Margi's pumpkin

Hi Everyone,

You've read about my friend Janice several times, but you've likely only read about my friend Margi a couple of times. She's one of the coordinators for our annual Morrisburg get together and is incredibly talented. And, like Janice, it's a good thing she's so nice and generous because it would be very easy to hate her for her skill otherwise.

Lately she's been focusing on knitting cute little sweaters for her brand new grandson but she does take time off to do other things. Here is a picture of her Halloween pumpkin. I'm not at all sure where she got the idea and with Margi it's always tough to know, but this goes down as one of my favourite pumpkins ever. Margi's given me permission to post this on my blog and I do it gladly with a smile.

You can see some of Margi's clay related work here. And for those in Ontario, you can see her at one of my favourite artisan shows, the One of a Kind Show in November. To see more of Margi's versatility, check out her website here.

Cheers,

Sandy

A class with Dan Cormier - week 31 of canes

Hi All,

Last weekend I took Dan Cormier's "Relief beyond Belief" class. He teaches how to do die forming for clay and I think it's a technique that I'll use in the future.

The above photo was an eye opener for me. I've had this skinner blend plug that I'm not happy with and didn't know what to do with. I brought it along as scrap clay and was thrilled with how it looked in the die forms. Many people asked me how I made the pattern and truth be told, I'm not quite sure. I think it's just a Skinner Blend that I turned into a plug but I'll have to double check. I'm counting this as a caning entry since the plug in itself became a cane that's really quite pretty.

I found Dan's class a bit challenging. He's very much a precision and perfection person, even in the tutorials and he'll spend 20 minutes making a Skinner blend just so. He says he's not capable of talking and working at the same time so we spent a fair bit of time watching him work. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but for a dabbler and player like me I would get impatient and just want to get to the clay, particularly since he's not imparting words of wisdom while he's working. Having said that, it was good for me to watch someone do perfect work since mine is so clearly not. Also he taught us things that I never would have figured out in a million years so the class was definitely worth it.

Dan's got several sets of templates that are available for purchase. Initially I thought the price was a bit high for the templates, however, when you add in the labour and precision of the templates it's actually quite reasonable. Particularly for a non-precision person like me.

I did learn a lot and am looking forward to putting some of the lessons in practice. I'm trying to figure out how to use his tools as part of the Clayamies annual Christmas ornament exchange.

Cheers,

Sandy

Our favourite breakfast

Hi All,

Today has been a cooking day. My father and his lady love are visiting and we've been feeding them well. It started this morning with one of my favourite easy breakfasts. It's called a German Pancake in the original recipe book that I don't even know that I've got anymore. It's fairly impressive. If you'd like to make it a bit healthier, use whole wheat flour, but it won't puff up as much.

The above photo used 8 eggs.

Preheat oven to 350F. While oven is heating, add 3-6 tsp of butter into a baking pan and melt butter so that it's bubbly in the pan. Keep pan in heat until ready to pour batter but be careful not to burn the butter.

Recipe per person:

2 eggs
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup flour
sugar to taste
chopped fruit to taste (frozen is fine and doesn't need to thaw)
vanilla to taste

Whisk eggs, milk, and flour together. Add chopped fruit and stir. Pour into hot bubbly pan, ensuring fruit is somewhat evenly distributed. Bake 20-30 minutes or until edges are puffy and golden. The batter should be thin, almost like crepe batter.

Serve drizzled with maple syrup, fruit sauce, or powdered sugar. It will start to fall as soon as it's removed from the oven so make sure everyone is seated for the "oooh, aaaahhh" effect.

Enjoy.

Sandy

A couple more tins...

Hi All,

At Guild a few weeks ago Barbara taught us what to do with the ends of skinner blends. If you slice them into thin slices and then layer them onto clay in random patterns you can get some interesting effects. My two oldest nieces are in university and I thought the technique would lend itself to covering tins, so here they are.

The same skinner blend was used on two different backgrounds. I added some of my smiley face canes and I'm happy with the final effect. I've got ideas for how to incorporate this into all sorts of projects.

Cheers,

Sandy

A tin for a friend

Hi Everyone,

I know I haven't been blogging much - blame it on a number of things including my husband having usurped the computer to start his own business. But now I have a shiny new laptop and it should get easier if I can stop my addiction to Frontierville (another contributing factor).

A couple of weeks ago I had a reunion with one of my favourite professors from university. It's been almost 25 years since we last saw each other which is making me feel a bit old considering that we've now got employees at work with university degrees that are younger than that. She's somewhat artistic so I thought I would give her a tin that I covered with some of the canes that I've been making.

I'm really happy with this tin and Sue enjoyed it. We had a great time seeing each other again. I love it that some friendships endure the test of time and this friendship appears to be no exception.

Cheers,

Sandy