MagiStream

TxCat, have you looked into using any of the newer non animal, vegan yarns? I've seen yarn made from milk fiber, soy silk, bamboo, and a few other things I can't remember the names of. I personally have some bamboo fibers to spin into yarn, though I haven't actually gotten around to them yet. I have a batt somewhere in my stash that contains faux angora and faux cashmere. It's very soft and silky. The man made fibers feel different than wool, of course, but they make really nice yarns. Or, have you tried alpaca? You might have some luck with it.

I buy through small sellers on Etsy for the most part, though a few of the people I buy from have their own websites. In general, for my spinning fibers I like indie shops, small businesses that carry unique colorways or that can do custom dye jobs. For felting, I usually buy commercially produced wools, because if I'm working on something like a set of Christmas ornaments I want more consistent colors and textures. Ravenari, what kind of felting are you interested in? I know of needle felting, wet felting, and nuno felting. I haven't tried wet or nuno felting yet though.

Oh, and pictures are allowed.

I have some silk/bamboo blend that I bought because I adore it. I just have no idea what to make with it. It is in my yarn stash that is only small because I have a very limited budget. I do a lot with acrylics because that is what I can afford. Moms like baby blankets that are machine washable, too, so it works. lol My boss's son is a teenager now and still has the blanket I made for him.

Since we can post pictures:

Spoiler

I was going to post some pics, but then I realized that I haven't reloaded any on my computer since it crashed. Maybe I'll get some up in a week or so when I have more time, I want to edit out a few logos and such on the things I made for family.

Devcca, I've always wanted to try calligraphy. Or rather, I've always liked the idea of writing a quill or some such, and calligraphy would follow.

I've never really been one for yarn. Knowing me, I wouldnt' have the patience to learn anything properly and would get frustrated when things didn't look great right away. My grandma crocheted, though, and I still use the really great blanket she made for me as a kid. It's on the bed in my dorm room right now. I have a whole collection somewhere at home of knitted and crocheted baby blankets, and smaller things that were used as rugs in my dollhouses.

There's one dollhouse that was passed down to me from my great-grandma, and everything in it was handmade by her and her family. All the furniture, the house itself, and tiny little food items, decorations, even a basket with balls of yarn and knitting needles all sized for six inch dolls. I would really love to get into miniatures like that, even if just from kits, but right now I have no space for new projects.

ShaiNeko wrote:TxCat, have you looked into using any of the newer non animal, vegan yarns?

I do, unfortunately, also have to be careful with these fibers as well. My allergies are legendary! The only yarn fibers I have found which are not acrylic (and even that's not completely true, because one of the non Red Lion brands chewed my hands up) and which do not eventually make my hands raw, blistered, and bloody, are the ones made from bamboo and they're incredibly expensive. I would have to get a lot better at my yarn crafting than I am now before I would make such an investment.

It's an additional annoyance that my stitches won't stay even; I'm left handed and so they slant at a peculiar angle. It's not particularly damaging to the pattern but it does look weird.

So many choices, though! I simply must practice more. It's a shame that it's too hot in Florida during the summer to even contemplate yarn projects, though. I can't stand the fabric against my skin.

Or, have you tried alpaca? You might have some luck with it.

Based on my reaction to sheep and llamas, I'd better not. It appears to be something about the fiber itself rather than the lanolin in the raw wool which causes problems. Really weird...when I handle wool yarn and similar fibers, it leaves a burn-like slash against the skin wherever it touches. I had seen some made from hemp though which I am anxious to try out. Same issue as the bamboo, though: very, very expensive.

I buy through small sellers on Etsy for the most part, though a few of the people I buy from have their own websites.

A friend of mine in Sweden does that kind of felting. She too orders from individual sellers. I have a little felt horse, modeled after one she owns, which she sent to me and she made some darling little catnip toys in the shape of literal catfish (the owners sent her pictures of the cat and then she melds the catfish/cat characteristics into the toy). I absolutely adore ornaments made like that, but I've never found anyone locally who makes them.

Oh, and pictures are allowed.

Absolutely cool! I kept forgetting to ask, so I'm glad another mod remembered.

Right now, I'm getting ready for another Market Day so I'm trying to improve the way I display my inventory. Last time, I simply draped everything over a cloth on a card table and had just two display pieces, one for a necklace and one for bracelets. I don't have many bracelets in my inventory and probably ought to make a few more. I have such trouble with necklaces and bracelets though because I don't know what the average female wrist size is.

These are old pictures of my very first projects. I have pictures of other things I've made, but they're not uploaded. I might do that tomorrow, since I need to put them in my Etsy shop and on my LiveJournal anyhow:



These were my first bracelets. I strung them on fishing line and wore them until they broke. It's shell, coral, and unprocessed turquoise.



