Translucent polymer clay rocks, the problem was that I didn’t know how to use it. It was one of those situations where I knew what the potential was, but just didn’t know how to achieve it. Carolyn to the rescue, she suggested that I try slicing my canes thinner and buffing them to increase the translucent quality.

Worked like a charm. The one on the left is where I left the translucent slices a little thicker (and didn’t dunk it in ice water to clarify) and the one on the right is where I sliced much thinner and did dunk it in ice water.

I managed to get a good photograph of the translucent effect by propping some acrylic sheet (plexi-glass) at an angle and shooting one of my work lamps onto the paper and the other lamp over the baubles.

I don’t know the technical term for the plain baubles. I’ve heard them called garden glass, or flattened marbles. I use them for weights on my cutting mat to hold down pattern paper for smaller pieces. Putting clay on them doesn’t really serve a purpose other than to make them prettier.

No you silly creature. Not that kind of pusher. The kind of pusher I mean is a tool to take the place of a finger or thumb when actual human digits are too large to fit into tiny bits and folds of a sculpture.

I made some from bamboo skewers, Aleen’s tacky glue, Premo, and Future floor wax. Fortunately this wasn’t unknown territory for me, I’ve made lots of things out of bamboo skewers and know from past experience that nothing sticks to them but pva (white) glue. I wouldn’t have used Aleene’s normally, it’s far too precious of a substance to go slapping it on every single project I come up with but Matt threw away my crappy bottle of ten cent pva because it was “crappy.”

Of course it was crappy, that’s the whole reason one buys ten cent glue bottles. For some jobs (like pre-coating bamboo skewers) thin, runny, turns dark yellow and threatens the fabric of society pva is necessary. That’s the way these things work.

So this is my little tutorial should you feel the need to make some for yourself: Cut skewers to size using large power tools. The larger the better. Use a chain saw if you feel like it. I didn’t really feel like getting the chainsaw out (although I could have) so I used the bandsaw. Turn off powertools. Dip fingers in pva, quickly rub pva onto bamboo skewers. Stick skewers into something so that they are not laying flat (in this case, half of a styrofoam ball lucky enough to have been selected for this purpose.) Double stick tape impaled semi-sphere onto cutting mat so that it doesn’t flop over. Wait about 20 minutes. Liberate slightly tacky pva coated altered skewers into toaster oven for 15 minutes at 300 degrees. Wait for ding.

After ding remove crazy hot skewers from toaster oven. Say a few swear words while skewers are cooling. When cool enough to handle, mush clay onto pointy part of skewer. Shape into useful shapes. Wrap a collar of matching clay and secure firmly by screaming at it, blend collar and shape as smoothly as possible.

Brush with Turpenoid and soft paint brush to remove fingerprints. Accidentally knock wax paper cup holding Turpenoid over and scream select profanities. Wave at neighbors who are now staring at you. Put polyfill onto baking dish, prop skewers with clay heads into baking dish, set time and temperature on toaster oven, put baking dish with stuff into toaster oven, start baking. Clean up Turpenoid with mineral oil and baby-wipes. Wait for ding.

After this ding, pull insanely hot bamboo skewers out of oven, dip into Future floor wax, wrap wire around the unclayed end and hang to dry. Wait, wait some more, do a little dance, make a sandwich, play card games with the four year old, stare at the wall when 4 year old takes a nap, fill out financial aid and Stafford loan paper work, call mom and wait a little longer.

I could fashion a covering for the handle part of the tools, but I decided that could wait for another day, I like the look and feel of bamboo and the baked pva makes a pretty solid finish.

So we go to the next town over, the one with the craft stores. The first craft store doesn’t have it. Okay, we do a couple of the husband’s errands and head across Salem to check out the next craft store. Bingo, there it is.
But something nags at me as I look at the package. Somewhere in the back of my mind I feel that I know this packaging. I look at it. I ponder.

It dawns on me, slowly (for when things are dawning they are often doing so with a very lax attitude.) I have it at home. To be specific, I had it at home on the shelf next to the answering machine between a ceramic picture frame and a teak memory box, on top of an unopened package of 3 inch paper doilies.

Memory is a mysterious thing is it not?

I put the package back on the pegboard at the store, confessed to Matt that it was all for naught and silently prayed that the TLS at home vision in my mind was not a bad cosmic joke. And then I prayed again that if it were actually there, then I might have the good luck that it not be dried out or otherwise rendered unusable.

Upon returning home I found it, right where I saw it in my minds eye. The husband suggested that perhaps I was not actually remembering the TLS but remote viewing it. Given my penchant for forgetting things, I think that remote viewing is the most likely explanation. Occam’s razor is a pain isn’t it? In my case actually remembering something with so much detail would be nothing short of a paranormal answer.

You see, it was of vital importance that I have this stuff today. Vital. Very important. And yet once I had it in my grubby little paws, I could not recall for the life of me what my plans were. I’m sure I had plans.

Forgot what those plans were. Wrote them down in my notebook this morning, then lost the notebook. Seriously. Not joking. Generations from now some descendant of mine will find my notebook and write a single sentence synopsis “Great-great-great-grandmother Meyer was goofy.” That’s all it’ll say, that is the legacy that I’m leaving behind.

Why did I have the TLS in the first place you might ask? Don’t know, can’t answer. It was opened, so I can only assume that I have actually used it at least once. For what, or when– I cannot recall (I sound like I’m testifying before Congress.)

I do very much like the set up. It’s larger than your average jewelry bench and there’s no wedge to slam my face into when I reach towards the back of the desktop. Since I’m not focusing on precious metal work there’s no real reason to have a collection tray at the bottom (although, I do save my scraps to send in should I have a few ounces build up.)

