Orinendo Shawl Pins

A few have asked me when I would be doing a Shawl Pin tutorial. What better way to get me to do it when the weatherman is correct in predicting nothing but rain for the week which means I am spending more time indoors again.

Perhaps you are wondering (or maybe not, lol) about the strange name I gave them.
“Orinendo”.  Maybe it’s their shape of the clasp or maybe the Geisha-like pins, but the techniques themselves are actually influenced by Asian Artisan methods, Origami and Mokume Gane. Many polymer clayers are familiar with Mokume-Gane which means ‘wood grained – metal’. Some prefer to call the technique Mokume Nendo when applied to polymer clay, as Nendo means clay. Ori-gami means ‘Folding-paper’. So how does this relate to the pins and tutorial? Well, the pins are made with using my color-gradient blend which I named ‘Origami Blend’ and with the extra steps added it resembles Mokume Nendo, so it seemed natural to combine the names.
Perhaps more of interest will be the revelation how to painlessly make your clay resemble Mokume Gane or Mokume Nendo without the normally required skill of using a thin tissue blade to reveal the various layers of colour. I'll show you how apply coppery patterns and coloured crackle details. The hexagon pin is the one I’m doing in the tutorial, but you can create any shape you like.

Your finished project will be an elegant compliment to any shawl or sweater, especially with the colder season heading upon us…
Look for this collage banner on my ArtFire.

Polymer Clay Shawl Pins, Buttons and Felted Purses

Finally am getting back into some creating, although not so much jewelry. I've been making a variety of Polymer Clay Buttons, Shawl pins and am knitting and felting purses!
Here are some of my Polymer Clay Shawl pins.

 I also made two purses this week, but this large one took me about 4 long days to complete. It's a Hobo bag. My husband thought I was knitting a sweater because before felting and shrinking it, it was huge! I made coordinating button for it. I'll post photos of the smaller bag tomorrow and hopefully the baby booties I came up with for a friend who is expecting a baby soon.

This pattern is available from "Pipps Purses" on ArtFire. I had no idea what a Hobo Bag was, lol, but now I know!! It was trial and error following the pattern. One must definitely have an understanding of stitches as there are no photographs other than the finished purse. I knitted mine on circular needles in a knit one row, purl one row fashion instead of knitting all rows. I actually like the slightly rougher texture of the purse that resulted from that.