My Fibery Pursuits

Finished scarves and shawls, some knitted, some woven.

Samples I've dyed and woven, click to expand size.

This is the warping reel I use to wind a warp, this is a 4 yard warp of linen for towels.



This is my loom with stacks of batts I've carded and some yarn I've already spun in the colorway. (And a beret I knitted in the yarn!)






This shows my loom with some completed fabric for a jacket draped over it - and the ever present companion, my Ragdoll cat, Whisper.

I wanted to add in what other color addictions I have- anything with fiber! I buy raw fleece, scour it,dye and card it, often blending gorgeous custom batts of mixed fibers and colors. Then I spin it on my trusty Ashford Traveler. I knit and weave with my yarns. I have a Schacht Mighty Wolf 8 harness loom.My new adventure is in trying soysilk, bamboo , and seacell for spinning.Here are a few pictures of my fiber travels.

Can Beads NOT be jewelry????????

I have made some tiny hummers to hang as light catchers in my breakfast room window and on the mirror in my car.

Here are some tiny decorated eggs I've made for an Easter "egg tree" table decoration.

My beads are destined to be jewelry... no, not always. Here I've made some mini narcissis wired up with copper and a tiny bead center for this spring bouquet in a miniature frog vase ( 1 1/2 in. high).

Sculpture tools

Sitting at my torch with my pointy little tools at the ready I feel like I'm in the operating room readying for surgery. "Scalpel please, knife please, scarey pick please.....) Only I have no one to hand them to me. The Very Best Tool is the little brass knife. In its other life it languished in a kitchen drawer as a mustard knife- a very useless existence. Doing hot glass sculpture means lots of tools and there are still many I don't YET own. Here are some more pictures of sculpted glass.

Moving on from "round" beads

Starting out, beadmakers focus on round beads and learning to work with gravity to make that perfect roundness happen. Then it's on to pressing beads in a brass press shaped like a lentil, button, or nugget. So what follows? usually it's doing sculptural work with the taffy like hot glass. This opens up a whole new realm of possibilities! I'm adding some pictures of my forays into sculptural glass but I have many more ideas yet to try.....

This is Gaia glass.

This is an experimental oddlot no longer available.

This is Terra, no longer available.

This is newly released Aurae.

This is an experimental oddlot no longer available.

95% of the glass sold is imported from Europe- Italy and Germany. But in the past 2 years American glassmakers have begun producing silver laden glass that has zoomed in popularity despite its' high price- $100 a pound!! Glass composition is all about chemistry and silver is one metal that reacts to heating and cooling cycles as well as increased propane to produce some incredible and unpredictable colors. Double Helix is the big name here with new colors introduced every few months.

The heartbreaker is that many named glasses have one release and if you don't manage to "invest" in some of it initially ,you miss out. Some glass formulas they can't seem to replicate. The price goes up way past $100/lb. for the rare glass.....

Here is part of my glass supply. I must have over 200 colors. I use transparent and also opaque glass. These cost about $40 a pound. But I also have been "investing" in silver laden glass that is $100 a pound. Almost all glass colors are imported from Italy and Germany but now a few American glass makers have started up.

This is my lampworking space, AFTER cleaning up all the dozens of rods, stringers and tools. This is one artistic endeavor that needs lots of gear! I work with a 2 fuel torch that uses tanked propane and oxygen supplied by an oxygen generator.

This is the "before" picture. When the used rods get this deep I'm forced to clean up and put away. I sometimes use brass tools for pressing beads into a lentil or square nugget shape. You can see one set with the wooden handles facing up.

I've just taken my first workshop from a very famous beadmaker, Kristina Logan.She is justly called the queen of the dots! I'm inspired to try a new look, lots of dots.

I haven't taken a workshop before because I am ambivalent about being affected by another lampworker's style. I usually work in a solitary fashion making the beads that come into my imagination. With these new beads I see them as "Kristina" beads and quite unrelated to my style.

But they were fun to make, she helped me with heat control and the idea of multiple layers. She was a delightful personality and her beads reflect it. I will try to find a picture of one of her famous and expensive beads to add later.