Thinking of making a needle book and maschma

I feel like I tend to blog about things I'm thinking of doing rather than showing the results of what I have done. Partially it's because I procrastinate, partially it's a matter of not having the time to do it so I'm stuck just thinking about it and partially it's because I write to try and sort out things I hesitate about. Writing about it sorts out the thoughts -- at it gives you motivation to produce a result once you declare to the world what you are about to to do as well as it's an opportunity to ask others for input.

If you follow this blog you must have noticed that the idea of a needle book and thread storage have come up. Last time I mentioned making a maschma, for example. This post is about those thoughts once again.

I've been thinking of making a needle book for some time now, but never come up with a good design. Because I have both beading needles and hand embroidery needles it's also a matter of whether to make one book for all the needles or make two separate ones. Right now I'm thinking of doing one just for my beading needles as they make up 80 % of all my needles (and most of my embroidery needles are collected in one place anyway as I bought them in a silk ribbon embroidery collection -- the big yellow package).

Being a tool junkie extends to needles too: I have at least half a dozen of needle packages, not including a zip-lock bag of collapsible-eye needles, DIY wire needles and a big-eye needle. There's the regular long beading needles in size ranging from 10 to 15 (!), sharp bead embroidery needles, ballpoint bead emboidery needles and curved needles. Have I forgotten any now? Regardless, right now I just put all the needle packages in the organza bag, having tied them together with a string through the holes at the top (most packages have a hole, if not I punch one).

But what about the threads? The main reason I stick with this organza bag solution is that it all fits in it, all my needles and all my beading threads, and it's easy to carry from one spot to another. It's just that they're all jumbled, I'd like a bit more order. Just as with my seed bead storage dilemma, it's a question of finding a good, cheap -- and easy to carry -- solution that can accomodate different shapes and sizes as I use more than one type of beading thread. There's the K.O. spools, but also carded thicker K.O. thread and smaller bobbins (One-G etc). Plus a couple of big spools of YLI jean thread and medium-sized spools of a Gütermann thread I use for bead crochet.

It's still easyier to find the right thread so I'll make the needle book project a priority over this: removing the needles, the organza bag might be as good a solution as any with the amount of beading threads I have.

But my ideas doesn't end there...

Apparently, one thing that's become popular among embroiderers in Sweden recently is making a marsma or maschma; a small embellished roll or tote for emboidery paraphernalia (needles, scissors, threads), probably of sami origin, one might call it. And I think it might be very useful for me as a seedbeader too as I like to bead in couches, beds and everywhere else where I can't take my whole bead stash with me. So one of my newest ideas is to sketch a maschma with room for a couple of tubes or flip-top boxes of beads, one or two bead thread bobbins and a pair of scissors. (Did I forget something?) So far I haven't figured out the design or even what material I want to use. And partially I procrastinate because I love to embroider, but don't really enjoy sewing.

To illustrate what a maschma looks like, here's a screenshot of a picture googling I did in order to find some inspiration for my beader's maschma. Click on it for the full size.

Looking at the pics I'm thinking that with the right material it could double as a small bead mat too. I rarely use bead mats (hence why everything here has a few stray seed beads embedded in them), but they can be useful so why not? I like things with double -- or more -- purposes. A bit like the Helen Gibb kit for a needle case with bead pad [which not longer is available on her website so no pic to show].

These are some of the things I'm thinking about while working -- it might not be a fun or wellpaid job, but at least I'm free to think, sketch ideas in my head etc while I'm doing it. Not that I always think of beads and stitching, of cause, but it's a recurring theme most days. I might not be showing many finished items as I'm focusing on other things right now, but I have so many ideas buzzing in my head. If only I could cure my bad habit of procrastinating...

Put them in the kitchen drawer or clay box?

A little show and tell today. This is a selection of modelling tools I won in a giveaway advent calendar at the baking blog Kakolina back in December. I actually wanted to win them as I thought they could be great for jewellery making -- sculpting clay and things like that -- but now I can't really decide whether to use them as clay tools or whether to dedicate them to food use. Creating with marzipan was fun as a kid and now there's also sugar paste etc available to create flowers and other decorations for cakes, cupcakes and desserts. Maybe it'd be fun to give it a go again -- with some neat tool to help me shape the paste this time.

Right now they're living in the kitchen drawer as you can always start using a tool for food use and then use it for working in clay or other craft uses, but you can't start off using something for inedible, sometimes slightly or even very toxic, materials and then put it in the kitchen.


(On a side note, one can dedicate a tool to food use and still make jewellery as these cakes will show you.)

