Beaded Cabochons

I'm not sure what this stone is. When these grow up, they will be earrings. 

Whatever this is, it's more purple in real life. I wish the camera wouldn't "color correct." 

Peruvian opal. 

One of my low-fire cabochons with a beaded edge. Now, I get to figure out what to do for the necklace part. 

Handmade Artists Forum Shirt Challenge

Handmade Artists Forum is one of the forums on etsy. They have a challenge going to take a ready-to-wear shirt and art it up. I took a pale olive oversized shirt, my fancy threads, and my fancy stitches and started to have fun. This is the left shirt front. I removed the pocket with the idea I'd put the pocked on the lower right front. 

This is the back yoke. 

The collar. 

A better look at the left front. 


I haven't decided what, if anything, I want to do next. I have used a different thread and a different stitch for each line of embroidery. 


No, the penguins are NOT standing upside down. They live in the Southern Hemisphere, and I live in the Northern Hemisphere. From my perspective, that's exactly how they stand upright. 

Mezuzah For Places Where You Can't Screw It To The Door Post

After putting the mezuzah cover next to just about every fabric I have and not finding any that looked good, I decided on a cream colored linen. 

I got out the fancy threads and found that only the palest purple looked really good next to the mezuzah cover. Then I settled on assorted fancy stitches. 

I used size 8 seed beads strung with several layers of silamide thread to attach the mezuzah cover to the fabric.

I left an opening at the top so all I need is a small, spring-loaded curtain rod to hang the mezuzah. 

Not every door post can accommodate screws and not every landlord wants something permanently attached to the door post. This is my way of getting around those rules and still having a mezuzah. 

Embroidered Pillow Cases

Plain white pillow cases? Not for me. I got out my fancy threads, set my fancy stitches and had fun. You didn't really think I was going to make the pillow cases identical, did you?

Some color experiments just don't work

The idea was to attach a small ceramic mezuzah cover to a small quilt so I could have a mezuzah for my office. It's not always possible to screw the mezuzah cover to the wall. 

I started out with a nice piece of fabric with some fancy stitches and fancy threads. Then I put the mezuzah cover on the fabric and YUCK! 

I'll try again using an off white fabric. 

Small Jars

I wanted to work on the transition between jar and neck, so I built some small jars. These are 4-5" tall. On the bottom jar, I started playing with texture on the jar and a commercial shino glaze. 

Qumran Inspired Jars

These are the two tallest jars - probably about 18" tall. I painted and glazed my initials in Hebrew on one jar. 

The best speculation I can do on the coloring of the jars is their placement in the kiln. The outsides of the jars are left unglazed. The inside has a clear glaze liner. I used Anasazi ^6 and fired in reduction. 

This jar was made of ^6 porcelain and fired in reduction. It's lined with a clear liner glaze. 


I've since started making the bottoms different so there's more lift to the jars. 

Healing Jar

This is my healing jar. I put small holes in the jar so my anger could be released without hurting anyone. I put a hole in the base so the anger wouldn't pool in the bottom of the jar. 

I also tried out a new neck on this jar. I used a coil instead of building up a flat neck. 

Bread Pan Experiments

This is the bread pan Jim made for me from mica clay. No sparkles, but a good bread pan. 

This is the bread pan Jim made from ^6 reclaim. I think something got into the reclaim because we've never had this problem with the clay before. It looks as if the clay had gas pains and was trying to do little burps all over the place. This isn't a glaze defect - it's in the clay itself. 

I made the 1.5 pound batch of sourdough bread in the machine and then split the dough in half and plopped it in the bread pans. 

You thought I was going to get weird looking bread, right? I got nice loaves. I like the way the bread rises in the clay pans. I put the bread dough and pans into a pre-heated oven. I greased both pans with butter before putting the dough in, and the bread nearly flew out of the pans.