Faux Knitting Techniques

I've been playing around with Judy Belcher's tutorial, Polymer Micro Knitting.  I love how she worked out how to replicate 21 different knitting stitches in polymer clay.  She starts with the very basic stitches and then combines them in various ways to create more advanced ones.  Her lesson is pretty clear and easy to follow.  The Missoni inspired stitches remind me of the Bargello but with texture.

Here are a few items I made using this tutorial which have been a big hit with the yarn shops.  You can see a list of all the stores that sell our handcrafted items on our website.

Instant PDF Downloads on Etsy and give-a-way

Etsy has come out with a new download system for PDF files such as tutorials or patterns.  This means you do not have to wait now for the item you purchased to be e-mailed to you by the seller but can access it instantly.  Just be sure when you are making your purchase that the item says "instant digital download".

We now have all of our tutorials available as instant downloads so if you buy them from our Etsy shop, you no longer have to wait for us to e-mail them to you.  Of course if you do not have or would like an Etsy membership, you can always buy our tutorials from our Artfire studio.  We will e-mail your lesson to the e-mail address you provide within 24 hours but generally it is much quicker than that.  Just remember to check your spam box if you do not see it  by that time.  If you do not see it, please e-mail us direct and we promise to get right back to you.

As a bonus,

any purchase made from our Etsy shop,

you will receive a coupon code

for a surprise discount on your next purchase.

In the meantime, I am working on a new lesson for you.  I will be revealing how we create our scarf jewelry, including how to make your own all clay bail and beaded accents.  These are extremely popular and at the moment, our hottest selling item.  I will also share with you some basic jewelry making tips and techniques for your polymer jewelry pieces and how to shop and buy the right (and affordable) findings for that finishing touch.

If you are interested in this tutorial, leave a comment here (or on our facebook page) and share something that you had created with one of my previous tutorials.  We will do a draw at the end of the month and your item(s) will be featured and you will receive my new tutorial for free.

Have a great weekend and happy claying!

Crackle Medallion Scarf Jewelry

I always wanted to use inks more with my polymer clay but found them to be rather intimidating due to them being difficult to control and work with.  Barb Fajardo's "Crackly Goodness" tutorial gave me the jumpstart I needed to overcome my fear and I have now been challenging myself to experiment further.  The "crackling effect" was not really what I was after but more the gorgeous rich colors the inks can give.  My main  intention was to make buttons but I then decided to experiment further by creating other pieces such as eyeglass holders, shawl pins, earrings and finally some new scarf jewelry pieces.

These are some bails and matching beads ready to assemble.

Some of these are now available at Linda's Quilt Shoppe's booth at the Quilt BC 2013 show that is on until this Saturday.

Quilt BC 2013 - Canadian Quilt Show

The Canadian quilt show is in Penticton, BC this year and officially starts tomorrow.  It is put on by the Canadian Quilters' Association and is generally down east and not at our end of the country.  We would love to make a trip down there to take in the events but we have another quilt show to prepare for coming up in Salmon Arm in 3 weeks.

Linda's Quilt Shoppe will be selling a good assortment of our handcrafted buttons, scarf jewelry and other accessories at the merchant mall.  Some of these include our new eyeglass holders which we have created in various styles.  They are all a brooch + pendant combo so they can be worn as a pin or hung as a necklace on the braided leather cord that is included.

The quilt show is on from the 16th to the 18th and you can see more info if you click here.

Quilt Canada and New Scarf Jewelry for Summer

I am finally back into blogging again now that we are finally getting caught up on our summer orders.  We actually spent the last few days recovering from our busy time by visiting with family.  This was followed up with some rigorous house cleaning and studio organizing which was also neglected a bit from all the rush.

We are also happy to announce that a good assortment of our new buttons, scarf jewelry and accessories are now available at Linda's Quilt Shoppe in both the Kelowna and West Kelowna stores.  Linda will also be in the Vendor's Market at the Quilt Canada show in Penticton this Thursday to Saturday (May 16 - 18).  Everyone is quite excited as the Canadian Quilt show doesn't come to our end of the country very often so it should be well attended.  Many of our handcrafted items will be available at Linda's booth.  One of the items will be a selection of our scarf jewelry.

We now have a new line of scarf necklaces for the summer which we have titled "Soft Elegance".  They are much lighter with our own handcrafted clay bail making them more suitable for the warmer weather.  We searched around for the perfect scarf and found these gorgeous polyester ones.  They came in a wide range of colors so was a lot of fun matching up the clay colors in different designs.

The scarves are light and airy and feel really soft around the neck.

You can see the various styles and colors available on our website.

Black and White With a Touch of Red

The gigantic concave leaf buttons we created have also been a big hit.  We had a request for them in black and white and I love how the red lady bug really pops.

The fun thing about making buttons for both yarn and quilt shops is that each type of store prefers different styles.  Some tend to go best with the yarns and other natural fibers where others work well with the larger quilt patterns.  Some of our buttons happen to cross over and are popular in both areas such as these. They are quite large so would make an awesome accent for either a quilted or felted bag.  They  would also be fun to add to a sweater or quilted jacket.  These are available at Heather's Fabric Shelf in Kamloops as well as  the Falkland General Store in Falkland and Linda's Quilt Shoppe in Kelowna.

More Kamloops Buttons

We are still busy these days making more buttons.  When Heather informed us that they had only one "Kamloops" button left in stock we got busy with making more.  These buttons (along with the special fabric they go with of course) have been a big seller which is quite exciting.  I am happy to announce that more buttons were delivered to Heather's Fabric Shelf yesterday and are ready to go.

Here are a couple photo samples of the new Batik fabric based on some photos taken of scenery in the local area.  You can see more colors on Heather's website.

My next plan is to pick up one of Heather's kits to make a bag for myself with my own "Kamloops" button on it, now that my new sewing area in our studio is almost set up and ready to go (will have photos of it for you very soon).

I know I haven't blogged very much these past few weeks but I have a lot of new stuff piling up and ready to share with you so you can expect more postings on a regular basis starting this week again.  I hope you will forgive me for slacking off in this area.  And of course, I always like to hear from you out there -- just to know that I'm not writing this to go out into thin air and lost in cyber space!