A family of artists and artisans
This was one of my first weaving projects. I made it for my Mother for Christmas one year.
I bought a lot of yarn at an auction and used it in several scarves. This is a wool blend and quite fine. The woman that had previously owned the yarn used it in a knitting machine. She got her yarn from the old woollen mill in town. I also bought (by mistake) her knitting machine. I just didn’t want to learn another craft so I haven’t used it. 
Back in my late teens-early twenties, I occasionally made papier mache masks for theatrical/costume purposes. Though I never achieved the mastery of mask-making that my classmate Doug Witt did (see his work here – it’s terrific!)), I’m proud of the work I did.
This Troll Queen theatre mask was created for a one-act play called ‘Under the Bridge,’ for the character ( duh) of the Troll Queen. The features were sculpted from plasticine onto a plaster mould of the actor’s face. I then applied a very light layer of vaseline to the sculpt, and covered it in papier mache. once removed and cleaned up, this papier mache cast was attached to a basic blank of the actor’s face with more papier mache, at which stage the ‘hair’ and the elastic (to hold the mask on the actor) was attached as well.
I then painted it to finish it. In hindsight, this mask is probably too dark to really read on stage; if I was doing it again, I’d be much less subtle about the highlights; the paint job is more appropriate for costume parties or close-up theatre, like street theatre. Overall, however, both myself and the players were pretty happy with my work. 
This, my first Fair Isle toque, took about 16 hours to complete. The next one took a few less hours. I made it for Cassie last year for Christmas.
I dyed the unspun wool with Kool-Aid, and then I spun it in rainbow order. Then I knit the scarf. I thought I would make a hat to match and knit it from the pattern in this Pattons knitting book. The pattern is actually a Fair Isle pattern, but I just knit it all from my rainbow wool.
This is the same pattern (with the Fair Isle pattern). This hand spun wool was dyed with Black Walnuts, Onion Skins and Goldenrod.
hand-spun knitted hat and scarf.
This is an embroidered sampler that I created from a pattern. Generally I design my embroidered pieces myself, but this one was kicking around the house, and so I started working on it. The main change that I made was to re-work the colours, which were originally in some super-gross pastels. I (obviously) prefer the colours in the picture.
I think this design was called a ‘Jacobean’ sampler, but it looks to me more like the 1980s than the 1600s.
You’ll notice that there’s space at the bottom, which is where my name and the date is supposed to go; it’s the one part I can’t seem to get around to finishing. The rest of the sampler has been done for years.
Here are some close-ups:
My sister bought me a kit for Christmas one year to make these fiddlehead mittens from Tanis Fibre Arts. They have a knitted lining and are super warm. This was my first attempt at fair isle knitting or knitting with several colours. I love the result, but found the pattern for the lining to be a challenge because it was too big. I re-knit the one mitt’s lining several times, but didn’t redo the other, so it’s a bit bunched in the end. I wear them anyway, I love knitting!
I recently attended a “Lost Wax Casting” workshop at the Art School of Peterborough. First I sculpted the head in hard wax. A plaster cast was made from the wax and then the wax melts. Silver is injected into the cast and when it is put into water the plaster explodes and you are left with an exact silver replica of the original wax. The silver is then filed and polished.
Created using a template I found online, these felt flowers each have barrettes attached to them so that you can put them in your hair, but could also be worn as a brooch or grouped together to make a bouquet.
I knit these fingerless gloves for Candace as a Christmas present in 2012.
