Aside from teaching a workshop on stamp carving at last month’s South Bay Craft Group meeting, I haven’t been doing a great deal of crafting. I made a few stamps in preparation, using images from some new stamp books I bought (check My Library for the specific titles). And I created a few square collage postcards, including one for an upcoming color-themed swap, but nothing major otherwise.

However, I’ve been starting to prepare for next month’s workshop, which will be on “washi paper quilting,” based on these kits from Hanko Designs. I’ve done a few of these pieces before, but the idea is that you combine washi paper, cardboard, and thin sponge to create a padded or quilted effect. I’ve been trying to find a pattern that will be easy enough for a first-time project in a class format. I was looking at the Hanko Designs page and saw mention of “kimekomi,” which they said is a traditional Japanese art (or craft?) that inspired their kits, so I started searching for that online.

What I found about kimekomi seemed to mainly refer to 3-dimensional dolls that use fabric and padding, with many layers to add dimension (check out this site’s examples). They’re quite beautiful, but not entirely like the 2-dimensional pieces you can make with the kit. Then I remembered having seen some intricate 2D pieces like this in a local Japanese arts store, so I tried looking for that. Let me tell you, if you don’t know the exact term for something, using general but related terms takes awhile to get anywhere! But I eventually found what I was looking for.

Kurumie, or oshie, is another traditional Japanese art (or craft?) form that uses padded pieces of fabric or paper, but in 2D form. Some of them are quite intricate, like these kit examples, with many complex pieces and layering. The idea is still the same as the Hanko Design kits though. You start with a sturdy base, add some padding (cotton or sponge), and then wrap fabric or paper around it, finally assembling everything to create an overall picture. Some of them even have a bit of embroidery or painted areas on them, to add even more detail.

Anyway, I’ve been looking at so many web sites to find as much as I can about this art, but there isn’t a whole lot out there, especially about the history. It’s really great to discover things like this though, to see where certain creative forms come from and what from the past inspires people in the present. I’m going to continue to look into this as I work on my class examples, but I just wanted to share a bit of this in the meantime.

If you’re interested, I’ve bookmarked a bunch of kurumie links and I would highly recommend the Hanko Designs kits (and their other items) if you want to try your hand at it.

One of the things that comes with having a full-time job again is that I only have so much free time outside of work. Since that time is so limited, I’ve had to be a lot more careful about how I spend it, including including what sort of events you choose to attend and what projects I can commit to and actually complete. Having spent a year and a half taking time off between jobs, I’m definitely having to re-learn this, especially since I’ve picked up a number of hobbies and interests in that time.

When I wasn’t working, going to crafty events was something I felt I almost had to do, whether it was a craft group meeting or a craft fair. I needed some good social things to do, and so whenever I found an event, I went. Now though, I’m having to set limits for myself, based on the time and energy involved in attending anything. I’ve had to pass on a few recent crafting events, even though there were some I initially wanted to attend.

Similarly, I’ve had to limit myself when it comes to craft projects, despite finding plenty of new things I’d love to try. I haven’t really worked on much since my last post, beyond a silly Halloween costume and a few swaps I got involved in despite telling myself I wouldn’t.

I just finished up my items for a Japanese-themed swap on Craftster, and here are a few photos:

The first is a padded or “quilted” kimono art piece, made using chipboard, thin layers of foam, and various papers, plus plenty of glue. I got the supplies as part of a kit from Hanko Designs, and it was actually a lot easier to do than I thought. Some of my measurements were a bit off, but I thing it turned out all right.

The box was originally going to be decoupaged, but then I didn’t feel like doing that after all, so I just painted it. I tried to replicate a very delicate design I found on a piece of origami paper, but it was a lot harder to do than I thought. It takes a lot of patience and a steady hand, and I wasn’t doing too well on either of those. I think it still looks all right though.

And, of course, the final item was one of my standard envelope and card sets, made using origami paper in various colors. A nice tiny item to include, and there’ll be a few store-bought items included as well.