Pshawraven still owns this piece. It held up pretty well except that we occasionally need to replace the tassel. This is made of jasper and tiger's eye with a carved shell piece as the apex bead.



My hat band. I only made one of these, but I wouldn't part with it for the world. It's made of two different colors of rawhide braided together and strung with buffalo bone beads, glass pony beads, and copper conchos.



These also now reside with Pshawraven (I make a lot of my jewelry for friends and family). The materials are tiger's eye and onyx with tiny little prayer box beads at the apex.



A personal piece. I did not, of course, make the Navajo brass. I bought it from a reputable dealer and then strung the necklace myself. This one has buffalo bone, buffalo horn, turquoise, coral, and shell. Later, of course, it broke too because I had strung it on fishing line. I'll take a more updated picture of the piece later and post it.

I also make earrings but I don't have any of those photos at hand.

The next photos are very special pieces. I make shrines and tableaux out of ephemera and found objects. Recently I undertook the project, rather like ancestral shrines, of making one unique to each member of the household. The first belongs to my beloved Dee, who is in law enforcement as a profiler.



I used what used to be called an apothecary's box. It's slender with a single clasp at the front. This one was unpainted, since it was a replica, so I stained it and then aged it by rubbing soot into the wood. It then got a sealant glaze and I put the decorations on the front cover: five hematite stars to represent law enforcement, his initial (which is a piece of wood painted with that metallic silver and then similarly aged), and a vintage glass heart as a symbol of the love we share.



A backed-out view of the full interior and exterior. The top of the lid is lined in a dark red velvet, the bottom with a scrapbook paper from a fantasy themed block which reads "There lived a handsome prince".



Close-up of the bottom contents of the shrine. I modeled it after his office at work. Dee collects books on various topics, not just on forensics and criminology. His favorites are things like cooking and mycology texts or herbal grimoires and gardening books but he has a few vintage gems such as the books on poisoning (needed for professional reasons as well as a personal interest). Before he was injured and suffered such damage to his digestive system, he was notorious for his love of hot foods (hence the peppers). The anatomy and natural references should be obvious in their significance. The mostly print piece mentions the sphinx moth, which is one of his favorite insects. Of course, he also has family mementos. The jars and bottles represent the lab work he's occasionally asked to personally process. And he really does have a pet raven named Jenna. She was an unreleasable wildlife rescue.













These are close-ups of the upper lid, which represents his job as a whole. There is no mixing of messages here, no sign of family. It's all business.





This next shrine is a bit more cheerful and lighthearted. It's meant to represent Dee's and Pshawraven's little sister, Lix (Dee and Lix are full brother and sister, Pshawraven has a different mother). Lix is sixteen but she's been through a bit much in her young life, which is why Dee currently has custody and she lives here with us. I home school her because she is too far behind to be in a public school and emotionally she's not ready to deal with high school. As you can see from some of the imagery, this damaged child often behaves emotionally like a much younger girl.



This was originally a wooden jewelry-type box. I wanted it to resemble those old straw boxes you used to get for Easter so I mixed paints until I got a faintly luminous yellow sheen. Instead of painting the box fully I simply wiped it on as a stain, rubbed it in, and then wiped off the excess. Everything on top comes from various elements meant for scrapbooking. I took a foam stamp, mixed paints again, and stamped the ivy print onto the lid. When it dried, I filled in shading and color with other paints by hand.



A view of the ivy stamping on the side of the box.



Full view of the interior. As I said, the mixed elements reveal a girl in transition and one not quite ready to give up her childhood. See if you can spot the common themed items which link all the family shrines.



Close-up of the top interior of the lid. This reflects the more mature woman we occasionally see; Lix, like her brother, has a vested interest in natural things and likes to collect and dry wildflowers. She has an insect keeper which at any time might have three or four butterfly residents before she lets them go again. Since they're a Cajun family, of course it's necessary for the fleur-de-lis to make an appearance.



Lix adores Disney, especially Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore, as well as those little porcelain beads the girls like to collect and make into bracelets. Among her favorite treasures, however, is the large Guatemalan worry doll and the large steel bead made to look like a ball of yarn.



Close-up of the bottom part of the shrine. Lix, of late, is into an odd sort of fashion involving sugar skulls, Goth-like jewelry and music, but with an odd sort of cheerful Day of the Dead overtone.







Close-ups of various elements of the bottom interior.

I have one more complete which has not been photographed and one which is still a work in progress. Each one of these takes me about a week to complete, depending upon the drying times of the various glues and paints.

