The Journey is reving up to start again

The kiln is fixed....yeaaaaaaah. Not without a lot of grunting and groaning, most of which came after we were done. What a job to take that kiln apart, remove the elements and thread the new ones back in. Threading them in was the hardest part. All of it was very tiring, standing on that hard concrete floor in the basement. Luckily hubby had a really nice work table at a perfect height to work on something. Anyway, the kiln is working again. I have to admit that I was a bit nervous when I fired it back up. I flipped the switch and ran back to stand with hubby about 10' away. He wasn't stupid...LOL He's not stupid. Watched the temp climb and then click off and click back on at the appropriate place. I was so excited I almost wanted to start up the torch and work right then. I was way too tired to do that but I wanted to.

While I was sitting there waiting for hubby to get all the screw out of the kiln I was playing with all the pretty colorful glass rods. Pulling rods I wanted to work with the following day. I love gradations of a color, I had inadvertently pulled out all the opaque blues that I had and put them in shade order from light to dark. Oh how I wish I could make a bead that seamlessly shaded that way but glass just isn't like water, it has a thickness and the two colors don't really mix, well not at the temperature I'm working anyway. I have an idea of how to get past this but it will take some more thinking so I will leave it until I get it all thought out in my head.

As for what I'll do today, my first day back at the torch in over a week. Not sure, it's Spring and I feel like using all kinds of pretty colors. Maybe some pretty frit beads. Or maybe I'll go back and play with the silver glass again or wait maybe the shards are calling me....see...it's so hard to go down with a plan. Probably why I'm an organic bead maker, because I love all colors and can't ever decide what I want to do next. Stay tuned to see what I come up with. Until then, here are a few I made before the kiln went south:

The Journey into Internet language

Yeah, I didn't know what else to call this post. I was trying to figure out how to change the design of my blog, I'm tired of this bland celery green background, it doesn't reflect me. So how in the world??? Anyone have any suggestions??? I went into help and read about the designer, it sounds great but I can't figure out how to get to it from my blog. Or do I have to start a completely new one? That would be very bad.

I'm trying to update my presence on the web, not an easy task. Now that I'm retied I have more time to play with things like this. Or so I thought, it takes forever to figure each one of these different sites out, I'm always surprised when I sit down around 8am and before long it's 2pm. How does that happen? The time never went this fast at work. Don't worry, I'm not sitting there that whole time. I have two furry babies that require an extensive walk every three hours or so, thank goodness for them or I would be so stiff I couldn't walk...LOL

See, as an example, I tried to post a photo of the two of my furry babies. Uploaded the same photo twice, hit the "DONE" button and nothing. No photo. I give up, you will just have to believe me.

Ok, back to the blog design search. Enjoy your day.

The home of a artist- Reminders of The Journey

I was in the thinking room earlier today and got to thinking about all the artsy stuff I have hanging in my house. There is literally something in every room. Now that I torch there isn't much to show of it around but my fiber arts are everywhere.

This is "Fairy Fern" in the entry way. There are tiny fairies peaking out from under the ferns and little orange lady bugs crawling up the leaves.

I don't even remember when I did this one but it was from a period when I was using all kinds of fabrics in my work from velvet to silk. That period didn't last long thank goodness, not fun to work with to say the least.

This one is from my "colorwash" period. It was very popular for awhile and I still have boxes of little tiny squares of fabric.

The designing of the pieces were the most fun. Sewing all the little one inch pieces together was not the fun part. I started machine quilting this piece before I really had learned how to do it and then never finished it. It was rolled up with the rest of the UFO's (unfinished objects) and I ran across it one day and decided to rip out some of the machine quilting and redo it. I really like how it turned out.

I have sense decided that if I ever did another one there would be a very large piece of "iron on" fabric underneath as the base so that I could iron all the little pieces down before I had to start sewing it all together. Long after I gave up on this type of art quilt they did come up with a really cool gridded iron on fabric for this purpose...figures.

