The Blue Brick

The Ice Storm Pt II – night shots

December 23, 2013
This is how you can keep a cold indefinitely :
- Take medicine
- Go to sleep
- Wake up feeling just a little bit better
- Conclude that you are totally healed and go do stuff (work, shop, or in my case, wander about in the cold with your camera).
- Repeat.
Yesterday I woke up thinking ‘I’m going to break the cycle. I’m going to stay in and kick this cold’. But then I saw the result of the ice storm and I couldn’t keep myself in. I went out again at night to get the blue hour/streetlight effect. I got sick again… but it was totally worth it ;)
Freezing Rain? Get out the Camera!

December 22, 2013

We’ve had freezing rain in Toronto all weekend. To Tito and I, that means it’s time to get out the cameras and head to Leslie Street. I apologize for the image-heavy post… but I hope you’ll agree that it was worth it :)
Policy Changes at the Blue Brick Etsy Site

December 21, 2013
A few mishaps of late have motivated me to make some changes to the Blue Brick’s Etsy store, due to the number of folks who think they’ve ordered a knitted item and not a knitted pattern.

Despite the following:
- The listing itself is called a knitting pattern
- The coloured bar across each image specifies that it’s a knitting pattern, not a knitted item
- The ‘Instant Download’ bar for each listing
- The part in the listing itself where I say “Please note, this listing is for a knitting pattern, not the actual knitted item”
- The fact that after purchasing a pattern you get an email with a download link
- And even the fact that, mysteriously, I am not charging anything at all for shipping…
…I’ve had an astonishing number of folks order up a pattern, download it, wait a few weeks and then write to me demanding to know where their gloves/boot toppers/ hats are. I’ve even had a few who, frustratingly, got quite abusive right off the bat, and many who, having waited this long for a shipment that wasn’t coming, wrote to me demanding that I not only ship it instantly, but include tracking information.

Unfortunately, that sort of treatment wears down one’s ability to deal with such things. I go from ‘Sorry! You appear to have misunderstood my listing’ followed by a prompt refund to ‘Look, even if I stole the gloves, for $4.50 with no shipping I still couldn’t afford to send you gloves in the mail, much less a tracked shipment, are you baked?”

I don’t like it when I feel like writing the second email instead of the first. It’s been frustrating, and I’ve honestly made it as obvious as I can that I don’t sell my knitting at all, much less for an amount that would mean I pay myself 35 cents an hour to make things that I then ship for free.

So, as much as I’ve tried to avoid it, I’ve had to change the Blue Brick’s pdf sales policy.
- If someone has bought a pattern in error, and they have not downloaded the pattern from the link Etsy provides, I will still process a refund. After all, mistakes do happen.
- If someone has bought a pattern, and proceeded to download the pattern, then I consider the transaction complete and will no longer process a refund.
- If someone starts the dialogue with an abusive email, then it’s pretty unlikely I’m going to want to devote any time at all to them, much less the time it takes to cancel a sale on Etsy, process a refund through paypal and then write a letter to the buyer explaining what happened. This is particularly true if the sale happened months ago.
I’m sad to make these changes. I’m also sad that I’m frustrated enough to rant on my blog – a place for happy artsy pursuits only. However, it’s happened often enough that something needed to change, and I hope this does the trick!
Polymer Clay tile bracelet

December 20, 2013

It’s tough to blog about crafts when you don’t want to give away your Christmas gifts!

Instead, here’s an update on my polymer clay adventures. I started by switching from Sculpey to Fimo because it’s apparently harder… harder to work with that is! This stuff takes forever to condition, but it really is tougher once cured.

This piece actually started out as an all-copper series of tiles. After I cut out the tiles, I pressed in my designs.

After I pressed in the detail, I smeared mac eyeshadow all over each tile, and carefully removed the eyeshadow from the recesses in the design. This is messy, so I added a coat of resin to seal the eyeshadow in and keep it from smudging.

I mixed a shade of turquoise fimo for the inside and coated the reverse of each tile with it, leaving little ‘tunnels’ for me to run a cord through afterwards. A bit of liquid fimo helped seal the piece together.

Finally, I ran waxed hemp through the piece with copper filigree beads in between and added 2 of my own lamp work beads to finish, with a magnetic clasp so I wouldn’t have to wrestle too much to get it on and off.

It’s not likely to get worn much, but I do like the look of it!
The Elephant Plate

December 17, 2013

Another goodie out of the kiln, the elephant plate! Other than the fact that I would use another technique for more even glazing, I love this one :)
Polymer clay success!

December 16, 2013

When I’m learning a new medium, there is always a period where the medium dictates what you get. Sometimes, this is a long, and frustrating period, and sometimes it’s short and you’re able to start getting predictable results fairly quickly.

Polymer clay has been one of those journeys that’s been a bit frustrating. I know I enjoy it, and I always look forward to an opportunity to get the clays out and experiment, but it’s taken me a relatively long time to be able to plan a piece, and be able to bring it to fruition looking more or less as I intended with the only accidents being happy ones.

Last night, in a flurry of pre-bedtime activity, I created the first piece that looks exactly the way I planned, so even though there are other clay items to share, I wanted to show this one off first.

I bought the channel bangle at BeadFX yesterday afternoon, on a whim. As soon as we were home I got to mixing up some custom fimo colours. I used translucent fimo as a base, and added coloured fimo and alcohol inks as needed until I had the palette that was in my head.

