I am loving this ornament tree! Lots of Birch and Cardinals in this kiln. I am getting close to finishing this push for the remainder of shows for the year. I feel like I've been pushing to get stock for these shows, and I finally feel like I should have enough (once a few more kiln loads get run....).
My work can now be found at a real store! Painted Whims is in Catonsville, MD and is an adorable little store that has all kinds of cool things. My first time in I bought this adorable little picture made from sea glass. I will be developing a line of work for Painted Whims that will only be available there in the coming months.
Lots of my camping series in this kiln. I love working with Kentucky Mudworks Brown Bear - except for the mess. It's such a smooth clay and it responds so well to shaping. However, the brown gets everywhere. I definitely respect people who commit to this as their only clay and the amount of cleaning they must do. It's a hard clay to find glazes for, but when you do - they really pop.
I can't say enough good things about this ornament tree and the rods from Sanbao. It it performing fantastically. Can you see the star in the middle? That is actually quite heavy. I was worried about putting it onto my old nichrome bars because I thought it would sag. I don't see any sagging at all.
Some more leaf globes and vases here on the top. There is a lot of my camping series in this kiln as well as a number of mugs.
I've said it in the past, but many of my patterns now start with me looking through a book of various stitches, picking one, and then designing a sweater around that. This sweater uses the maple fans stitch found in The New Crochet Stitch Dictionary by Nele Braas and Eveline Hetty-Brown. I found a used copy that I've been perusing a lot recently. If you can find a copy and like to look at stitches, I'd highly recommend it. I did modify the stitch a bit to be double crochets instead of trebles to make the holes a little smaller.
I made this sweater mostly during Colorfest a few weeks ago. It was definitely an emergent design as I was in between people being in my booth that day. The yarn is Worsted Tweed by American Ewe Yarn in Glass of Port. I had 3 skeins of yarn and I used almost all of it. Each skein is 237 yards and it is a worsted weight tweed. Obviously this sweater has some larger holes in it so it definitely needs a shirt under it, but despite that it is really warm.
This pattern uses a 5.5 mm yarn
Stitches:
ch - chain
sk st
sc - single crochet
dc - double crochet
dc2tog - 2 double crochet into the same stitch and crocheted together
Front and back panels (make 2). Cast on in multiples of 4 + 2
I cast on 58
Row 1: sc all the way across
Row 2: ch 5 (counts as dc + 2 ch), dc2tog in the starting stitch, sk 2 st, dc2tog, ch 3, dc2tog in the same stitch, * sk 2 st, dc2tog, ch 3, dc2tog in the same stitch. Repeat from * across end with a dc
Row 3: ch 3, * dc2tog in the midle of the 3 chains, ch 3, dc2tog in the same stitch. Repeat from * across ending with a dc.
Repeat rows 2 and 3 until you reach your desired length. I had 18 rows.
Stitch the two panels together leaving approximately 8 inches for the arms and neck. I decided that I wanted the V's facing up, but you could do either up or down. Make sure your panels are facing the same direction though.
For the neck add a row of sc around the collar.
For the sleeves pick up 10 V's.
Row 1: ch 3, dc in the starting stitch, sk 2 st, dc2tog, ch 3, dc2tog in the same stitch, * sk 2 st, dc2tog, ch 3, dc2tog in the same stitch. Repeat from * across slip stitch to join
Row 2: ch 3, * dc2tog in the midle of the 3 chains, ch 3, dc2tog in the same stitch. Repeat from * across slip stitch to join
I made the sleeves 10 rows long.