first post in a while, college has been keeping me busy. but tis the season for a little moonlighting.
hand cut paper snowflakes
designed in the style of traditional folded paper snowflakes (or japanese kirigami) using adobe illustrator. each piece was hand cut in the flat. i'm getting a dab hand at tiny little circles with a scalpel :)
i've said before that it's not enough for me to know that something can be made - i have to make it. browsing origamists' streams on flickr i came across a pop-up card in the shape of a house, all cut and folded from a single sheet. so that was my evening taken care of :D
having made a couple of sample models from free patterns on the internet i decided to try my hand at pop-up card designer pro and this is my first completed model.
castle street
a card for my dad, of his house. a real labour of love, this took many hours designing and prototyping. the right angled roofing sections were an utter pain to fold in the thick paper/cardstock i'd used for my samples. in the end i resorted to the elephant hide paper i used for my pleated tessellations. fairly heavyweight by origami standards this paper has the benefit of withstanding repeated creasing without tearing. in the case of this model sharp creasing is more important than paper weight to keep everything straight and aligned.
for anyone interested in the technique popupology has plenty in the way of inspiration, free patterns to download and fold yourself, along with detailed videos of the delicate folding process.
i bought a pink snakeprint filofax :) obviously i'll never let it out of my sight, but just in case...
my last pack of working film for my beloved polaroid sx-70. this is NOT my original photography. image credit: *lemur* on flickr.
hand cut stencil and wallpaper.
well, 28 to be precise, but there were times when it felt like thousands :D
blanket for a friend's first baby, knit in lace-weight cashmere yarn doubled or tripled to roughly 4ply weight, crochet border. it was this friend who first introduced me to the jackalope, so i see it as her mascot.
after several abortive experiments, including one i hope never to repeat in fairisle on the flat, i decided on duplicate stitch as the most sanity-preserving option. each jackalope took 45 minutes, never mind the 36,000 stitches in the stripes, truly a labour of love.
the yarn was left over from a simple striped blanket i made for my youngest. for anyone wondering about the practicality of cashmere for a baby, these yarns (from colourmart) machine wash beautifully on a standard setting. each wash fluffens the yarn until it's cloud soft.
best of all - and unlike with mine - i managed to finish on time \o/ baby is due any day now...