When I opened my flower press today, I found something interesting…
…the leaves that I gathered from a dying succulent now have plantlets. How cool is that?!
One of the reasons that I am loving succulents is how resilient many are and often how easy it is to make more plants.
The dried leaf colors and textures are gorgeous!
The dried leaf brought to mind my bronze dagger series, Tools for Rent.
Thoughts is now bound together. Started adding jute twine for warp.
Also decided to fill the horizontals. Decided to first add horizontals, then they can be locked in with the vertical warp and crosses at the block joints.
Considered using jute-wrapped rope for border.
Decided to use jute rope for two reasons–I like the twist of the rope, and it will be less work and stress on my hand.
When I am working with yarn and twine, I always wrap my hands with waterproof medical tape. The areas that seem to get ripped up and sliced the most are the joints of fingers.
After months of illness, last year I was diagnosed with interstitial lung disease. It is important for me to protect my lungs from further damage. I tried using a medical mask, but it didn’t fit properly. It kept poking me in the eye. I taped the corners to prevent poking, but the mask was still uncomfortable.
Then used an inexpensive dust mask for most of my working session. It was okay, but still did not fit quite right.
It is better to use a mask that has two elastic bands or a respirator. I have a great two cartridge respirator that fits well, but is heavy and bulky while looking down for my stitchwork.
I stopped by Harbour Freight to pick up a better dust mask. They were sold out because of the Coronavirus scare. Then stopped by Home Depot. First looked in the building section, the area with concrete. Found a package of masks. They weren’t what I really wanted, but better than the other two I used yesterday. I found empty shelves in the paint section where masks should have been. There was a sign that stated there was a limit 10 per customer.
Are people being over cautious purchasing mask to possibly protect them from a virus in China?
There have been seven confirmed cases in California.
The best place to acquire correct information is the CDC website.
From the CDC site–
2019-nCoV is a betacoronavirus, like MERS and SARs, all of which have their origins in bats. The sequences from U.S. patients are similar to the one that China initially posted, suggesting a likely single, recent emergence of this virus from an animal reservoir.
Early on, many of the patients in the outbreak of respiratory illness caused by 2019-nCov in Wuhan, China had some link to a large seafood and live animal market, suggesting animal-to-person spread. Later, a growing number of patients reportedly did not have exposure to animal markets, indicating person-to-person spread.
Patina gone wild on bronze welding rod. Copper wire removed from handmixer remains the same.
A Forgotten Collected Pod
The quote is from Firewall, part of the Wallander series written by Henning Mankell.
Tomorrow is the anniversary of my mother’s ischemic stroke. An event that changed everything.
Last year was a challenging year. My younger sister survived her third surgery for oral cancer, but while in recovery had an ischemic stroke. She did not survive.
Two months later my mother had an ischemic stroke. For a few weeks the prognosis was positive-negative, hopeful-no hope. Before summer I lost the two most important women in my life. The women who knew me when I was a child. We grew and changed together.
I am working on a memorial series. Typically I my series have 11 pieces. Several pieces are in progress but not quite completed. Partly the delay in completing work is the result of recovering from hand surgery. Still do not have my fine motor skill and manual dexterity in my dominant hand.
I using fiber to embroider on hardware cloth for my code blocks. Holding a needle for extended periods of time still causes hand and finger pain. Needed to figure out alternative ways for making things. Since I can loom knit, decided to give that a go. This will also be the first piece in a long time that does not have hardware cloth. It is a good thing to break a dependence on a material.
Who is Left…, will still have a metal component. The plan is to use safety pins to assemble the blocks. The safety pins will also add the possibility of green patina running down the piece.
Blocks
There are three colors of wool blocks: 41 tan for dashes, 51 dark brown for dots, and 52 cream for spacers. The 144 blocks will be laid out on a 9 x 16 grid.
Knit Pattern–Dash 41 Tan Wool Blocks
Cast On E-wrap
Knit E-wrap
R1 Skip, K5, Flat Knit
R2 Skip, K, S, K, S, K, Flat Knit
R3 Skip, K5, Flat Knit
R4 Skip, S, K, S, K, S, Flat Knit
Pattern rolls.
Knit Pattern–Dot 51 Dark Brown Wool Blocks
Cast On E-wrap
Knit E-wrap
R1 Skip, K, P, K, P, K, Flat Knit
R2 Skip, P, K, P, K, K, Flat Knit
R3 Skip, P, K, P, K, K, Flat Knit
R4 Skip, K, P, K, P, K, Flat Knit
Knit Pattern–Spacers 52 Cream Wool Blocks
Cast On E-wrap
Knit E-wrap
Only Knit Purl Stitches
R1 Skip, K, P, K, P, K, Flat Knit
R2 Skip, P, K, P, K, K, Flat Knit
R3 Skip, K, P, K, P, K, Flat Knit
R4 Skip, P, K, P, K, K, Flat Knit
Knitted Swatches with Cotton Cord Separating Blocks After First Fulling
Blocks for Code
The scraps are random sizes, might be fun to stitch together to make letters in a different code piece.
Been thinking about learning to use my mother’s sewing machine.
The blocks were fulled, not felted. Loops for pegs still visible.
Safety Pins
I ordered two types of bronze 3/4″ safety pins from amazon:
Household Mall 3/4-Inch Safety Pins, Bronze (1440 Pieces)
Firefly Bronze Metal Gourd Pin (1000 Pieces)
Received the Household Bronze pins. They are beautiful!
Waiting to assemble the piece until I see the Bronze Gourd Pins.
10 April They Arrived…
The extra space in the curve of the pin might work better with the thickness of the wool blocks.
The safety pins would be lovely for use in the i-cord bowl series I am planning to make. The title is Collected Memories. Got the idea when going through my parents’ collections found in random drawers.
A few years ago I dinked around with the idea of i-cord bowls. Wasn’t the time to develop the work. Maybe I was waiting for bronze safety pins.
According to the email I received from amazon, I may not receive the gourd safety pins until April 12th. So, I patiently wait for the order to arrive.
Now I know how to achieve gorgeous textural surfaces on bronze. You must submerge the piece in the ocean for centuries!
When I saw the images of the bronze arm found during the archaeological expedition of the Antikythera Shipwreck, it reminded me of my research to create thick textural surfaces on bronze.
Antikythera Shipwreck Expedition, Detail of the Hand
I buried my bronze pieces with sodium mixtures and chemicals. I applied chemicals to my pieces and then set them on fire. I saturated burlap with chemicals, wrapped it around my pieces, then enclosed work in a plastic container. I applied low-fire ceramic glazes to bronze pieces and then fired them. And I did a combination.
This is a detail of a little bronze bowl that was bound with wire.
I applied Egyptian paste, low-fire glazes, and the lot was fired hot enough for
paste and glaze to mature, but not hot enough for the bronze and steel wire to become molten.
Egyptian paste is a self-glazing clay body. I have used it in a variety of ways, even as a self-glazing spackle when something needs to be filled.
Hardware cloth formed into a vessel and held in place with nails. Egyptian paste was applied and the lot was fired. The pink color is the result of the addition of red iron oxide added to the paste dry batch.
Post of Eroded Contours
My series that combined ceramic and bronze processes.
Antikythera Shipwreck Excavation
It appears that the Antikythera Shipwreck excavation photos I used in my post were taken by Brett Seymour/EUA/ARGO.
Found: A Giant Bronze Arm From the Antikythera Shipwreck
Antikythera shipwreck yields statue pieces and mystery bronze disc
Greece Ministry of Culture and Sports