Category Archives: Making

100 Day Project

art, creativity, Making

This past week, Christians marked the first day of the Lenten season known as Ash Wednesday. For many, it begins 40 days of fasting, prayer or other spiritual practices. In his meditation for that first day in Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent, Richard Rohr writes, “It seems that we need beginnings, or everything eventually devolves and declines into unnecessary and sad endings” (p. 13). Lent is the new moon of the Christian calendar: a chance to reconsider, reflect and reset.

Today, just a few days later, marks the start of The 100 Day Project, a global online art project that encourages participants to commit to a daily creative pursuit of their own choosing. The project began in 2008 as part of a graphic design workshop for graduate students taught by Michael Beirut.

I have been considering participating in a formal (public) way, going as far as subscribing to the newsletter and making a small donation, but I haven’t been able to decide what I want to commit to doing every day. Part of me wants to focus on professional work including writing a textbook/workbook for my graduate class and diving deeper into AI. But the project is more about making art so I have focused on that area.

Here’s part of the problem: One of the joys of semi-retirement is already being able to do pursue daily practices that would be perfect for the project including meditation, writing and paper crafting. I would like to spend more time on the latter as it tends to get put aside first in the face of perceived priorities. In particular, I want to just give myself space to try stuff out: watercolor works nicely with books, and I want to experiment more with integrating crochet and book making. I may find a watercolor tutorial to help with some guidance but did not hate what I created yesterday by just fooling around.

As for crochet, I have these lovely mini balls of thread crochet in beautiful colors. Just enough to make a few squares. I used two of them as book covers and think they could also make interesting additions to the book pages including as pockets. I have a guide with lots of different designs for crochet squares, and it would be fun to make an album of them. I could easily crochet one square a day, working my way through the book.

I am also wondering how I could use crocheted pieces with paint to create designs for book covers either as stencils or stamps. My homework for the Handmade Book Club group is to create two large pieces of art on paper. Another member will add their design to the other side and then we will cut it up to make books. I will admit to being out of my comfort zone but I have a few weeks to experiment.

So…what I really want to do for the next 100 days is just explore: crochet a little, paint a little, combine the two, do projects for the Handmade Book Club, and have fun.

The challenge is free and very flexible. There are no prizes, awards or medals. The challenge organizers suggest starting small, something you can do in 5 or 10 minutes as day and mostly from anywhere depending on your travel plans. In the end, however, they openly admit that the rules are made up. This is my kind of of challenge!

Comfort Zone? What Comfort Zone?

books, Making, thinking out loud,

I joined Ali Manning’s Handmade Book Club this year and completed several challenges. Membership includes the possibility of connecting with other book members in your area. Introverted me would normally avoid a face to face group meeting, but I met a few women in the online community who suggested a meetup. I am proud to say that I agreed, not using my rural location as an excuse, and I spent a wonderful day with three other bookmakers sharing books and stories and creating together. We have a second date on the calendar, and I have homework.

I have seen lots of articles about how hard it is to make friends when you get to be my age. One good way is to connect with people who have similar hobbies, and online communities have made that much easier to do. I have lots of online friends who I will never meet in person. But it was nice to be in the same room with other people. I am looking forward to our next meeting, and there was a talk of a road trip. One aspect that made it successful was our shared interest in book making and other arts and crafts. The hostesses, long term members of the club, took time to create folders of materials for us as they knew we were new to book making and may not have had a stash of materials.

These women are visual artists ways that I am not, and I am looking forward to learning with them. Meanwhile, I am exploring ways to combine my crochet with books, and I created this accordion style book yesterday using two granny squares crocheted with thread.

Crochet Book

#WIPWednesday

creativity, Making,

WIP is short for “work in progress,” and is, surprise to me, a supply chain and accounting term. I encounter it in my crochet threads, and today someone referenced #wipwednesday on Instagram. The hashtag takes you to a lovely page of all sorts of WIP from crocheted blankets to hand painted miniatures. There are Lego structures and lots of visual art, all partially completed. Some people post videos as they work, describing the process and offering tips. While it is always fun to see final products, watching the process unfold is far more interesting to me as it is often hidden from view, as though seeing something being created takes away some of the magic. This hashtags celebrates creating, encouraging others to join in and experience the joy of making.

#WIPWednesday is also reassuring for crafters like me. While I tend to read one book at a time, I usually have at least three crochet projects in various stages. Right now, I am trying to finish up the second snow person in a pair before winter ends. There is also a green wool cardigan and a soft purple coverlet waiting their turns.

