Thanks everybody who stopped by the South Park Walkabout today – it was fun meeting you all! Special thanks to David and Gracie for letting me set up shop in their garage. As you can see, my site is still only semi functional, but I’m hoping to be back in (online) business soon. Until now, you can reach me through here!

Best,
Joi

Hey y’all… my poor blog and website got hacked!

That means I’ve lost almost all my blog posts from 2012, but I’m using this as an opportunity to make some much needed improvements (and, um, start a new plan to back up the blog after every new post…).

So, um, new stuff soon! Yeah!

Well 2011 was a pretty crazy year! One where…
- I attended two weddings
- Went to Glass Camp again at Corning
- Got an amazing in-house job
- Moved to California
- Learned to blow glass
- Bought a car… and a HOUSE
- Turned 31… on the same day my best friend had a baby!

So, as you can see, I’ve been busy ;o) But as things are starting to settle down, I’m looking forward to the new year. Hopefully it will be a year of lots of art, great friends, my rad family, learning, and a lot more.

I’m spending the day watching hockey (winter classic!) and unpacking my new sewing room, so I definitely hope that soon i’ll have some crafty things to show y’all. I still need to blog my greatest hits from glassblowing, but that will also come soon.

So I hope all of you have a wonderful new year – that you’ll dream big, be kind, stay crafty, and strive for something greater than yourselves!

My first month of glassblowing… with mixed results…

“[New York] is not a place to live in. The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable. Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country.”

Okay, so I totally took that Horace Greeley quote out of context (especially since he was talking about Washington, not New York, and um, the Homestead Act and not a new job…) but the point is that I have picked up and moved cross country… and dragged all my crafty along with me ;o)

The Stereoette shop is currently in storage for a while so there won’t be anything for sale until I get established on the West Coast which maybe be a few months from now. But I’ll still be crafting and will try to update the blog as I go!

So, as usual, I did “glass camp” this summer – this time around I took Pippa Beveridge and Rene Culler’s Architectural Glass class at the Studio at Corning Museum of Glass. We spent a week learning a ton of different techniques, from casting, to layering, to enameling, to sandblasting – all of which are appropriate for large scale, architectural projects.

We started out with a lesson from Pippa on making ceramic molds for casting.

Using that technique, I made my own mold and cast this longhorn panel (which apparently looks like a meerkat upside down).

Next, we learned about the different things metals will do when embedded in glass – including changing the chemistry of the glass. I made numerous small samples and kept detailed notes on what metals I used where. Hopefully I’ll be able to recreate some of these effects on future projects.

Next we played with kiln carving. In that process, the glass is melted over a ceramic “fiberpaper” which leaves divots in the glass. Take a look at this dove I also made in class, below:

And, after you have all your shaped divots in the glass, you can pack it full of bits of colored glass (aka frit) and fuse it again, resulting in one solid piece. And, its a continuation of the Major Tom pieces I’ve been working on back in my studio in New York.

You can also get color onto glass through a variety of stains (ground metals like silver which change the chemistry – and thus, the color – of the glass), enamels, pigments, and paints which get fired onto the glass, as you see in sample pieces I made in the picture below to practice techniques.

Near the end of the week, we dove head first into our final projects. Mine incorporated a variety of the techniques we’d learned – embedding metal, enameling, sandblasting, silver stain, using glass frits and powders, and stuck to the spaceman theme, with some worker bees in honor of my late grandma.

I had the awesome opportunity to have photos taken of some of my projects by a professional photographer on the museum’s staff, and she taught me a few tricks of the trade.

And of course, we went to the museum to check out some real architectural glass in action.

I’m looking forward to creating a wood or steel panel to mount my final project on so I can enjoy it on display.

My friend is having a baby. We don’t know his name yet, but we affectionately call him Buddy. And today, said friend had a baby shower to celebrate his arrival!

For my present to dear Buddy, I made a ‘onesie’ baby romper from my beloved (yet ancient) Kwik-Sew for Babies. And, I suddenly remembered why I never, EVER, use pearl snap buttons on ANYTHING.

Because they are IMPOSSIBLE to set.

Seriously, I spent hours setting pearl snap buttons, and ruined half of my supply of them. I’m sure there’s a gadget that you can use to set them but I don’t have one (a gadget I don’t have? GADZOOKS!) so I ended up using some insane combination of balancing a ball peen hammer on top of the snap, and hitting that with another jeweler’s hammer. I ended up with about a 50% success rate, a few pokes from wayward prongs on misset button parts.

Here’s a detail shot. I haven’t worked with jersey knit in ages, but it went more smoothly than I anticipated. I was impressed with my little Viking – he’s a sturdy little sewing machine ;o)

I’m asking y’all to take a break from the regularly scheduled programming for a first look at a fabric I designed for this week’s Spoonflower competition. For those of y’all who don’t know, Spoonflower is a great website where you can design custom fabric and have it printed. They also hold weekly fabric design competitions. This week’s theme is roller derby!

Voting has begun!
Go vote for my roller derby fabric over at Spoonflower! Its the one called “Derby Girls by JoiLakes”

Well, my summer craft shows, at least ;o)

First, Michele and I did the Bust Spring Craftacular. Our booth looks great, huh?

Here’s a closeup of my display.

And Michele’s fabulous new display, plus her happy smiling face!

This past weekend, Michele, Alison and I did Renegade Craft Fair in McCarren Park. Despite a nasty weather forecast, it ended up being a great weekend.

What’s so funny, Alison?

Yeah, keep laughing, ladies ;o)

And here’s my booth setup! See the new pegboard with my new stained glass and suncatchers? Yay! Love it!

I had new stuff like this robot suncatcher!

But not everything survived the inclement weather – a big gust of wind took our tent and these two pieces were casualties. I’m hopeful that I can fix the stained glass panel.

And a happy customer!

It just occurred to me that I have two craft shows coming up in the next month and a half. Yikes! I’ve been diligently working on a not-so-secret but not-ready-for-primetime project so I hadn’t really been focusing on the shows!

The first one is the Bust Spring Craftacular and Food Fair. Michele and I will be teaming up for this one for the first time, although we have done their holiday shows in the past. The fair will be held on Saturday, May 21st, 2011 from 11am-8pm, at 82 Mercer Street between Broome and Spring. Its a new venue for us, and indoors, but should be fun!

And the second is Renegade Brooklyn… Alison, Michele and I took the summer off last year, but we are back in full effect this June 11th and 12th from 11AM – 7PM each day. It’ll be in McCarren Park in Williamsburg, and we’ll post more details soon.

Hope to see y’all there… new post coming up soon about the new Stereoette stuff i’ll have there!