Texture plate update

Well, so far I haven't made anything using my texture plate as I've had too much fun adding more to it. Wish I had more than one square because now I've pretty much run out of space. Since it isn't technically a texture plate with one background pattern but rather a mix of patterns and single motifs, you need a little bit of space around those motifs. Unfortunately, as I've carved the back too I can't cut out the motifs and use them as stamps.

The little doodles on the front look a bit boring, but they do look better printed into clay (I keep testing with Tack-It while I carve. Wy Tack-It? It was what I had nearby). And then you add some colour to that. Same thing with the uneven carving, which adds a nice hand-drawn touch.

The tiny bell flowers, like the one in near the bottom left corner, are fun to make and when I get my hands on a new square of linoleum substitute (believe the material I'm using is called Soft Cut) I'll fill one with those.

 The only downside to carving is that you can't always save a "derailed" cut or change something that you don't realise wasn't that great until you test it (with clay or Tack-It). As you can see in my fritillary here. In this case, I also made a second mistake by forgetting that you have to draw the motif mirrored. This flower looks better facing left than facing right, which it does when pressed into clay.

But it's not just single motifts. I enlarged the flower meadow textures on the back too, as you could see in the first picture. I'm really fond of making those glass and three-petal flowers patterns.

 To finish, just a couple of backlit pics of the texture plate.

Carved doodles

We once learned how to make carvings in linoleum blocks for printing in art class at school. I doubt I was really good at it, but it was fun. Didn't cut my fingers off, at least. It is, however, nothing I've dabbled in since. But then, some time last year I bought a set of knives (for carving in linoleum and soft wood) and a square of linoleum substitute.

This time I wasn't looking to carve printing blocks, but rather texture plates and stamps. I started out making raised motifs as that's easier: you just carve the parts that will be raised unlike when making stamps and you have to carve around every little dot and hair-thin line. I'm also thinking of trying to carve wood, but it'll have to wait. Focus right now is textures and motifs for imprinting clay. There's some forgotten poly clay that needs to be used soon.

At first I didn't want to start carving as I was afraid of ruining the square. It's not big so there aren't much room for carving and so I didn't want to mess up and have to buy a new one. Then I got an urge to just carve something. Didn't have a pen that worked on the greasy, plastic surface so instead I doodled and worked on freehand. As long as I stuck to simple flowers and leaves/grass straws it wouldn't be too hard to succeed with. They might not be amazingly good, but they are decent -- especially considering I haven't carved anything in the last 18 years and when I did carve in school it was just a couple of printing plates before we moved on to the next technique.

This is one of my more expensive types of doodling as you can't reuse the linoleum once it's cut. With photo editing, I don't run out of material. With drawn doodles, it takes a long time to run out of pen/pencil and paper. And in both cases you can -- in some amount -- erase mistakes in a way you can't do when carving. So I won't carve that much, it'll be too expensive to keep buying something to carve in. But it's fun so this won't be my last carvings.


The carvings look pretty boring photographed as there's no colours and no sense of scale so first I'll be showing a few pics taken in "artistic" angles.

 Very simple and not exactly meticulous carvings, but I hope that with some colour and a nice shape of the bead or pendant, they'll look nice. Some carvings are a tad shallow, but I'm hoping it'll be enough.

 

 Apart from the flower meadow, I made a few small motifs and a hideous texture that I can just hope will turn out ok once printed in clay and painted.

I also wondered what it'd be like to carve a word or two. Started by writing Ullegull's name and soon realised this would look very... special. Even if I had written out the name to follow, it turned out I had written it slightly too small and too condensed.

Then, thinking about my recent rune doodles, I thought runic script would be better for this than the latin alphabet. After all, runes were designed to be easy to carve into wood. And the result? Well, I still have to practice. Most of all, I learned how important it is to plan the cuts. When you write, you usually draw the main stave first and then the shorter lines and there's no problem, but when carving it turned out to be troublesome to cut the diagonal staves on the N and A runes as I got stuck in the groove of the already cut stave. Next time I'll try cutting the shorter lines first and see if that helps.

 And here's what it looks like printed in Tack-It. Not as horrible as it might look judging from the photo above, but still a lot of room for improvement.

I'll fill the square with some more carved doodles, but then I should try and make an effort to get out the clay and use the texture plate for something more than just Tack-It. Clay isn't my best medium, but some day I hope to master it a bit better -- though I would like to work with epoxy clays rather than polymer in the future as there's no hassle with oven baking. Anyway, fingers crossed I'll be able to show a finished piece soon so you can see the result of these doodling sessions of mine.