I used my extruder to combine the colours and stacked them into a cane. Then I marbled what was left and used it to get a first coat of clay onto the bangle. I sliced up my cooled cane thinly and applied it across the bangle, blending carefully with the other slices, and also with the clay base.

When I was happy, I baked it and tried something I hadn’t tried before – when it was done baking I quenched it in cold water right away, which I had read increased the translucency of fimo. Then I set to work sanding, working my way slowly from a 320 grit through to a 12000 grit, over about half an hour.

I have not done it justice in these photos, but it’s definitely the best polymer clay piece I’ve done so far and I’ll be getting more of these channel bangles for the slew of ideas that came to me overnight!
The Austerity Bowl

December 13, 2013

Final haul from the kiln this week, and the first piece I wanted to write about was the one I made for my karate instructor and his wife.

As you can tell from this shot of the rest of the haul, I never, ever work with white. I had this idea though, inspired by Japanese design, of this austere bowl that would have to get by just on its form and function – with no shiny, colourful glaze work to detract from the shape.

The challenge with this is that the bowl itself, lacking ornament, must have sufficient gravitas and perfect form. I started myself on the task by wedging up about 8 lbs of clay. Even with the water loss after 2 firings, this means that it’s a pretty heavy bowl.

The negative space enclosed by the bowl is pretty large, deep and accented only by the fact that I allowed myself to leave just a shadow of the original throw-lines in, the time-honoured mark of a potter’s hands.

To keep the outside austere, but not bland, I filled my hands with a wet, gloppy mixture of clay and water and smoothed it over the outside to create a soft, organic texture.

Finally, the piece was glazed a flat, featureless white. I even wrapped it in white, because to do otherwise would have been too incongruous with the bowl design.

Nothing makes a potter’s heart happier than taking something through all the design stages, coaxing form and function from bags of mud, and having it find a loving home at the end. My teacher opened it last night, and he loves it :)
Gifting Photography 2013

December 10, 2013

I do a lot of things in my day job, but photography has always been the best part of what I do. One of our clients in particular is a huge part of my photography life, and every year we choose a shortlist of my best non-work related shots of the year to print and frame as gifts for them. Here are this years Christmas selections – they will be printed to metallic sheets and framed this week :)

The Blue Grotto, Capri

Positano

Amalfi at sunset

Roma

Rossport Park, off highway 17 north of Superior

Old Woman Bay, Lake Superior Provincial Park

The Leslie Street Spit, Toronto

Balls Falls, Hamilton

Toronto, Harbourfront after a snow storm

Roma, from the top of the Spanish Steps
Spate by Jane Richmond

December 4, 2013

I decided to join the TFA holiday KAL this year, as part of my triumphant return to knitting after giving the wrists a break for a month or so. Ah, the best laid plans.

I started out on a pair of flip-tops mitts in Orange label cashmere (in frost), but then saw Jane Richmond’s Spate. I absolutely had to have them. I frogged, cast on again, and commenced ‘botched attempt #1’.

DPNS and these wrists are an absolute no-go. I frogged my first attempt after completing the cuff and cast on again on flat needles. I frogged again after completing the cuff a second time because I’d forgotten to add an edge stitch on each side for seaming. Finally, a third frogging came after I made a silly mistake in the pattern (due to failing to account for my brand new edge stitch. Cue Homer Simpson’s voice).

Ah, Tims. If you don’t live near one I am sorry for you….

I absolutely ADORE them. Once I had my mods down the knitting went very fast, even on my busted wrists.

A confession – I bought my first skein of TFA Orange label right after it came out, and have hung on to it ever since. Once in a while I’d take it out and squish it and think ‘nice, but is it that different from green label?’. So I hoarded it for the right project, and this was definitely it.

After the gloves were done I blocked them before seaming. OMG. I’ll be really girly and say it again; OMG, this yarn is heaven. Once blocked my gloves melted into this gorgeous, snuggly, warm, slightly silky stuff that is to die for (it also opens up the pattern, which did not look at all right to that point). I am absolutely in love and Orange label is going to be my new go-to for really special items!

Raverly Project page here.
Oh My Mold!

December 3, 2013

A few weeks ago I tried my hand at polyester resin, and it was a complete disaster. I thought that scrubbing off the mold (and my skin) with acetone would be fine, but on my next experiment I found out I was wrong. The stress of the whole sordid event left my beautiful bangle mold with a matte finish.

I opted to try out another mold maker rather than replace the original. I had my eye on an Etsy store called ‘Oh My Mold!’ for a long time and I ordered up some goodies!

Her bangle mold is an absolute pleasure to work with. For a start, it’s clear. This means I can see my composition as I’m arranging things to make sure that I’m happy with it, and that there are no air bubbles sneaking around in there. It opens up a lot of creative potential for other ideas too – which I’ll share as soon as they come out of the mold :)

The result is super shiny, and pretty much perfect. I over-poured slightly on this bangle, but I can tell that with a careful pour, very little to no sanding would be required with this mold.

Love her store, definitely going back for more! The owner, Tania, is incredibly friendly, helpful and responsive. She even customized the bracelet mold for me by making it out of transparent silicone, which seems to be her speciality. If you’re pouring resin into molds, I highly recommend checking her out.