The snow people came in a kit that sat for a year before coming to the top of the pile. There are more kits in the closet plus more coming as I am part of a monthly crochet club. Kits, of course, do not count as WIP because they have not been started. I can always, as I did this year, gift them to someone who is not yet hooked on crocheting. (See what I did there?) And, kits are a hedge against the future when, presumably, I will finish all my WIP and existing kits and need something new to work on and no longer have access to the outside world. (Zombie apocalypse perhaps?)

I wish for you a WIP in 2024. Give yourself permission to just work on something without worrying too much about the final product. Take your time, sink into the creating, make it a a meditative act, connect with a still place beyond the frenzy of the world. And, yes, I might be talking about crocheting a dishcloth.

Happy #WIPWednesday!

Seasonal Work

creativity, Making, , , ,

With the coming of cooler weather and shorter days, my creative work changes. While I do some crafting in the spring and summer, I spend most of my time in the garden and the kitchen, growing, harvesting and preserving food. Now, we are enjoying the fruits of that labor, and there is time to settle into my studio for crafting. While book and card making are my newest endeavors, I have crocheted for most of my life, learning at the side of my paternal grandmother. It is my main thread craft. I signed up for a monthly crochet kit. The projects use different stitches and yarns but are limited enough in scope to be completed in a month. I look forward to the kit each month. Last weekend, in an effort to clear some works in progress (often known as WIP), I pulled out the sewing machine to finish up a bag kit that has been lurking around for awhile. Sewing is not my strength but they turned out pretty well. A few pictures for your enjoyment including a crocheted shawl and baskets as well as the bags.

October 2023 Crafts

I forgot to mention the Legos! I’ve been almost done with the bookshop for a very long time and am excited to announce it is completed! Now I can move on to the succulents. I also have a Ugears hurdy gurdy model to put together. I gave my father one for a clock and he enjoyed it so much, he bought a few more. I think it will be a good project to work on between Christmas and New Years.

Bookstore
Lego Bookshop

One of the pleasures of semi-retirement is being able to prioritize these creative efforts. I’ve always made time for hobbies but only after everything else. This week, I signed on for a cartonnage, or box making, workshop. I made band boxes out of posterboard, wallpaper and newspaper when I was a teenage and am looking forward to explore another area of paperwork. This workshop is provided by Claudia Squio. We are creating a fabric-covered box with an offset hinged lid that will be big enough to hold an album. I will be diving in immediately after pressing publish.

My hope for you is time to create.

DIY: Homemade Washi Tape

books, creativity, Making

If you are not a crafter, you may not be familiar with washi tape. It is a decorative tape used for a variety of crafting purposes. I used purchased Washi Tape to create Ali Manning’s Washi Tape Journal.

There are a variety of tutorials for creating your own tape. This one from Randomona at Instructables starts with masking tape, which has a similar texture to real washi tape, and offers ideas for decorating the tape with various media from watercolor to colored pencils.

My idea was to recycle magazine pages for the tape, using double-sided tape as the base. I was able to try it out today, and the experiment was semi-successful. Washi tape is able to be moved around a bit before adhering completely. Double-sided tape is completely unforgiving: it sticks the minute it touches the background material.

I decided to add a challenge to the journal cover by taking one image and slicing it into washi tape wedges, spacing them out across the cover. It mostly worked although, as you can see from the pictures below, one of the pieces of the bridge doesn’t quite line up. I was so worried about the tape that I forgot about the alignment. I experimented on the back by putting down wider pieces of the background but it really didn’t work. The strips of the picture aren’t evenly spaced.

Here’s my bigger picture thought about this in terms of learning: part of me was disappointed as there are issues with the cover. But, I *learned* a lot and am already planning to try again tomorrow, applying a bit more precision to the widths of the background pieces. This is the process that should undergird performance based assessment: generating an idea, trying it out, reflecting, tinkering, trying again, reflecting, rinse and repeat as much as possible. It is messy, not easy to assess, but a process that opens a whole host of learning opportunities.

Critiques aside, I am actually happy with how it turned out. I put in an order for removable double-sided tape and am heading to my craft staff to see if I have any masking tape. I seem to be able to picture a box. Wish me luck.

As I dig around, you can check out the cover pictures below. I’ll make a single signature and sew it together later.

Homemade Washi Tape