Knitted Baby Caps and Chemo Caps

Mom and I are ready to donate the baby caps and some of the chemo caps that we have done. I wanted to knit 50 baby caps, but we reached 45. Mom is going to contact March of Dimes and see if we can donate the caps to them. If they won't take the baby caps we will then try the hospitals.
All 45 baby caps
The top six caps are from yarn donated by Julie Hutchison

I forget who mom was going to contact about donating the chemo caps to. We have 17 chemo caps knitted of various types of yarn. I really like the soft, fuzzy yarn. Those caps were fun to knit up.

Vacation - Worked on Enameling and Beads

I took Friday, 21 August off and Monday, 24 August off to veg before classes started and to work on making beads for various things.

On Friday I worked on making beads for a new rosary. I used a handmade light green glass, which mom and I just love, and silver ivory stringers to make designs on the beads. I am really happy with how the beads and the cross turned out.

I also started making up gold and black beads for Julie Hendon. Julie wanted a new set of "Purdue" earrings to go with her other gold and black items. I got five beads done and I started working on another bead when the bead release on the mandrel released and I burnt myself with hot glass. Needless to say I was done after that. But I am happy with the five beads that I did get made.


On Saturday I worked on making more beads for another rosary and spacer beads for a necklace I am making. The spacer beads I am making are floral beads. The base bead is dark transparent blue, with a twisted green stringer for vines and then light blue for the flowers.


The beads I made for the one decade rosary are a base bead of dark transparent blue, with Rubio Red dots with silver foil melted on top of the dots, then frit is melted on the bead and finally I draw designs on the bead with a silver ivory stringer. I did this for the cross also. I am really happy with how the cross and beads turned out.

While I was making beads mom was teaching herself how to make a Viking Knit bracelet. We bought a book on how to make wire jewelry and that was one of the things we both wanted to learn how to make. Mom and some challenges but she finally prevailed in making a necklace. I really like how it turned out. Now mom just needs to sit down and show me how to do it.

On Sunday mom and I went over to campus to work in the metals studio. I worked on enameling mom's circles to make a bib necklace. I got 12 of the circles enameled and I have seven more that I need to enamel.

I also was able to fix the enamel on a bowl, a set of earrings, and I also enameled two pendants : a leaf pendant (that has a nice texture to it) and a Gengko leaf pendant. Mom worked on cutting out a large bowl and then she pounded the bowl into shape. I need to order some more clear enamel before I can work on this bowl. I really like how the shape turned out and I can't wait to figure out what colors I am going to make this bowl.

On Monday, I started making more floral spacer beads for my necklace. I finished off about six beads before the oxygen ran out. While I waited for more oxygen to be delivered I started taking photographs of jewelry that we hadn't taken photographs of yet. I also put together a necklace of beads that I have had done since May.

Stretchy Bracelets

Mom and I decided to tear apart some of our macrame bracelets and make the beads into stretchy bracelets. For some reason the macrame bracelets don't sell here, but they sell really well down in Oklahoma. It is funny how different regions like different types of jewelry.
Here are some examples of the stretchy bracelets that mom has made from our beads.

Enameled Bowl and Necklace Pieces

This past Sunday mom and I went to campus to work in the metals studio in the PAO building. We were working there for over 5 hours. It takes about an hour for the small kiln to heat up and about two hours for the large kiln to heat up. While we were waiting for the kilns to heat up, I made my shapes for the necklace and bracelet and mom worked on cutting out circles for her "Bib" necklace.

I have to say that this was the best enameling day that I have had in a long time. Lately, almost all the pieces I enameled I have messed up in some way so that I would have to start over enameling. Of course this would make me mad. I finally found my enameling book, in the junk room, and re-read how to enamel. I followed the instructions and everything started to work. I guess I just need a refresher on how to enamel.

In a previous studio session, mom had cut out and formed an abstract bowl that needed to be enameled. Mom let me choose the colors, but she wanted something that had "fall colors". I mixed up the following opaque colors: orient red, black, jungle green, mocha brown, sunset orange and the following transparent colors: peacock green, and two different browns for enameling the bowl. I am really happy with how the color turned out. I would never in a million years think this was the color that would come from the eight colors I mixed together.

I also enameled 12 abstract leaf shapes for a necklace and bracelet. I still have two more shapes that I need to enamel. I also need to make the glass beads that I want to put in between the leaf shapes. I also need to cut out sterling silver wire to connect the shapes and the glass beads, but at least the enameling portion is done! I really like how the blues turned out. On the back side, which I did not take a photograph of, I really like how the clear creates different colors. The necklace will be reversible if the customer likes the back side color and not the blue on the front side.

Purdue "P" One Decade Rosary

This past Saturday I made up a bunch of small beads out of transparent dark amber with ivory/light amber twisted and melted on top of the dark amber then I melted dark amber over the twisted color and then used a black stringer to draw a "P" on the bead. I then made a larger bead out of the same color and again drew a "P" on the bead.

To make the cross I used the dark amber as a base color and then melted ivory, black and light transparent amber on top and then I feathered the colors.

I used transparent amber cathedral beads and black Czech beads as an accent between the small glass "P's" I made.

Breast Cancer Ribbon Rosary

This past weekend I worked on making up enough beads for a Breast Cancer Awareness Ribbon One Decade Rosary.
I wanted to make sure I had enough beads made up so I could have a selection of the best looking beads for the rosary. I made mom go through all the beads and pick out 10 of them. It is a good thing that I did make up extras because some of the ribbons popped off the beads. I need to learn to flash the bead more in the flame to make sure the stringer is stuck to the beads.
The cross was made from black glass and then I wanted to make a pink ribbon on the cross, but I accidentally melted the ribbon in, so instead I put more pink on the black and feathered the glass. I love how the cross came out. Oops become art, how about that!


I showed the rosary to a few of my friends and they thought it was great. I want to make up more of these rosaries for Breast Cancer Awareness month. In the past, mom and I have set aside 10% of sold "Pink" inventory to donate to the Cancer Center on Purdue. I would like to do this again in October.
In the future I would like to talk a group of artists into having a show to donate money from their sold inventory to the Cancer Center or to other cancer research places in the country. I know this would be a big undertaking and I would have to do research, find artists, find a place to have the show and talk the artists into donating their inventory, time and money. I just need to start planning now and maybe in a few years I can get this off the ground.