This one was done by Deborah Lacativa a fiber artist friend of mine. We were both members of a small fiber arts group here in the Atlanta area and decided to do a little secret quilt swap. We each gathered up fabrics and such that we thought would be fun or hard or impossible for someone else to work with, they were to make us a small wall size quilt with everything in the bag. I didn't know that Deborah had drawn my bag, I had gotten these fabrics as a set from a fabric club thing I was in and couldn't imagine what to do with them. I think she did a wonderful job.

It is at the end of my hall and I see it every time I come down the hall. The colors are bright and fun and really brighten up an otherwise dark hallway.



The next two are both in my front bathroom.
This first one has three framed pressed flower pieces.
The one in the center my mom did for me and sent to me for
my birthday the first year we live in this house. I decided to make two more to go with it. The pansy's were the first that grew in the front of the house so I went out and picked a hand full and pressed them between the pages of the HUGE Atlanta phone book...LOL

The second one is on the opposite wall across from the toilet, it's in a place where I can study it and every time I sit and look at it I see something different in it. I did it in my fiber arts phase when I was working with more surface design. I have quite a few rounds, there is a wooden ring that the fabric is stretched over and then different fabrics are tacked down, beaded and decorated.

I really enjoy the rounds, I can sit and do them in the evening in front of the tv. Just adding beads and buttons and branches and whatever I can find that seems right at the time. This one looks much like the hand done rounds but it isn't. It was the first one I tried with the sewing machine.

The trunk and roots of the tree are a piece of jute that was untwisted and wrapped with rayon thread using the sewing machine. I laid it on the fabric and continued out with the branches and the rest of the roots to tack it down. I then added little snippets of pink silk organza for the flowers. It was kind of fun trying the thread wrapping. Only did it a few times but there are some other rounds where I used it as seaweed.



The last one is the largest at 4x4', it hangs in the living room on a very large wall that comes to a point in the center of the piece. I had to cover a large wall and couldn't think of any other way to do it.

This was done from a pattern that I got at a quilt store while I was visiting my home town of Clovis, CA. I saw it and knew that it would be perfect for over the couch. The dark raisin petals of the flower in the upper right corner are the same color as my couch and you can see that color through out the mottled fabric.

I used a curtain rod to hang it and I can see in this photo that I might need to find something else to hang it with because it is a bit heavy.

Well, that's the tour of an artists house. There are more pieces but I thought that this was enough to give you an idea of the journey I've taken to get where I am. It's been a twenty year journey and I loved every minute of it.

Remember to stop and enjoy where you are along your journey, you won't ever be back this way again and you want to remember it, good or bad.

The jourey into SoopSee

During my downtime I've been trying to understand and learn about marketing online. There are so many sites and opportunities out there, where to start.

One of the neet sites that Etsy suggested was Soopsee, for a free account you get this cool little website to show off your work: http://www.soopsee.com/profile/afiberjourney
I really like the interface and it create a really slick, quick look at all I have for sale in my Etsy shop. Now I'm going to try and figure out how to get a widget on my blog. You will either see one, in which case you will know that I succeeded or you won't...LOL Stay tuned.......

Still broke down on the journey

Well, the end of week on without a kiln and I contact the maker. He say, and I quote, "oh I'm such a ditz, I put the part out and didn't mail it" Seriously!!! This is my livelihood, he is trying to make a joke of it and here I sit. Now what???

It's so hard to depend on someone else to do something, especially when it's important to you. I have a hard time with people who say they are going to do something and then don't. I usually give them a couple of chances and then I'm done with them. Unfortunately in this case I have no choice. I am stuck, sitting here waiting for someone else, very far away, to do what they said they were going to do a week ago. So frustrating.

I have promised people things and even if I am sorry after that fact I still follow through. I just think it's the right thing to do. Unfortunately there are people out there that procrastinate to the bitter end, put things off that would take maybe five minutes and they spend more time thinking about the fact that they haven't done it than it would take to do it.

