchasing at a much lower price and can sell the products for less than it would cost to buy this materials as an individual.  When you factor in the production time involved and that the product is shipped here from another country, you wonder how the the pencil holders can be sold so inexpensively.  You can not compete with an economy of scale.

Since I quilt and sew, I tend to have a lot of material around.  I also had some scrap pieces of batting.  It was worth it for me to make one rather than buy one as long as I am counting the time as amusement rather than figuring it into the cost.  I set out to make a prototype.  As usual, there is a learning curve when trying to figure out how to make something.

I had seen a colored pencil holder where the pencils fitted through slots made from elastic.  The owner of that particular style of holder said that she did not like it because the fabric tended to bunch up when she tried to roll it up.  It seemed to me that it was also possible that if a pencil came out of the slot that it could fall out if the case was rolled up too loosely.  Also, elastic tends to lose its stretch over time.  I decided to make a pencil holder with long slots sewn into the fabric to hold the pencils in place.  This is not a new design.  This type of roll up case is used for everything from artist's brushes to mechanics wrenches.  Still, there were a few things that needed to be worked out for the pencil case to work effectively.

I started out by placing the green fabric face up.  The green fabric was covered with a piece of muslin.  The muslin was topped by a piece of batting.  The batting was a cotton/poly blend.  It was what I had available.  The fabrics were pinned then cut to size all at once.  I am not putting the size on here because as it turned out I messed up on that.  I will tell you how to determine the size you need to cut the fabric so you can figure it correctly for your project.  The reason I messed up on my initial fabric length is because I underestimated the depth and width of the slots.  I measured my colored pencils, but found that the measurement did not allow enough give to take the pencils in and out with ease.  I could get them in and out, but I had to work at it.  I had to allow more room so the fabric would give enough for the pencils to sit firmly but go in and out easily.  I had to increase the allowance for each slot. 

I had initially measured for three-eighths inch for each pencil slot.  That was too little.  I tried a half inch but that was also very tight.  On this project I finally settled on five-eighths of an inch for each pencil slot.  However, I have decided that I will give a full three-quarters of an inch for each slot on future projects.  The increased slot size reduced the number of slots in the row.  I had originally planned to put a different set of colored pencils in this pencil holder.  Now that there were less slots, there were not enough slots for the set of pencils.  That was not a big problem as I had two smaller sets of pencils.  Now there are some extra slots.  I will know better next time.  (The only down side to putting that set in is that the pencil only shows color at the tip and butt of the pencil.  It makes it a little more difficult to determine the color.  My other sets have the color painted the length of the pencils which makes it easier to spot the color,)

 To get the first measurement for your pencil holder figure the figure the number of pencils multiplied by 3/4 of an inch.  Add one inch to that figure for seam allowances and you will have your measurement.  Example 24 pencils time 0.75 inches = 18   18 + 1 = 19

Your pencils will be lying crosswise on the fabric.  To get the other measurement you will have to determine how deep you want each pocket to be.  On my prototype I used three and a half inches for the pocket size.  Ultimately I found that this measurement was too deep.  Although the pocket allowed for plenty of the pencil to be visible I could see that it might be problematic once the pencils had been sharpened a number of times.  Although I would definitely have been looking for a replacement pencil by the time it reached that point.  I decided that for my next pencil holder I will use the measurement of two and a half inches for the pocket depth.  Since the top stitching will be holding the fabrics together there will be no need for a hem when folding up the fabric to make a pocket.  You will need to allow an equal amount of fabric for the fold on the other side.  That fold will not be sewn down.  It is just a flap to prevent any pencils from escaping if they should come out of a pocket.  Your measurement for this is the length of the pencil plus an extra inch to make sure that the fold is not too tight against the pencil tip plus five inches for the folds.  Example:  pencil length is eight inches.  8 + 1 + 2.5 + 2.5 = 14 

Using this example for a 24 pencil set the fabric measurements would be 19 x 14 inches.  This is a manageable size to open up in at a table full of people.  If you have larger sets of 48 or more the holder may be too long to be useful in a group.  I have a different plan for larger sets but I will show that type of holder some other time.

