I meet a fellow local crafter, and make a cool embroidered piece

It’s been a fun and dynamic Friday, full of the unexpected!

The day dawned grey, drizzly, and very windy, but I headed out to Berkeley for a few hours. In Kimber‘s class, we did a supported variation on Fish Pose that perfectly counteracted my week of hunched-forward crafting and computer use; I’m going to have to remember that one for evening wind-downs.

As the rain began coming down more heavily, I sat at a window table at Cha-Am with Jenn of Art by Zahrt, who’d contacted me last week after finding me through an Outright forum posting. I was excited to meet her, and I enjoyed our two hours together, talking academia, creativity, Etsy, and other topics! We may do a swap-type photoshoot sometime, modeling each other’s creations in fun spots around Berkeley or SF — this is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, so I’d really like to make it happen. I’m looking forward to our future contacts and collaborations. 🙂

After I slogged home on the drenched highway at 5-20 mph, we took Tisha to the vet to have his drain taken out, and the doctor gave us the results of his culture: negative for bacterial infection. Strange. So the mystery remains unsolved, but in the meantime Tisha is happy to be drain-free and free of the vet until it comes time to take the sutures out. The doc said we should put warm compresses on his wound, so I’m thinking of sewing a little bag of rice for him that we can heat in the microwave; it’ll be much easier to maneuver a tightly made custom compress than some kind of washcloth-and-baggie setup (and who knows how he will react to having a hot anything placed on his neck?).

In the last couple of hours before dinner, the sun came out, and I got to work on my latest piece: a tiny piece of embroidery, padded and fitted inside a little antiqued frame I bought about a month ago. That was after I’d made this bigger embroidered piece, and realized if I could find appropriate frames, I could make smaller versions to transform into jewelry. This one took me maybe an hour or two, and I’m delighted with how it came out. The photo quality here isn’t the best, but it’s really a little gem of a bauble (the silvery thread in the photo is a regular-size spool; the green one is a small vintage spool), and will look fantastic as an accessory. Even Erik really liked it!

I’m not sure yet how I’ll present it. I could do another brooch, but it’s such an unusual thing that I’d like to set it in a way that stands out too. I’m not quite sure it would work as a ring, but I’m considering it… or a cuff bracelet, or a wristband like a watch band. I want to stay away from anything too feminine or even remotely 19th-century, so no lace, no chokers, and probably no ribbons; I don’t want it to look too much like a museum piece. (Unless I wanted to go totally in that direction… then I could make a ribbon bow and suspend this from it, like a cameo brooch. It’s a thought.)

Also, I still need to glue it into the frame. This is kind of weird, but I’m a bit intimidated by glue. It’s not that I never glue anything, but I’m only really familiar with papercrafting glues. Spray adhesive, rubber cement, and glue sticks don’t stymie me, but fabric glue, wood glue, Superglue, and glue guns do. I need an adhesive for this piece that will stick to both metal and cloth, I don’t want it to show at all, and it needs to hold up well because we can’t have the embroidered piece falling out of the frame. I don’t know; should I just superglue it? Any thoughts?

I’m looking forward to a good working weekend!