The Blue Brick

Inspira – The Emerald Hummingbird

November 15, 2010

So the show is only 10 days away – I can’t believe it. I’m still in production, though definitely approaching the end. Today I wanted to share the latest woven bracelet, this one is in delicate greens, yellows and earthy colours, inspired by a beautiful Emerald Hummingbird I photographed in Costa Rica.

I was so proud of this photo, I had to wait a while for her to come back and feed her baby. I think her nest is a thing of beauty alone, all woven and leafy, and the entire thing was smaller than my fist! She herself was stunning, her nest was in a little shaded spot, but in the sunlight she was an absolute jewel.

This bracelet is woven using leaf green and earth brown swarovski crystal, with pearlescent Japanese delicas. It’s finished with sterling silver cones and a lobster claw clasp. I added a green pendant of cubic zirconia, and scoured downtown Toronto for the finishing touch – a sterling silver hummingbird charm.

Here is another emerald hummingbird shot from that same trip – this time on the wing. I shot this with Canon’s 50 mm prime f1.4 lens, wide open, in bright sunlight, at a shutter speed of 1/8000 sec for those interested ;o)

The colours in this one are quite lovely – and the piece really shines in the sun. It makes a lovely addition to the show!
Inspira show pottery

November 11, 2010

Enough about jewellery! Though I have some lovely new pieces coming soon I wanted to take this opportunity to share some of the pottery that will be in the Pre-Christmas craft sale on November 24th.

This dinner plate was hand painted – inspired by Mt. Kiluea in Hawaii.

This large serving plate has a raised area in the centre for holding dip.

Another serving plate – this one with handles.

This large serving bowl is in the same glaze as the large plate – I love the bronzing effect!

Can you tell I love brown and turquoise? These traditional mugs are the same from my blog banner.

This large bowl is hand-painted on the inside and stained/hand carved on the outside.

This small rice bowl received the same treatment.

This little blue vase was hand-painted with slip to give that textured look – it has a much larger sister that’s in the kiln right now, I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

And lets not forget the wooly muggeth – complete with handmade non-slip cosy =o)

This is a selection of the beautiful colourful pitchers that will be included.

There are more things coming out the kiln but I wanted to share these =o) I was scared of how the pottery would turn out for the show, but as it stands I’m quite pleased with the collection!
Inspira – Venice

November 8, 2010

Today I wanted to show off the new Inspira series bracelet for the city of Venice. The first one of these beautiful pieces was sold to a dear friend, but I loved it so much I had to make another one for the show!

This delicate bracelet is hand woven, one bead at a time, using blue and midnight blue swarovski crystals and Japanese glass delicas. It’s finished with sterling silver filigree cones, a lobster claw clasp and a short length of chain with a single cubic zirconia hanging off the end. In the sunlight the sparkle factor is spectacular!

Venice is the most beautiful city I’ve ever shot. The architecture, the canals, the way you could get lost wandering down quiet, empty little streets for hours… beautiful small bridges and hidden gems abound in this wonderful city, made all the more poignant by the fact that Venice appears to be sinking. How heartbreaking, to think that we might lose this breathtaking jewel of a city.

This is a close up of the weave.

This piece, along with an 11 x 14 copy of the gondola shot will be available at my show – in just over two weeks!
Inspira – The Leslie Street Spit

November 4, 2010

The Leslie Street Spit in Toronto is one of my favourite places – it was originally the dumping ground for the construction refuse during a period of rapid growth in the 60’s. The land created was colonized over time by over 400 species of plant life and is now a protected area that serves as a migratory stopover for many species of birds. Because it originated as a construction dumping ground it’s got a lot of personality – one beach is entirely covered in broken pillars from old buildings, another is a graveyard for dead telephone poles, yet another is a jungle of rebar. It’s a wonderful place for photography, and last winter we snuck on (the public park was closed at the time) looking for photos, and what an amazing day it turned out to be!

The entire east shore of the spit was covered in ice, everything from the construction rebar to to the trees was coated in a beautiful sheath of ice. I wanted so much to create a piece of jewellery from this unexpected gift – and so was born my latest piece.

This necklace is made from clear and frosted quartz crystal, white, champagne and aqua swarovski crystal beads and a sterling silver toggle clasp.