Ok, I think I have it out of my system for the moment, I'm still stuck sitting here waiting but I have no choice. Do I offer to pay to have it quick shipped??? Luckily he offered to ship it overnight. I was so happy that I offered to pay half of the shipping so with any luck at all I will be back at the torch by Wednesday...stay tuned to see if it happens.

Break-down along the Journey

Geeze, there I am happily torching away on Saturday, singing along with the iPod, Hubby was working down stairs too so we were both using all the power plugs available in the basement. I go to put bead number 10 in the kiln and I notice that the temp is down to 830 and dropping. The kiln is suppose to hold at 960 while I work so I immediately started yelling at poor hubby thinking he had tripped something. Needless to say I wasn't thinking if that had been the case I wouldn't be able to see the temp display on the kiln.
So, I turned the kiln off and back on again, I could hear it clicking which meant that the relays were working fine. I was panicked at that point. The beads made in the last hour were most likely a loss as they wouldn't be properly annealed. I was beside myself, here I finally get retired, finally get good weather and the kiln decides to stop me in my tracks. What next??? Dare I even ask that question.
I went upstairs and called my kiln guy...Mike at The Glass Hive his kilns are wonderful and he didn't even hesitate, said he would send me another element so that we could replace the one that quit. Unfortunately he's on the west coast so it will be a week before I torch again. The thought scared me. What would I do with my time. I have two days worth of beads to photograph, measure and log but after that what???

I might just have to go back to the polymer clay or fiber arts for the rest of the week while I wait patiently at the mailbox for my part. We shall see. It's been two days since it happened and I'm just getting around to the beads that needed to be photographed. It's been cold and rainy for the last two days so I probably wouldn't have torched anyway but still...whaaaaaaa.

By the way, I lost the last four beads I made on Saturday, they broke in half as I tried to take them off the mandrels. No surprise there. It's just as well, I sure wouldn't want someone to get them and then have them break. I have a friend in the UK who can use them in her mosaics so they will be used for something.

Well, four or five days to go, lets see what I can find to get into trouble with.
tootles,
Jan

The Journey into Spring 2010 - my first "retired" Spring

Hi everyone, been absent haven't I. Spring is finally here, when I retired
it was cold and dark and I spent a lot of time just trolling the Internet.
It was too cold to torch, my set up is in the unfinished basement and it's
like a tomb in the winter. Not to mention that I have to open the windows
for ventilation. Anyway, the first month I was retired I bet I torched four
days. I was getting consistent sales but no torch time. It was really
frustrating and I felt like I was just on vacation and eventually had to go
back to work. It's been almost two months now and I'm really starting to
feel retired. The feeling is wonderful, by the way. The weather is getting
warmer and I've been torching everyday. This brings me to today discussion,
working out a schedule or routine. I can't torch every day, there have to
be some days where I do the grunt work of photographing, logging and
measuring the work. I figure every three days I need to do this. So far I
ve been using the weather to determine what days I take off from torching.
If it's going to rain or storm those are my days off.

Hubby isn't too happy with this schedule because he doesn't want to take his
precious cars out in the rain...good grief. Like he has so much to do.
There was one warm day late in February when he got out and washed the cars
and then didn't want to take them out on a rainy day and get them dirty
again. I tried to tell him that it would be warmer every day now and he
could wash them again but he's not having that, yet. Life's decisions
should be so tough...LOL But I digress, as usual.

Yesterday I decided to use five colors that I had not used either ever or in
a long time. I wanted to start testing colors to see which ones fumed when
I put thin wraps of silver glass on them. Needless to say I picked the
wrong ones, they all look like crap and I was so disappointed with the
results. Now I have five very long tube beads that probably won't sell
because they are fumed to an ugly yellow color. How sad is that. Lessons
leaned. I guess I need to learn to make wind chimes so I can use up all the
fuglies...LOL

Well, better get to the torch. It's going to storm tomorrow so I will be
photographing. I'll try to remember to post a few of the fuglies so you can
see or yourself what I'm talking about. Until then. Be sure to enjoy the
journey and remember to stop along the way and enjoy the day.