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Fiber art made from sustainable, local materials.

MAC Class Week 8: The Adams Fold

Hi all. Here's my final step-by-step from Foldforming and Forging Class. Today I present to you: The Adams Fold. 
Prep: cut out four of the above shapes from thin copper sheet (I used 26 g.), then anneal and fold in half along a vertical center line.



Fold each piece in half again, then weave the center portions together. 





Forge along the fold, on each side, for all four spokes.


Unfold all eight of the curves (basically, each one is a mini rueger fold).
Voila! A crazy, woven, curvy thingy.

I'll miss the class. It was great fun learning new techniques each week for the past couple of months. I'm hoping that these new skills can be worked into all kinds of other projects in the future. I gotta play with soldering, riveting and stone setting with some of these forms. 

My next class is Production Jewelry, which focuses on how to create a cohesive line of work. I'll check in when it starts, in early April. 

Some Saturday morning spinning



Project the First. 

Scrap is a "nonprofit creative reuse center" in Portland, from which I got these balls of fabric yarn, pre-sewn, for only 10 cents a piece. Bam. This morning, I got a little work done on this batch of scrappy, stripy fabric yarn. The blue bits are cotton/poly, if I had to guess. It's got a nice country kitchen vibe right now, though we'll see what happens when/if I ply it. 



Project the Second.

I carded together a few batts of bfl, lincoln locks and chocolate brown alpaca...
and spun it into a two-ply, thick and thin, colorful yarn. 






MAC Class, Week 7


This week, we were provided with a free period, to scroll through potential projects and pick the ones we most wanted to try out. Awesomeness, truly. 

First up, a Pleated Strip, straight folds. 

Fold a long copper strip in half. I used 26 gauge for this sucker.


Then, keep folding it--accordion style (this is done in a vise).


Forge the folded piece until it develops a nice curve. 


Curved! 

Unfolded--front view. 


Unfolded--back view. 

A Pleated Strip with angled folds is done by the same process, except instead of straight lines, you work at a slight incline. 




Front view. 


       Back view! 

And, finally, a Stacked T-Fold. 

This is done in much the same way as a standard t-fold, except that you start with a long strip, and keep making folds down along it. 


First two folds down, side view. 


First two folds down, top view. 


Front view. There are three t-folds. I also used pliers to add some curves to the outer folds. I'm really pleased with how this one, especially, came out. It looks pleasingly ancient, at least to me. 


    Back view.

Our last forging class is next week, alas. I will report back, as always.  I'm thinking I might try something more elaborte next time. 

A color of the moment


Purple is a thing that's been happening a lot lately. Evidence above. And of course, the drying wool is for the aforementioned Wanderlust Armwarmers. Prettiness. 

MAC Class, Week 6: Heistad Cup



This one was fun, and quite simple for such neat results. The form looks like it must be soldered, but in fact it's all made from one solid piece of (in this case) brass. It does require a rolling mill, though--you run the metal through until it's quite stretched. Mine went from 22 to 30 gauge.

You can find a nice tutorial for the Heistad Cup over here.

The rolling mill is, of course, another piece of equipment for my dream studio. Someday, maybe.

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Recent Spinnings, from the rawest wool yet

Earlier on here, and also over on craftster, I wrote about the process of washing, dyeing and carding the raw wool I got at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival.

Here's some of the finished yarn this project has so far produced.






And, a bonus shot of what's on the bobbin--a mix of art batt and hand-dyed BFL roving, single.


MAC Class, Week 5: Anticlastic Fold

"Anticlastic:" (of a surface) having principal curvatures of opposite sign at a given point.

Sinusoidal Stake for Anticlastic and Synclastic Forming; Source.
And, finally, some inspiration: a brooch by Mary Ellis, created from sterling silver with gold vermeil. 

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Step 1, Wanderlust Armwarmers


I spent a pleasant little while at my studio this morning, which included dyeing some of that wool I picked up a bit back. Next step, once the roving dries, will be spinning the singles. Then, out of season Wanderlust Armwarmers.