Running through the necklace and woven in between the beads are two ropes – one of tiny quartz crystal and sterling silver beads, and one of tan coloured pure silk rope – meant to be evocative of the delicate branches under the ice.

This photo (which, incidentally will have a permanent home in Toronto’s PATH system soon!) shows the degree to which everything was iced over. It looks like the stones have cake icing on them =o)

The back of the necklace is finished with a short length of silver chain and a swarovski crystal charm.

Two more pebbles of clear quartz and silver cones lend themselves to earrings.

Photos updated as promised – the piece really shines in the sunlight =o)
Sneak Peek – Inspira Photography

November 3, 2010

I’m so excited – I’m finally ready to go to print with the final photo selection for my show! Selecting the final images was very tough, there were so many to go through and I’m sure there are some gems who escaped me, but I’ve done my best to narrow it down. Here are a few of my favourites, enjoy!

I am so proud of this photo, I had to crouch in a very uncomfortable position waiting for this beautiful emerald hummingbird to come back to her nest and feed her baby. This photo was taken in the Monteverde Cloud Forest in Costa Rica.

This textural shot was taken at dawn, on a beautiful frosty morning when Lake Ontario had frozen over.

This is a neighbourhood in St. John’s, Newfoundland called ‘the Battery’. It’s a community of solid, salt of the earth folk who’ve built their homes right into the cliff face. More than one window that I peered into had a boulder in the livingroom. No kidding! I felt this neighbourhood really represented the cheerful, obstinate, resourceful spirit of Newfoundland.

More travels from the past year included a trip to Paris in October. The colours of this photo really captured me, it was amazing just to stand there and watch the leaves falling to the ground. This photo was also the focus of a beautiful piece of inspira jewellery.

Around the world again takes us to Hawaii, where Kris and I had the honour of watching lava tumble into the ocean at 4 am. This boat ride was terrifying, 20 foot waves had me hanging on with every spare limb while trying to shoot, AND protect the camera from salt water. What an experience! I cried, I couldn’t help it, I felt so in awe, watching the mechanism by which the earth is made, for anyone going to Hawaii I urge you, yes the beaches are nice, but go and see the volcano!

The beautiful ceiling of the Great Mosque of Córdoba, (or the Mezquita) in Spain was breathtaking, but even more fascinating is the history – it began as a Visigoth Church in 600 AD, was reworked over 2 centuries to become a Mosque beginning in 784 and then in 1236 following yet another ‘change of management’ a Catholic church was plunked down right in the middle of it!

Closer to home – this is the Leslie Street Spit here in Toronto, shot last winter. Ice had coated everything, right down to each tiny branch of this tree. I will be making a piece of jewellery inspired by this piece as well, we froze our butts off but it was such a great find it kept us shooting for hours.

I’m not sure how folks will react to this shot, but it was so beautiful I had to include it. This man was peacefully napping on a couch in the back of the beautiful Church of the Holy Trinity in downtown Toronto. The light coming in from the stained glass windows was giving this beautiful, surreal colour to the floor.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this glimpse into the collection I’m printing for the show =o) Only a few weeks to go, I’m so excited!
Inspira – Autumn in Ontario

October 30, 2010

I wanted to share something special today that I’ve been working very hard on, and that I’m very proud of. Inspired by the absolutely stunning Autumn we had here in Ontario I wanted to create Inspira jewellery inspired by the colours and beauty of Fall. I had used real lava in my Inspira Kiluea bracelet and I was intrigued by trying to find a way to include real leaves in my jewellery. After *much* experimentation and many, many piles of Fail, I created a technique for preserving leaves perfectly in silver frames – and here are the results =o)

6 Leaf ‘medallions’, perserved and encased in silver plated, nickel-free frames, coated in jewellers grade resin for protection and shine. The bracelet is finished with powerful, easy, silver magnets and a silver leaf.

This necklace has 3 leaf medallions joined with silver rings, on a silver chain with magnet clasps.

I also created a series of pendants, with a single silver leaf detail hanging from the bottom.