Boxing day

While I haven't been blogging about anything I've done lately, that doesn't mean I haven't done anything. On boxing day, I took out the o beads I got for christmas (technically, I got christmas money to buy beads from so I got the beads before christmas eve) and played around with them. Really like how thin they are and how well they can be sandwiched between beads like the superduos in the pic above.

You can see some thread in some places so they aren't all perfect, those first three samples. Will play around some more with these designs and see what I can come up with. And of cause I'll embroider with them too, stitching them "face up" so to speak.

(By the way, if you need some inspiration for your new O Beads, check out this pinboard. The pinner also have a lot of other inspirational pinboards with various themes such as specific bead shapes or techniques.)

And as for this thing I also made on boxing day, can you guess what it is? If I give you another view?

No?

It's actually a cover for my embroidery scissors. After putting all my threads and needles in an organza bag along with the scissors, I realised how much I needed some sort of protection for the sharp blades -- both to protect the scissors from being damaged and to protect the organza bag from being pierced.

The cover is made from something I just grabbed in my stash: the most ugly looking of my silk rods (aka silk carrier rods). It was already softer than most of the other rods, but was soften even more by being rubbed. I then folded it in half and stitched the edges with uneven, but luckily close to invisible stitches. Not the prettiest thing ever made and ideally the shape should follow the shape of the scissors and be tapered, but with some embroidery -- with beads or floss -- it could look pretty nice I think. Should have embroidered first, but forgot to plan ahead...

 
The hard edge on the end is used as a sort of clasp or clamp to hold the scissors in the cover: once it gives in it'll be replaced by a button and loop closure.

At least it's serving its purpose and that's pretty much why I made it the way I made it. It's not about looks, it was about finding a quick fix and crossing it of the to-do list. But I do kind of like the look of it as well. Very earthy/forest feel about it with the texture and colours in it. Might even keep it like this and not embroider it...

My tool wish list

OK, I own too few tools! I've known that for a long time and the reason it's still so is that I don't have much money to spend -- and choosing between buying beads/jewellery parts, tools, books or mags, I always end up buying beads since I get more stuff for my money that way. Besides, I can't help this addiction to tools, I've inherited it from dad...

So here's a short list of tools I wish I could afford to buy. Some more basic than others.

• Bone folder: This I'll be buying soon actually.
• Scribe: To mark and write/draw on metal.
  
• Dapping block: Oh, I need this one to make domed pendants, flowers etc.
• Dapping blocks for ovals: Like above, but for oval shapes -- think cabs and cameos.
• Riveting hammer: I so want to try riveting right now!
• Texture hammer: Love textures.
• Ball pein hammer: I know, it's so basic, but I don't own one. I make due with other hammers.
• Chasing hammer: I like hammers.
  
• Hole punching pliers: I'm too lazy to drill, don't like the noise of electric machines
• Jeweller's bow drill: Again, don't like noisy power tools.
  
• Jeweller's saw and blades: I know, I know, another really basic tool I don't have...
• Burnisher (curved): For my wirework.
• Engravers: I'd be fun to try hand engraving one day.
• Rubber mallet: I use my dad's now.
• bail-forming pliers: also known as filigree bending pliers. Very useful and thicker than round-nose pliers.
• Bead reamer: my current one is broken...
• Bracelet bending pliers: I can't get a nice shape bending by hand or using my regular pliers...
• Digital calipers: Tiny measurements are hard to read off my analog ones.
• Wire gauge: I have a few rolls of unmarked wire I'd like to know the size of. Without resorting to estimates.
  
• 0000 steel wool: will be buying soon, for polishing/cleaning metals.
• Wax stick thingies: like perfect positioners, magical pick etc. To pick up and position tiny crystals and stones.
• Tumbler: to harden metal
• Awl: Useful piercing tool.
  
• Steel ring mandrel: Don't make many rings, but useful when I do.
  
• Steel bracelet mandrel: think this one would be more useful than the ring mandrel for me. Need a strong one to hammer wire on.
  
• Soldering iron: Or a flat tip for my Dremel Versatip.
• Charcoal or graphite soldering-thingy: Uhm, forgot the name in english...
• Third hand: Two hand are often one too few.
  
• Zutter Corner Cutter: Didn't know of this tool until I read the Vintaj blog today -- but it sure sounds useful.

One tool I never thought I'd desire is a set of letter stamps (script). I'm not fond of stamping, really. But I just got this idea -- as usual -- and I want to try it out. Not very economical, though, buying expensive tools just for one project. My sis have a set, but those letters are too large for my purposes.