Amazon

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Tonight I thought I'd give you something different, so here are a few pieces of my pyrography for you. Enjoy!

This is a wood burned box with a handle that got wrapped with Celtic interlace on all sides.


A thin line of a figure eight knot curves up across the handle...


...and even across the bottom.


This box measures 6" x 4" x 2 3/8".
It is made of bass wood with brass clasp and hinges.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

This curtain is called a Noren. I needed something to block out the light from a street lamp at night. Traditional Noren, from what I read, are constructed of three layers of fabric. This not only helps to block out light, it also helps to block out cold, not that that's a problem in Southern California. Here Sean and Andrew display my Noren for me.
This fish is appliqued on. I used a fabric with a Japanese print that looked very much like origami paper. I used smaller stitches and reduced the pattern size to represent fish scales using the "Nowaki" (Wind Blowing Grasses) stitch.
 For the rocks along the side of the stream I used the "Seikai-ha" (Blue Ocean Wave) stitch.
Sashiko literally means "Little Stab" because you are taking a series of running stitches, "stabbing" through all three layers of fabric. This is my first attempt at the art form. I got quite a pleasant surprise after I hung up the curtain. Where the stitches passed through the fabric there was suddenly a pattern of tiny lights! The needle had punched through the fabric creating tiny holes, and you could clearly see the pattern that was stitched when the sunlight shown through from behind it! I hope to do more sashiko stitching in the future.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

This is all done freehand using scrap threads. I did it back in the early 80's when I took a bus from Reseda to downtown L.A. for work each day.
 No time is wasted when you want to create something!