And earrings =o)

These beautiful autumn keepsake pieces will be available at my upcoming show next month. After the show is done I will put some up on my Etsy site; I’ve been preserving leaves while I can so I’ll be able to produce a few more over the winter. In the spring I’ll try the same technique I’ve developed on leaves and flower petals, I can’t wait !
Thermis Knitted Cowl

October 28, 2010

At the KW Knitters Fair I met an artist who dyed her own wool. Her name is Emily and she has an Etsy shop under the name Viola Viola. I fell in love with a colourway of hers called ‘Graphite’ and purchased a skein – and I just had to share the results because this stuff is so beautiful to work with, I love it just as much as I love yarns from TFA (from whom I bought 6 beautiful skeins of the sunset colourway, and still haven’t had time to do anything with them!). I took a break from the show to knit myself a birthday present =o)

The pattern is called Thermis by KrisKnits (Ravelry project page here) and I love it! It knits up fast, is super warm, uses just under one skein of yarn and shows off Emily’s colourway beautifully.
The Evolution of the Wooly Muggeth

October 26, 2010

When Kris and I were in Hawaii, (what a strange place to think of cold-weather drinks) I came up with an idea for combining two of my loves into a cute, comfy drinking vessel that would feel cozy in your hands when filled with hot yummy drinks. I came back to discover that the concept of the knitted mug cosy had been done, and done, and done. Undaunted I determined to evolve the idea into something fresh and fun and unique, and so was born the wooly muggeths.

Some work went into figuring out the shape to throw, I settled on a mug with extruded rings at the top and bottom, to give the cosy a place to sit and keep it from sliding off. I also went through quite the adventure trying to find the perfect yarn match for each glaze. I wanted each mug to be different. This purple-blue one is paired with a skein of Stormy by Tanis – a match made in heaven!

Crocheted cosy in hand the next challenge was how to keep the mug from sliding through your grip and onto the floor – even with the ridges the cosy was sliding around. My genius friend Manda suggested sewing no-slip to the inside, worked like a charm! After test-driving the concept with dollar store no-slip drawer liners I went to Canadian Tire and invested in high quality, colour-matched no-slip. Sounds silly, I know, but it really does make a difference when you use a good colour, especially if you use a pattern where you can see through the occasional stitch (as you can on the triple crochets in this one).

For the second pair I decided to try stranded knitting for the first time – and I loved it =o) I wanted to leave a clear strip of the glaze on this piece so I purposely left the cosy an inch shy of the actual circumference.

Pair number 3 took a while to find the right yarn, but I ended up settling on a varigated yarn from Liberty that I bought on a whim at the Purple Purl. The colourway is very pretty and I thought it matched the mug well. I added clasps purchased at the KW knitters fair to finish off the look.

And how do they work you ask? They are lovely, when I filled mine up with hot chocolate the warmth seeped through the clay body and into the cosy. There are no handles and the mugs are definitely comfort-sized, so it’s a two-hander, but a warm and wooly tea cup is the perfect thing to wrap your hands around when coming in from the cold =o) These lovelies will be available at my show next month!
Handwarmers

October 25, 2010

Today I wanted to share some of the knitted work I’ve been producing for the show, these are 5 of my knitted handwarmers. Each one is my own original pattern, (written specifically so I could avoid the use of DPNs…. the horror!) and is lovingly knitted up in soft squishy wool =o)

These Debbie Bliss Merino red ones feature twisted ribbing all the way up.

This shade of Debbie Bliss Merino blue is so gorgeous, deep and ocean coloured with a lacy V shaped panel.

Perfect for St. Patricks day ;o) Celtic knot styled cables on a mossy green wool.

Soft grey bamboo wool in a warm shade with horseshoe cabled up the top

And finally pumpkin orange in horseshoe lace, knitted in Debbie Bliss Merino Aran.
Inspira – Plaça Reial, Barcelona

October 21, 2010

My latest Inspira bracelet is entitled “Plaça Reial” – after a famous plaza in the Barri Gòtic of Bacelona. I shot the plaza last fall. The bracelet is a different style than the others, to try and evoke more of the gothic/artsy vibe so intense in Barcelona – neither the chaotic charm bracelet nor the delicate spiral weaves seemed to fit.

The bracelet is done in antique brass, with 6 strands coming out of a filigree cone. The materials include 5mm black agate, 7mm fire agate, blue swarovski crystal (perfect blue no less, I was so thrilled when I found that colour) brass, wooden beads and Japanese delicas. It’s finished with an antique brass finished toggle clasp.