Pendant & Earring sets

Here are a few of the jewelry sets I made for the June show.  I hadn't realized how much I'd focused on the teal/aqua/purple color ways. Guess it's obvious how much I like those shades!


This first set is made with a feathered Ikat base.  I took the idea of splitting the pendant and joining it with a ribbon of clay from seeing some of Helen Breil's work.   I like the slightly asymmetrical look and adding the gold heshi and crystals really adds a special look to this piece.


These next 2 sets were based on Ikat stacks.  Although the colors are quite similar, the difference in width of the stripes, and the shading I used, does impart a different feel to each set.  I couldn't resist adding little flower elements to the one set.

New End-of-Summer Necklaces

Here are a couple of neckline necklaces in colors that may seem spring-like, but I think they still play well in August.   I mixed up ruffled beads with round and square shapes to make the turquoise and white piece.








The other necklace has beads made from an Ikat cane, wrapped around solid cores. Both are strung with glass pearls, and the turquoise necklace also has some freshwater pearls. I like the touch of elegance that pearls impart.

Getting the "Point"

If you have glanced through this blog very much, you may have noticed that most of my pieces are smooth and rounded.  I tend to like shapes with curves and things that flow.  Yet every once in a while, it's good to push comfort levels aside, and give something new a try.  So today I have for you a "pointy" necklace.  You have probably seen similar designs elsewhere, but this is my first foray into this particular scheme.

I had fun creating the polymer sheets.  There are three different patterns used here.  I made an Ikat cane, (the one with teal, purple and fuchsia)  a marbled teal and aqua cane with deep texture, and a simply textured purple-blue sheet. Then I cut the shapes.  I used a sharp blade and cut angles that I found appealing.  The top of the pieces were bevel-cut and rolled back to create bails for hanging.  The slightly oval crystals on the cord compliment the colors in the piece, but don't detract from the focals.  It was a fun piece to make, and should be fun to wear on a spring or summer day.

New Half-hollow Bead Necklace

I was playing around with an Ikat cane I'd made, and started making hollowed circles.  I used a sheet of the Ikat cane, laid it across the edges of a circle shape cutter, and gently smoothed the clay so it stretched down into the cutter.  Then I pressed the cutter onto a flat sheet of clay, making sure there was a firm connection between the domed section and the flat backing.  The pieces baked well, retaining the domed shape. I used a ribbon of clay and some Genesis Thick Medium to bond the various dome shapes together, and created this necklace.  I like the look and feel of the domes, and plan to be making more shapes and pieces in the near future.

Fun Fish!

This class at CFCF 2017 was a lot of fun.  Lisa Haney was the instructor. I always enjoy Lisa's classes.  She comes up with unusual and creative ideas. Last year she showed us how to make a small heart shaped box with a hinged lid.  The hinge was hidden and quite clever.
This year, she taught us how to make fun, colorful, free-standing polymer fish.  She shared a great method of developing the fish body and building the rest of the fish around that base.  My little fish is in the photo above.  First, Lisa had us make an Ikat cane using extruded square rods.  The cane was used for the tail and fins on our fish.  I used parts of the extruded pieces to decorate the tail with colored dots.  The body was made from one of the colors in the cane.  A really clever aspect of this project was the use of a tapered light bulb for the head and body.  The bulb was a perfect shape, and provided a stable form for building the rest of the fish.  Since the bulb was light, baking it and keeping it inside the fish didn't add any real weight to the piece.  The bottom fins are set up in such a way as to support the fish so it can rest on any surface.  I choose to bake mine in "shifts."  First the body, then the tail, mouth and eyes, and a last baking for the remaining fins.  I'm really pleased with how my fish turned out, and I plan on making a few more.
We were quite fortunate to have some of the items needed for this project donated by their producers. Our clay was provided by Polyform. In fact, Polyform provided Premo! clay for most of the workshops, and this was really appreciated.  We had some great colors to choose from, and they certainly helped make our fish bright and fun!  Tandy Leather donated some of their excellent Craftool Pro Stamps.  We used these to create the look of scales on the fish body.  I'm delighted to have these tools for use in the future, too.  Makins gave us each a set of cutters which we used to help shape the tail and fins. These companies and their donations really made a difference to the participants!

Floral Ikat

As you are probably aware, I really love Ikat canes and the variety of looks one can create.  I have been working on some floral themes, and decided to mix Ikat with flora.  This first pendant has an Ikat background with simple cane leaves and some hand formed little flowers.  Using the same Ikat canes for background, I made this simple pendant and earring set. 

Of course, then I had to make another Ikat stack out of my favorite colors, and decorate with different leaves and flowers.

An Ikat Avalanche

My workspace looks like a snow storm made of ikat pieces!  Perhaps "ikat obsession" would have been a more appropriate heading for this post.  As I look back through this blog, I see at least 5 other posts on the ikat cane.  It is such fun to create, and there are several different versions "out there" to choose from - or to help you develop your own.