When it is time to pin the fabrics, mark a five inch opening that will be left open for turning the fabric once it is sewn.  Begin at one of the marked places and sew all the way around the fabric until you reach the other marked opening allowing a quarter inch seam allowance.  After sewing, clip the corners and trim the seam allowance to an eighth of an inch.  After that, turn the fabric rectangle inside out.  Your print fabric will now be facing right side out.  Insert the fabric ties and topstitch the opening closed.  Continue topstitching  all the way around the rectangle. 

Once the topstitching is done, fold up one long side to the desired depth of your pockets.  Pin and stitch on each edge.  Next it is time to sew the pockets.  For the first pocket, measure from the topstitching seam, not the edge of the fabric.  Mark the stitching line on the fabric.  Sew from the bottom edge to the top of the pocket.  Make sure that this line is straight.  A variance here will affect the rest of your stitching lines.  (Learn from my fail on this.  My pencils pockets end up being slightly slanted.  For the purpose of this project it does not affect the pencils so I did not go back and rip out the stitching.  It is just not as aesthetically pleasing.)  Anyway, you continue stitching until all your pockets are completed.  I found it useful to use the walking foot with the attachment that allows you to make lines parallel to a previous line.  If you don't have a walking foot, a regular foot will do but you may have to measure for each line.  In that case you might want to make a cardboard template to help you mark the lines so you don't have to measure each time. 

After that, the pencils are inserted in their pockets.  The opposite side is folded down over the pencils so they will catch any that come out of the pockets.  Roll up the holder firmly, tie it off and you are done. 

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  It was so much easier to put up three pictures rather than write step by step about how to make this project.  I am sure that most people could figure it out in no time from the pictures.  Writing this explanation took a long time.  The morning is pretty well shot. 

Next blog post will be about my latest sphere project.  I will be blogging about that next time.  Then I will be working on the sheep I think.  Check back on Thursday for the sphere post.

On to the Sheep and Other Projects

I apologize to readers for missing the Thursday post.  Things just came up.  Sometimes that happens to everyone.  I guess it was a one of those days.  Anyway, I am ready to get on with a new project.  For some time, I have wanted to make a sheep.  I am going to make a small sheep first.  It may end up in some sort of Father Christmas tableau at some point.  If I like it, I may end up making a larger one in the future.  My folk art pig could use some company.  It is just a whimsy.  I have not done a large project for a while.  The problem with large projects is that you have to have somewhere to keep them when they are finished.  (Or some place to sell them.)  Last year my foray into trying to sell my life size papier mache' pig did not pan out.  Maybe one day I will find the right place to sell it.  But for now I will try for a small sheep.

This is going to be one of those times where I have more than one project going on at once.  I want to try some carving.  I would like to carve a walking stick.  Before I take on a whole stick though I am going to try to develop some carving skills by doing some flat carving.  I would like to have some experience with the tools before I take on a whole long walking stick.  Now that Spring is approaching I will be able to get out more.  I think I might enjoy working outside on a carving project.

I have another sphere project started, but at this point I don't have any pictures of it.  At this point, I am not sure that the project is going to work as I hope it will.  It is another one of my experiments.  I will be blogging about the success or failure of the first part of this experiment on my next blog post.  If my experiment works, it will pave the way for some future projects.  If it fails, I will have to bow to the Universe and say that the already established way of doing things is going to be as good as it gets. 

There are a sewing project in the works also.  I recently joined a coloring book club.  They are all the rage right now.  It is a fun, relaxing way to spend a few hours socializing.  I like to color with colored pencils.  The trouble is that it is difficult to find the color pencil in a box, and they are a nuisance to lay out on the table and then have to be put back into the box.  I saw some fabric pencil holders online.  I could order one, but what would be the fun of that.  I have plenty of material and notions in my fabric stash.  I plan to make some.  I have three sets of pencils, so that will keep me busy for a little bit.  If I did not have the fabric just sitting here I could not make one for as cheaply as I could order one.   But since I have the fabric just sitting here, I might as well.  

Check back on Sunday for some first photos on a couple of projects. 