Yes, yes I know. I’ll never make it through all the stages of grief if I’m stuck in denial. Someday medical science might make a major breakthrough and all my problems will go away. It said so in that film they showed us in the 6th grade. They don’t just make things up for those educational films, I trust Mr. Narrator, and you should too.

Here’s some of my finished pieces of jewelry. For some reason when I had the camera out it didn’t occur to me to grab the matching earrings.

Obviously, I need to add a flocked jet board to my shopping list because this was the best of the photos, and it’s a pretty poor representation.

Do you remember what I said about knitting miles and miles of stockinette? (That I might have some kind of genetic mutation because I don’t mind, I find it soothing.) The same thing applies to making my own jump rings and links. Repetitive work like stockinette is soothing, and so is making jump rings. The nice thing about jewelry is that I can warm up by making little components and then when I’m feeling energetic and awake, I can start designing and assembling.

Even though there’s something sweet about making fairly worthless metal and glass into lovely jewelry, there’s a certain joy that comes from using a precious metal. The links are sterling silver, the jump rings (which I didn’t make) are sterling and the chain is sterling plate (which I’m not exactly happy about, when I buy more chain I think I’ll get the full sterling and replace it to make it proper) you can’t see it, but there’s a nice lobster claw clasp that is also sterling.

See? I can adapt.

No major problems but the files that control putting fresh batteries into the camera after he’s used it seem to be completely corrupted.

I’ve been working on making more canes. Geometric and simple flowers seem to be the most forgiving. I read yesterday that I’m not supposed to be able to use the clay brands that I have for cane work because they are too soft. I sort of figured that was the case and compensated by putting parts in the freezer between sessions.

I decided to take a bit of a risk and try for a more complex shape, and made a skull cane. I built from the teeth and bottom jaw upwards, the most difficult part seemed to be the nose holes. I think next time I’ll the jaw more substantial, but all in all I’m happy with the result. I cut off part of the cane and reduced it to make the smaller skull, and the flower was supposed to be a daisy from yesterday’s experiments but ended up looking sort of skeletal so it fits well with the skulls.

Without my regular soothing activities to keep me occupied and with the general disruption of my wood turning activities I’m going certifiably bonkers. Discovering that you’ve developed severe allergies to certain woods when you are a wood turner is, to put it mildly, rather depressing. I would be more depressed, however; the migraines that were daily kicking my ass have been reduced to the weekly kicking of my ass, it’s hard to feel deeply bad when I feel better physically. Bonkers, but not depressed.

Case in point: Polymer clay.

My relationship with this medium has been iffy. In high school the technique for making a gradient mix from one color to another was to make five g’zillion tiny balls of both colors and work from one end to the other in tenths. So if the gradient was blue to yellow, you’d start with 10 blue balls (mixed together), then 9 blue balls plus one yellow, then 8 blue plus 2 yellow, and working that way until you had 10 yellow balls. God help you if you made a mistake or didn’t mix the clays completely because they then had to be shaped into tiles, baked and then labeled and stacked.

As you can imagine, for someone like me (who tends to have the attention span of a hamster on caffeine) sitting around blending balls of clay and making squares was not my favorite thing.

After that experience, I was in awe (and I still am) of people who can really work polymer clays. Not to say that I completely avoided the stuff, I’ve used it for dolls and small distorted and freakishly crispy charms, and I’ve read books about working it but it just didn’t click for me.

However, as of late, without knitting to keep me sane and happy and armed with new books on this mysterious subject, I ventured gently into that colorful realm.

First, I learned the Skinner blend, which sounds like a dangerous dance move but is actually a way to make a smooth gradient without five g’zillion little balls of colored clay. The technique is named after Judith Skinner who is– apparently– a freakin’ genius and my new personal hero. Judith Skinner is saving the world from blending five g’zillion freakin’ balls of clay and for that contribution to humanity we cannot thank her enough.

It’s a little embarrassing to admit (so of course I need to tattle on myself and be done with it) but I think I own more polymer clay and clay tools than most people who use the stuff on a regular basis. A few things I had for other purposes, but most of it was given to me by friends and family for the express purpose of enticing me to work with it.

As it is with all things crafty I tend to sit on art supplies until I’m either inspired or in dire need of a particular something. Usually the latter. I may sound like I’m joking when I say that I could open a craft store using only what I have on hand; I assure you, it’s no joke. I am capable of giving away boxes and bags and purging the house of unwanted clutter in every conceivable way, however art supplies have a way of reproducing in my presence.
Next I read up on making canes from polymer clay. The technique is fascinating, you start by making a thick coin shaped picture, in the same way that you’d put together tessellating tiles to make a mosaic image, filling in the negative spaces with a background color. When that part is done it’s time for what’s officially called “reducing” but I like to think of as “controlled smooshing”. This makes a long shape with the image submerged only to be revealed with by cutting a cross section. So far I’ve done a few flowers, a somewhat failed honey comb pattern, and a random pink pattern made by extruding clay through a square disk.

I don’t know how to describe the process other than it’s completely magical. I am now eyeballing everything that can withstand the curing temperatures as a potential object to be embellished this way. I have designs on making stitch markers, needle protectors, and buttons. I could probably manage to work on canes well into old age without ever learning a new technique and still be endlessly entertained by the potentials.

There are so many other techniques, like knitting and woodworking, 15 minutes is all it takes to learn to make something presentable but because of all the applications it would take a few lifetimes to really master the medium. And like knitting and woodworking the devil is in the details. All the tickle points, all the techniques and details are really stimulating and curious.