Studio update

Well, it's about time I posted to my blog. It's been a very busy month of January and so far February! My show at the Good Cup Downtown is going well, and I invite you all to stop by for coffee. It's right next to the Fiesta theater, 918 State St.

I have applied for membership the Santa Barbara Studio Artists group, and one of the criteria was to send pictures of my studio. So I tidied it up a bit and took some pictures. I have a kiln now and, even though I'm a complete novice, I've been having fun testing and fusing. I bought the Paragon Caldera XL kiln which has three shelves that are 7" x 7" each. I've rounded some millefiori and fused some little bottles.

Picture and text placement is having its own way so I'm just going to leave everything as is. Over on the right is a wonderful rotating cabinet that I believe was made for CD cases. It is perfect for all my glass beads! Below are various views of the studio. I dare not move too much because then all the pictures will rearrange themselves so I'm going to post this for now and then tell you more about what's up in the next post. See you soon!

Biscotti watches the upheaval

Glass storage in indoor studio

Millefiori too close together in the kiln!

Here is the little kiln. I also plan to do some jewelry in it. Before I knew better, I tried firing some millefiori in a non-stainless steel bezel. That didn't work very well.

Grandma's Crazy Quilt Mosaic

I have a beautiful crazy quilt made my either my grandma or an aunt back in the early 1900s. A crazy quilt used up a lot of old fabric pieces left over from other sewing projects. The edges of the pieces were stitched with lovely designs, maybe a picture or two went inside the quilt somewhere, and the overall all look was warm and homey. 

So I thought, why not make one as a mosaic! Here I'm working on it, trying to get the perfect pieces and colors for the stitching and the "fabric" pieces. It was really fun to work on since I could mix and match colors of glass, Van Gogh glass, ball chain, Swarovski crystal beads, silver jewelry and leftover pieces of English Transferware china. 

Sometimes I would take it out in the sun and work in it too. Here it is almost finished. Below it is all filled in and ready for grout. I mosaiced the edges also using vitreous glass in the colors of the piece. And, of course, there is a little kitty in the middle. 

Grandma's Crazy Quilt

So next I have to figure out a grout color to use, maybe black, and finish it up. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.

A Bit of Everything

Here is how the moon looked this morning around 6 a.m. The sun was just coming up, and the sky was this gorgeous shade of blue.

Below on the left is a wooden tray filled with glass beads. I found two large bags of beads at a thrift store and thought it would be fun to make a mosaic using only beads. The cat in the middle has a red sign that says "Love is a Cat." Next time I'll do the writing with a bold pen.

And here we have a simple stained glass frame with a mirror that I started over a year ago. I finally got around to finishing it.  I like the big, colorful flowers.

And finally on the right is a frame I made for a friend using treasured china that broke. On the left is the picture that went into the frame. It is a picture of my friend's mother who is 94 now, and the picture was taken when she was 17. She's standing with her grandmother. Such wonderful memories!

It's Labor Day!

It's Labor Day! Where did the summer go? Well, I've been laboring (not really...more like having fun) working on my mosaic pieces. To the left is a round mirror in a gradation from red to blue. I'm not a big orange fan but a lot of people are.

On the right we have the wine bottles a little farther along. The sky and sun are going in today. The forecast is for hot weather so I'll work inside and try to finish these pieces.

And below is another frame. I cut a mirror for it and will put it in the back after I've grouted.  I'm not sure why I grouted over the nice green frame but no looking back. The little flowers are glass beads cut in half. My friend Tami will shake in her boots when she sees the "Michael's Beads" but I like them!