Victorian Belsnickel Completed

I have finished this doll at last.  I had a lot of delays this project.  Part of the delay was an inability to find the products I wanted locally.  The other part is just the amount of time spent on this doll.  I sculpted the face in bake in the oven clay.  I attempted my first attempt at sculpting hands on an armature.  The sculpting worked, the hand failed during the heating process in the oven.  And sometimes the weather was against me.  But the doll is finally finished and I am happy at the way it turned out.

The doll stands on its own.  I created the doll with an internal armature so that it did not need an external stand or have to lean against something for support.  I like having a doll with an internal support system but they are a little intimidating.  There are a lot of "what ifs" involved.  You have to make sure that the armature has enough strength to support the doll.  You have to make sure that you leave enough of the internal armature exposed so that it fits deeply enough into the base that the doll will remain upright.  You have to make sure that the doll is balanced.  There are plenty of things to think about that you can only visualized as you are creating the doll.  Will something work?  You have to try it to find out whether it works or not.  But it is great when it comes out right. 

So I painted the base with a mixture of glass bead medium, titanium white acrylic paint, and some pearlizing
medium.  The result is a rough texture.  I prefer the textured look to flat white.  It just looks more like snow and ice to me.  For anyone that may be inspired to try making a free standing doll I have a work of advice about painting the stand.  When you are dry fitting the doll to the stand and are satisfied with the fit, trace around the doll's feet with a light pencil mark.  Paint all of the stand but leave the center of the footprints bare.  Paint slightly over the traced lines, but no further.  The reason for this is that the feet are part of the support system for the doll.  (This may not apply to a doll that was made to sit on something.)  When the dowels are hot glued into the holes, also put some glue on the footprint area as well.  This will give some extra support that will help hold the doll in place in case it is moved or touched causing it to rock.  If you glue the foot to paint, motion of the doll could cause the glue to pull up the paint rather than stay in place.  It is a little extra insurance that the doll will stay in place.

I tried to tell the story of the folklore of the Belsnickel partly through his outfit and accessories.  This doll is dressed in the style of the Victorian Belsnickel, which is a coat with a pointy hood and a rope belt.  (The pointy hood is a feature, not a mistake.)  Traditionally, the Victorian Belsnickel's coats were red or blue, but coats of other colors were not unknown.  Prior to the Victorian era, this figure was described as wearing fur pelts and was very rough looking.  The rope belt is a holdover from the earlier description of the Belsnickel.   Many Belsnickels are shown with their hands stuffed into their sleeves.  Some people say that the hands in the sleeves is supposed to show that the Belsnickel is cold.  Another idea on this style of doll is that the hands are hard to make so the hands are not shown.  Also, Belsnickels were popular candy and chalkware molds.  The hands would have been hard detail to reproduce in a mold due to their small size and could possibly cause the cast figure to stick in the mold.

The Belsnickel was not a Santa, although many people refer to him as a "Grumpy Santa".  He is supposed to look either angry or sad rather than jolly.  Santa and a Belsnickel are not the same, although Belsnickel characteristics have been co-opted into Santa legends.  The Belsnickel brought switches and coal to naughty children.  He did not come in the night while everyone is sleeping like Santa.  He shows up when people are awake and gives the children a swat with the switches.  (I actually saw news footage of this happening a few years ago.  People actually take their children to see the Belsnickel.  The children are frightened.)  The Belsnickel may also give a small treat to exceptionally good children, but the main role of a Belsnickel is to strike fear in naughty children.

For this doll, I tried to tell the story through the accessories.  The doll has a bunch of switches in his right hand.  Actually, the switches are made from broom straw that has been painted with burnt umber.  I initially wanted to use actual bits of stick, but sticks that small were too fragile.  Sooner or later, the doll would have ended up with a handful of stubs.  The broom straws were more flexible, so they should have a longer life to them.  In the left hand the doll holds a coal bucket.  Many people may not recognize that this type of bucket had a specific purpose.  The long spout on the bucket helped pour the coal into the stove or fireplace.  I made the lumps of coal in the bucket by baking misshapen lumps of polymer clay.  I had hoped that I could burn them enough that they would turn black, but they only turned black in spots so I ended up spray painting them black.  They are a little glossy and they did not take a good picture.  They look better in person than they do in the photograph.

