O Christmas Tree!

Christmas Tree Decoration 

At the beginning of the year I made 30 glass Christmas trees ready for the end of the year then put them away, feeling smug. However, since November there has been a Christmas Tree explosion! I am now making a batch a week and they have been selling out each weekend.  I have another 20 in the kiln for East Riddlesden Hall Christmas Fair on 5th and 6th December.  They are such a delight to make - mixing up coloured glass and hand decorating with gold and white glass powder.  Finally, they are finished off with red and white striped string. 

Multi colour Christmas Trees

I've even made some spotty ones too and I am teaching Glass Decorations at Skipwith Common, Nr York on Monday 7th December at Silver and Stone. 

More Trees

Christmas Trees are available for sale at my Etsy Shop or visit my Facebook Page too.

Watercolour Glass

Watercolour Glass Dish

I've got a new glass design to add to my collections.

Watercolour Glass has been a bit of an experiment, using up tinted glass cullet placed slightly randomly and decorated with coloured glass "blobs".  After the second firing I painted tiny gold stars and then refired at a lower temperature. The tinted glass is 3mm thick (I usually use 2mm Bullseye glass) and so the dish is slightly chunkier and heavier. 

I am very pleased with the results so I am planning to make more dishes in different sizes (this one is 30cm).  Tinted glass is more expensive than 2mm transparent glass so it does push the price of making it up - particularly if I use my favourite colour, Rhubarb, which is a pinkish-greyish colour.  This is because pink/red glass has a gold content which creates the colour. 

But I haven't forgotten about the weaving..... 

Glass Versus Weaving

Wool yarn from Texere Yarns

It's here! A big package of assorted yarns from Texere Yarns in Bradford ready for my next project. Lots of lovely colours (three shades of black) and some Chinese silk yarn for dyeing too.  I love the aqua and pistachio yarn - can't wait to start experimenting.I'm also hard at work in the attic studio creating glass for several events. The new Christmas exhibition opens at Just Makers in Harlow Carr very soon and I also have events in Masham, Saltaire, Kelbrook, East Riddlesden and Headingley in November and December. 

Christmas Trees for Harlow Carr

So glass versus weaving - which one will win out? It will have to be glass of course (but I can always weave instead of sleeping I suppose) 

I have a weaving diary on Pinterest HERE 

Circles and Ovals

Circles and Ovals

I've been getting in lots of practice at this tapestry weaving malarkey.
My warp tension is improving and I'm not tightening the weft too much (although it could still be neater).  I have been trying to weave circles and ovals using a wool yarn in flat colour.  Placing a piece of white paper behind the warp has made weaving shapes so much easier. I have also woven another practice sample but it is so bad I'm ashamed to show it.  It has some soumak that I tried to weave to outline shapes but, when I wove a vertical line, the soumak became thick and messy. I need soumak advice!
I have just ordered a lot of weaving yarn so I am expecting a big box of lovely colours to play with.
Jo X

Weaving on  a canvas stretcher

Threads of Feeling

In 2010 The Foundling Hospital Museum in Bloomsbury, London put on an exhibition called "Threads of Feeling - 18th Century Textile Tokens left with Abandoned Babies". You can see more about it HERE on a slide show.

When babies were left at the foundling hospital the only things identifying them were tiny scraps of fabric. Although the babies were given new names and were not told of their previous history, mothers were encouraged to leave a token with the baby so that, should they ever be able to return to claim their children, they would have something that would identify them. 

The Foundling Hospital Museum is a moving place to visit - the thought that, out of all the abandoned babies only a few were ever reclaimed, is heart rending. Also, almost two thirds of babies taken in died - not through neglect but because the infant mortality rate in London was so high. 

I have woven a copy of a piece of cloth that was pinned to a baby boy who was left at the Foundling Hospital. He would have been under 2 months old (the hospital was so overwhelmed with babies that it could only take 20 children a month - under the age of 2 months) and, if he had survived, he would have been sent off to a wet nurse in the country straight away.  At age five he would have returned to the hospital to be educated and then apprenticed at 10. (Sadly, he died soon after he was taken in).

Threads of Feeling woven sample

If you are visiting London please put The Foundling Hospital Museum on your itinerary of places to visit. 

Jo X