I actually received my swap items from my partner already, and unfortunately, there seemed to be some misunderstanding about what is Japanese and what is Chinese. My partner sent some interesting items, but they were mainly Chinese in pattern and design. That’s ok, but not really my thing.

There were also some issues with the organization of the swap overall, so my disappointment in Craftster swaps continues. As much as I like that the site exists, the swaps are hard to organize and follow and I almost never am satisfied with how they turn out. As a result, I think I’m going to give up on the site, especially swaps there, for the time being. I never post there anyway, so it’s not a big deal, but still disappointing that it has come to this.

I have one more swap to finish up by next week, but this one is a one-on-one swap with another crafter who participated in some of the Coloriffic Swap-O-Rama swaps. I love the color themed swaps there, and the organizers are great, but I keep missing the sign-up deadlines lately. Fortunately, I received a message from Helena, who had also missed the deadline, asking if I’d be interested in a direct swap. We’re following the same color themes as everyone else, but with a little more knowledge of who we’re swapping with.

After this swap though, I think I’m through for awhile. Lately, whenever I sign up for a swap, I go through this minor freak-out about whether or not I’ll be able to make the deadline. It’s mostly due to not having any good ideas about what to make, though usually I figure something out and manage to finish in time. For now though, I’d rather do without the pressure and just take it easy. I don’t know how much I’ll post here as a result, but I will try to keep it up as much as I can.

Work has been a bit hectic as of late, to the point of taking some work home last weekend. However, I made a point of setting some limits on this work and spent the rest of the weekend working on some craft projects for a few swaps that were due this week. It was really nice to just dive in and focus on them, especially since I’d already figured out what I wanted to make.

First up was the Matchbox Craft Swap, which required making something tiny enough to fit inside a matchbox. I had some blank matchboxes that I’d bought for a past project, and I thought about making a miniature scene inside of one of them. I didn’t really know what to make the scene out of or where to find the right items for it, so I scrapped that idea and made a cross-stitched pin instead:

The pattern is my own creation, though I have to give proper credit to another crafter for the inspiration. I was browsing Flickr for cross-stitch and embroidery photos and found this lovely set of cross-stitched pins:

Very cool, and definitely not like the sappy cross-stitch stuff you find in local craft stores. I decided to start with this and play around a bit, and this will hopefully lead to some variations and further patterns. And if anyone’s interested, I’d be more than happy to share my pattern, either in PC Stitch or image format.

As for the pin itself, I basically stitched out the design and then sewed the fabric around some layered pieces of template plastic. I wanted to add a fabric backing with the pin back, but I got tired of sewing and just hot-glued the pin back on. Maybe not the best approach, but it gave me a reason to finally use the hot glue gun I’ve had sitting around for a few years.

I was still in a cross-stitching mood after this project, so when I moved on to the Coloriffic Swap-O-Rama October Swap, I worked in another piece. This month’s colors were orange and purple, and after reading that my partner likes elephants, I combined the two into this framed cross-stitch piece:

I found the elephant pattern online and modified it slightly, dropping the border and filling out the background to fit inside the frame. The frame came from a $1 bin cross-stitch kit I found at Michael’s; it was some awful candy cane pattern kit, but it was worth it for the frame alone and I tossed everything else aside. Stitching the elephant part was easy, but working on the orange background took forever, so I probably wouldn’t do another one like this, or at least not for a swap with a looming deadline.

My other handmade items for this swap included collaged postcards and mini envelope/card sets (my old stand-by), plus a bunch of drawing supplies and candy for my partner. Here are a few photos of it all:

And now I’m all done for a little while at least. I signed up for a Japanese-themed swap on Craftster, which I have yet to start, and then I think I’m going to take a break from swaps for a bit. Or at least the rather involved ones that require a bit more time than I feel like dedicating right now. It’s hard to keep up the motivation to do things when I’m not at work, and I think a project without a due date would be more relaxing and easier to get into.