My first exposure was through Donna Kato's book,The Art of Polymer Clay Millefiori Techniques.  Donna demonstrates a couple different approaches for making ikat canes.  Lindly Haunani has developed her own approach incorporating her wonderful rainbow approach to color, and I have had a lot of fun experimenting with her method. Iris Mishly has a lovely tutorial demonstrating 3 different versions of ikat canes.  In addition, there are several free tutorials online.  Obviously, I'm not the only person who finds this look and its variations fascinating!

However, the credit (or blame) for my current ikat spree goes to Lindly.  At the polymer master class workshop in July, Lindly spent part of the last afternoon demonstrating and discussing some of the ways in which ikat can be manipulated.  While the bracelets in the photo on the right do show their ikat origin, some of the manipulated sheets don't look anything like ikat!

I decided I had to share here some of the results of my experimenting.  Hope you enjoy the show!

This little set on the left showcases my favorite ikat sheet (so far).  The ikat cane is not manipulated here except to be cut and placed in strips next to itself.  I did experiment with the spacing of colors, their order, and strip width, and particularly cut down on the amount of base or background color that I used to set the other colors apart.  I love the almost-but-not-quite Skinner blend look.  It definitely looks like fabric to me.


The leaf shape on the left is another ikat cane cut diagonally with the opposite sides flipped and butted up against a center strip of color.  I had to add some wave to the edges and it has a "leafy" feel.  If you find a tree this fall with leaves like this, I want to know!
The next two sets are examples of feathering with ikat canes.  I have always loved the look of feathering in lampwork beads, and have experimented a bit with feathering striped polymer clay sheets.  It took a nudge from Lindly, however, to make me realize I could try this with ikat.  Oh, the results!  I found that stretching the sheets out on the pasta machine after doing the initial feathering created a simply wonderful look.  Both the lavender and the yellow sets show the results of stretched feathering.
 Now for another twist:   herringbone!  This particular manipulation makes the clay look three-dimensional.  I textured this surface for a couple of reasons.  The herringbone treatment just seemed to be somewhat "rustic" and therefore more muted to me, and texturing helped ease and set the joins between the strips.  Don't you love it when form and function work together!

Here is one last example of ikat with large neutral separating strips between the colors and feathering tossed in for good measure.
Now run out and play with some ikat canes!

Color & Ikat with Lindly Haunani

If you've read earlier entries on this blog, you have seen my postings regarding Lindly Haunani.  I love working with her. No matter how many times I take one of her workshops, I always learn something new.  My first class with Lindly was at a Cabin Fever Clay Festival, shortly after Color Inspirations, the wonderful book she co-authored with Maggie Maggio, was published.   Her approach to color captured my imagination, and I've been enthralled with the "Lindly rainbow" approach ever since.

The 2-day class with Lindly at the Master Class Camp was, in-a-word,  wonderful.  On the first day we did something I have wanted/ meant/ needed to do for a long time - we made our own swatch decks.  I now have 4 complete stacks and the information I need to make additional stacks based on other colors.  It is so exciting to watch colors morph and change, and to be able to draw from these sets to make compatible, vibrant, color combinations.  What an amazing tool!

Next, Lindly had us create a Skinner rainbow blend using our base colors.  We also created 2 or 3 solid color sheets in pastel shades based on our base colors and swatch decks. She then walked us through the process of creating an Ikat stack or cane combing the pastel sheets and the rainbow blend.  Yum!  Here are the Ikat stacks I made in class.

Finally, she demonstrated various ways to manipulate slices from the stacks to use in finished pieces.  The final photo shows a feathered sheet and a sheet that has been formed by cutting up an Ikat stack, shifting the slices, and "building" a whole new structure.  The ways in which this type of cane can be modified and changed seem endless!

An Ikat Fall

The colors are shifting in the leaves, and trees are ablaze here.  Even a rainy day is pretty, and just intensifies the tones.  I was inspired to make some Ikat canes and convert them into leaves. Of course, they needed matching bracelets, too.  I'm particularly fond of this lime-orange-purple Ikat color combination. It does look like so many of the leaves falling from the trees in my yard.

Then I drifted to a purple-red-green combination.  So many of the deeper maples have all three shades together on each leaf.

Finally, I couldn't resist a turquoise-purple-deep green combination.  Granted, none of the leaves around here are actually sporting these colors - but wouldn't it be amazing if they were!

CFCF 2013 - Lindly's Workshops

The clay festival was wonderful - perhaps one of the best so far.  Over the next few months, I'll be sharing techniques I learned as I try applying some of them to my own work.

As I mentioned in a previous post, this year the conference honoree was Lindly Haunani.  To me, she is the queen of color. Her workshops were explorations of the rainbow and various ways in which to modify colors.  In one workshop, participants made folded petals, strung in a necklace of graduated changing colors.

In another class, individually developed rainbows were modified, and we created 2 sheets - one brighter and another more muted.  The resulting Bodacious Bubbles clay sheets were made from circles cut from and swapped between the two different shades, showing how starting with the same base ensures compatibility.  Besides, it was fun - and now I have a case to hold cutting blades.

I had a bit more clay left over, so decided to cut it up and make an ikat cane.  As the sample shows, the color blend is fun.  The wrinkles on the sheet were made from a textured wallpaper sample.  It's amazing what polymer artists find and use!