I considered making some candy canes to hang on the belt to show treats, but ultimately decided against it.  The pieces would have been very small and difficult to glue to the belt with a good hold without getting glue all over the coat.  I also considered a small pouch with some candy canes hanging out, but a pouch that small was awkward looking.  Sometimes it is better to let an idea go rather than try to force something.  So the doll is left with just some coal and some switches.  

Most people are not familiar with the lore about the Belsnickel, so I guess they are going to consider it to be Santa.  I guess it will be a different take on Santa.  He will not be jolly and he will not have a bag full of presents as he is generally portrayed today.  However, that has more to do with our modern way of thinking than you might suspect.  Switches and coal would not seem like something desirable today, but it had a different meaning in earlier years.  Coal and some kindling to get it going would have been useful in the days of coal burning stoves and fireplaces.  Instead of being a message that someone had been naughty and therefore not worthy of receiving a gift, it would have been given as a gift of warmth; a gift to help with survival.  It might have been a message that someone cared about the child even if the child had not been on his or her best behavior.  A special treat for exceptionally good children showed that their effort had been rewarded, but even a naughty child was deserving of care.  That might have been a message from the Victorian era;  there were so many street children at that time that were cold and hungry.  

Remember the Dickens story Oliver Twist?  It was first published as a serial between 1837 through 1839.  The Victorian era was from 1839 through 1901, the length of Queen Victoria's reign.  Perhaps that is why the Belsnickel was a popular figure in that era.

The doll is complete.  I will be blogging about a new project at the next blog post on Thursday.

Victorian Belsnickel - Part 13

I thought I would have the doll completely finished for today, but that did not happen.  I am so close.  I overestimated the time I was going to have to work on the doll this week.  You know how it is.  It looks like your calendar is going to be clear, and then the creep begins.  First you add one thing, then another.  Pretty soon the whole calendar is full.  I enjoyed the surprises that came along the week.  I just ended up doing different activities than what I had planned.  Sometimes it is good to stick to the plan, but other times it is better to explore the potential within the unexpected.  You just never know what is going to come out of a chance opportunity.

I added the trim to the coat and added the cape.  I have the hood attached on top of his head, but it needs a little work.  A characteristic of a Victorian Belsnickel is that he has a long pointy hood.  The hood is long and pointy, but it tends to cave in a little along the length.  I will gave to give it a little stuffing to make it stand up correctly.  That is a minor detail, but I did not want to do it in a rush.

The stand is also ready.  The doll has been dry fitted into the stand, but it has not been glued yet.  There is a bit of a story to that.  I bought an unfinished wooden base at the craft store.  It needed holes drilled in it to hold the dowels that are the main support for the doll.  My drilling skills are only so-so, and I was worried about messing up the base, so I enlisted my husband's help with it.  That was a really a good idea in this case because my drill bit choice might have ended in a disaster.  The dowels were listed as a certain size.  We had a drill bit of the listed size.  The problem being that the drill bit and the size of the dowel bore no real relationship to each other.  The drill bit was clearly larger than the dowel.  If I had just picked out the drill bit and drilled the holes, they would have been too large.  We decided to drill the holes smaller than the dowel.  Then I used some small rasps to shape the holes to a custom fit for the dowels.  That worked, and the doll stands up without any additional support.  So that was a major hurdle out of the way.  I did have to wait until he had time to help me with it, but the delay was well worth it since it saved me from ruining the base.

So the base has been painted.  It took two coats to get good coverage.  I was using a specialty medium, so I had to allow a day of drying between coats.  I will blog more about painting the stand on my next blog post.

I have also been making progress on the accessories.  I still have to do some more painting to do.  I will show them next time (I hope.)  It depends on whether I have the right paint or whether I need to make a trip to the craft store.  If I have to get to the store, it might be a few days.  We are under a winter storm watch.  Snow is coming in tonight.  I know that we get snow in March, but I was sort of hoping that we were finished with the worst weather.  After all, Puxatawney Phil said that it was going to be an early spring.  Anyway, I may be digging out from another storm tomorrow.  Check back on Sunday for the latest (and dare I hope, completion of the doll.)