Phew! I made it through the heat ok for the most part. I think my brain may have melted a bit, but I’m starting to get back to normal so far, and fortunately the weather should be a lot nicer for awhile.

I’ve knocked out a few of the swaps that I had due, though I realize I didn’t take any photos of them before packaging them up. Two were varieties of paper, and since they weren’t handmade by me, I didn’t feel as compelled to photograph them. A third swap was for items that correspond to the five senses, and I did include a print of some digital artwork and a wrapped postcard, but nothing handmade otherwise.

Now, my focus is on my package for the August round of Coloriffic Swap-O-Rama, and it’s been fun to work on so far. Usually, there are one or two theme colors, but this month, it’s been bumped up to six to make a rainbow effect: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. It’s nice to expand a bit, but then it makes me want to include more items, just to cover all of the colors.

For my handmade items, I decided to stick with paper, mostly because I didn’t feel like sewing, and I made an envelope/card set (the envelopes are primary to me, what can I say?) and more “square” postcards.

I’m really pleased with how the postcards turned out, and I’ve received a lot of nice comments from people who viewed the scans on Flickr. They’re really pretty easy to make, only requiring paper scraps large enough to cut 1-inch squares from, a bit of glue, and a postcard (4×6 inches) to paste the squares onto. I have a thing about squares, I guess, or so you’d think looking through some of my previous work. Maybe too easy, but they’re simple enough to work with.

Speaking of squares, I attended a scrapbooking workshop at the library last night, where we created the 6×6-inch accordion books. It wasn’t too difficult to follow, especially with all the components provided, but it did feel a bit too specific for me. There’s a follow-up session next week, when we’ll start decorating the books, and it seems that there is an exact order of different layouts in mind for us to create. Not that I don’t mind the occasional kit or guided instruction, but I like to have a bit more openness for projects like this. I’m more interested in learning techniques from others than in replicating the exact project they already made many times before. At the very least, now I know how to make a book like this, even if I don’t use the one I made for anything in particular.

Along the lines of teaching classes, I still need to prepare for giving a cross-stitch demo at next week’s South Bay Craft Group meeting. I have the basic supplies, but I have to figure out how to demonstrate it all, especially with something so small. Maybe everyone will have to gather around and look over me as I work, though I’m going to see if I can find some diagrams that I can use. It should be interesting at least.

Last fall, a longtime friend of mine got married. The wedding was held in India and the following reception near Minneapolis, and unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend either event. Even so, I wanted to send them a really nice wedding gift, so when I came across a cross-stitch kit of Ganesh, I thought it would be perfect for me to make and frame. I did a little research and found that Ganesh is often associated with weddings (or other new beginnings), so it seemed ideal.

It was my first major cross-stitch project, and I really had no idea how long something like this would take. The only other pieces I’d done before were quite small or had been set aside well before I’d even gotten far into them. So, of course, working on Ganesh took me awhile longer than I expected, and I was unable to send it before the wedding and reception happened. I kept at it though, working on “him” while I watched TV and taking “him” with me to craft group meetings.

Eventually, after 6 or 7 months of stitching — and occasional unstitching and stitching again — I finished. I think the whole thing literally involved blood, sweat, and tears at some point throughout the process, but I definitely learned a lot about cross-stitch, like how long it really takes to complete such a large piece!

I made sure to be very careful with the piece, and washed, dried, and steam-ironed it ever so carefully. I was a bit anxious when I took the prepped piece to a framing shop, worried that they’d accidentally ruin it somehow, but it was fine.

I sent Ganesh to Minnesota last week, and “he” arrived today, safe and sound, and “he” was welcomed with open arms. My friend and her husband were really happy with it and called to tell me how much they really liked it. Despite being quite late, they thought it was the best gift they’d received and it will be the first thing to grace the new home they’re looking for. They even hinted that if I ever made something like this again, that they’d love to have it, hehe.

So, after many months of keeping Ganesh a secret (except from craft group friends), here are some photos of him, including a number of close-up shots. (These were taken before the piece was framed, so please forgive the wrinkles.)