Saturday, December 03, 2016

Busy Bee - Things I Am Making

Thanks so much for all the comments about Thursday's post. I hope I have opened up some more conversations within the world of hand knitting designers, yarn shops, yarn companies and the industry in general. Read the comments on the blog and on my FB page if you have a chance. 

Me - I've been right out crazy getting ready for today's Open House. We had a great day today and hope that some of you will be able to get here tomorrow. We are 2 hours from Boston and 3 1/2 hours from NYC. Would love to see you. I will post some photos in a few minutes to show you how the house looked with it all set up for visitors and the holidays.

On Thursday, I did something I hadn't done since college - I stayed up until 3:45 a.m. sewing tea towels while waiting to turn my kiln up. I have an old kiln that has manual settings and the temperature has to be raised slowly - 1 hour after starting, 2 hours after starting and 4 hours after starting. It is fine during the day but not so good on a deadline but I wanted to get the pieces done and cooled before this morning. I really am quite pooped and I hope I don't do that staying up so late anytime again soon. How did I have the energy to pull all-nighters once? 

I stink at schedules and thrive on procrastination and deadlines. So I was down to the wire. Here are a few of the vases that are done and awaiting display on Friday afternoon.




Last week, I decided that I wanted to include a tiled fireplace surround in the upcoming book Crafting A Patterned Home. I spoke with my friend Kevin and we figured out how he could help me make it happen. He came for measurements before Thanksgiving. THis morning he delivered a piece of cement board for me to apply the tiles with mastic and then grout. It will then mount it behind the woodstove with some strips of wood in case the next people to own this house want to take it down. 


These are the fired tiles. I like how they turned out. 




If you are following me on Instagram you saw the tiles in process. Now they are finished. Just how I envisioned. Really excited for next week when I get to play in the grout and get this thing done before my last book photo shoot on Thursday and Friday.

2 comments:

Auntie Shan said...

;-)=
Welcome to the Ranks of the "Vampire"-Hours-Crafters! - I'm writing this at 3:30AM right now! - But, no worries, I'm usually lucky if I can grab a couple of hours sleep just before a craft show. And, hope to pull off the "cheery and refresh" Look for 5+ hours between the CAR-IGAMI of my HOARD of YARNY STUFF! But, once home, and fed, I usually go "comatose" for 8+ hours! Getting too old to do any "DAY TWO"S!
Anyhoo, hoping that your Day-2 goes GREAT!!
:-D
x

Leanne said...

Love the tiles! You are so talented. Wish I lived closer and could pop by for your open house. Glad it was a success!

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