ShaiNeko wrote:Ravenari, what kind of felting are you interested in? I know of needle felting, wet felting, and nuno felting. I haven't tried wet or nuno felting yet though.

At the moment, I'm most interested in needle felting, as that's what I'm most familiar with I suppose! I hadn't even heard of nuno felting until you mentioned it, and had to go look it up. Thank you for introducing me to it! With the dry felting, I've always liked the fuzzy, slightly dream-like quality to many of the felted mythological animals and creatures that I've seen. It fills me with a nostalgia. I'm still deciding whether I want to learn, or just find some amazing felters and sponsor / patronise their arts instead. One of my favourite felters goes by the DeviantArt name of DragonBehin, and felts the most amazing, bendable blue-ringed octopi.

Unfortunately I'd have to be very careful with working on something like felting. One of my cats has pica, and it's fabric-centred. She would eat the felt (and any felted creature) in about five minutes flat. But still, it's definitely something I'd love to try, one of these days.

Here are a few of the necklaces I've made, excuse the bad photos... my camera is wanting to be shitty lately no matter what setting I put it on.. that and my cat-hair-covered bed doesn't help the photo quality any xD




These are my most recent creations, I'm absolutely in love with the purple one. I haven't had a chance to wear the brown one yet, since I really don't own a lot of brown. My original plan was to sell both of them buuuuuut I'm kind of attached to things I have made. I could probably give it to someone as a gift, but I dunno that I could sell it.


This was one of my very very very first necklaces (and was remade 3 times as I kept breaking it--finally got some seriously strong stringing material so it won't break again). I made this when the big chunky necklaces were all the rage.


I love the wood bead one. It is my favorite necklace and the pendant, I made that myself. It's filled with river rocks from my old family farm so there is that... sentimental family value added to it. The red one was one of my first ones and now it bugs me because I don't like the pattern I did with the beads (and Phoe told me I wasn't allowed to rip it apart and start over. )


--editing this one---
This is just a close-up of the two pendants to show the rocks.

Sol: I absolutely love the brown stone one next to the purple; is that tiger's eye? I'm a Leo and the tiger is my totem so of course that is one of my favorite stones.

I really, really like the green and red necklace so I would agree with the person who told you not to tear it apart. To me, it recalled a memory of chili peppers and a southwestern Christmas. Would absolutely love to wear something like that.

Speaking of wearing: the tiger's eye is rather neutral in that respect. It goes well with oranges, greens, golds, and blues. Your clothing does not have to be brown. It also shows well against just about any colored tee shirt.

TxCat wrote:Sol: I absolutely love the brown stone one next to the purple; is that tiger's eye? I'm a Leo and the tiger is my totem so of course that is one of my favorite stones.

I really, really like the green and red necklace so I would agree with the person who told you not to tear it apart. To me, it recalled a memory of chili peppers and a southwestern Christmas. Would absolutely love to wear something like that.

Speaking of wearing: the tiger's eye is rather neutral in that respect. It goes well with oranges, greens, golds, and blues. Your clothing does not have to be brown. It also shows well against just about any colored tee shirt.

I believe that's what it's supposed to be, yes. I can't vouch for it being authentic but at the very least it is simulated Tiger's Eye.


I may have to start wearing it more often then. I have a lot of blues and some greens, no golds or oranges though.

Thank you though =) The red/green one is pure glass, even the beads are glass.

Hi.

So, anyway, like TxCat said we have a lot of crafty stuff going on. I don't do much needlework, though I make a decent doll body and can do basic stitching. I just started making a few pieces of my own jewelry. Mostly I do traditional 2D art and then, I do Shrines.

They're a mix of assemblage, up-cycling, and altered art. I find it very hard to describe what I do, and I usually blame that on the paint fumes, LOL. Anyway, here is my DA page with some photos. I haven't updated it in a long time. I'm also having a lot of problems with my personal web page - HTML is not one of my better areas.

http://ravens-roost.deviantart.com/gallery/

Most of those are small. The largest uses a round tin that Williams-Sonoma sells their holiday mulling spices in. A few are Altoids mint tins. I use legally obtained animal parts if I have them, and also things like shells, insects, and dried leaves and flowers. I recently got my hands on an old suede coat that will likely be turned into part of a wall hanging.

I started making these in 2007, and I just finished up a delightfully eye-gouging Shrine for Ganesh. It's pink. Bright pink. I'm starting on a Plague Doctor piece now, but I'm still gathering materials, and this will be a larger Shrine in an old cigar box, and I am making a Plague Doctor doll to go inside, so it'll be a while. Once I have some more stuff up, I'll come back and post again.