Samplers old and New

Several months ago Jessica Burko hosted a get-together at her South End studio to send a Boston Handmade member off in crafty style. While rummaging through her stash of paper ephemera I happened upon a page of notebook paper with a small stitched sampler attached and was so completely charmed that Jessica gave it to me (thanks Jessica). I can't be sure when this was stitched but it seems young Wilhemina received a grade of 92 for her efforts

Recently I reinterpreted the sampler for a workshop I taught at the BCAE using some awesome "by the yard" toweling that I picked up at Gather Here in Cambridge. I had a great time teaching the class and hope to do so again. In the meantime I will be posting a tutorial on how to create a tea towel stitch sampler of your own so stay tuned.

Happy Mothers Day

No waxing poetic here ... it's just not my style or reality. I will be giving mom this dragonfly pin when I see her next weekend, but only because she offered to buy it when she saw a similar one that sold over the holidays. While I was at it I made a few more for the shop :).

West Medford Open Studios

Please join me and other members of Boston Handmade this weekend for West Medford Open Studios. Over sixty visual artists and artisans will participate along with musicians, writers and community organizations. We'll be at "site #8" 56 Bower Street hope you'll stop by to see what's been keeping us busy.

Hint number two

I met this artist when we both worked here


only it wasn't a furniture store ...

Can you guess what it was? Just kidding - It was the Allston home of the Boston Food Coop (Now Harvest Cooperative Market)

mural The potluck by David Fichter

I don't get to Allston much these days (or to Central Square for that matter) so I took a little walk to see what had changed and what hadn't. I'll share some pictures and perhaps a story or two soon.

First hint -

Okay maybe it's obvious, maybe not but since I announced the contest on Boston Handmade, it seems only appropriate to let you know that this artist was born and raised in Boston and was working here at the time that the items pictured were created. Because we all like pictures in our blog post here's one of the bowl I was happy to receive from BH'er Arthur Halvorsen at our
"holiday" swap back in January. (filled with Red, White and Blue potato salad - scary looking but yummy) Yay for local artists.

Name that artist - a little contest

I announced a little contest over on Boston Handmade. If you didn't see that post the deal is that I thought I'd have a little fun and post a picture of some very early work by a now very established ceramic artist who I had the pleasure of working a "day job" with many years ago. I loved his/her work then and now and through all of the intervening developments and changes in the ... wait for it ... 20 plus years since then (gosh I feel old). The first to guess whose work this is will receive $5 toward a purchase from Boston Handmade member and ceramic artist Karen Mahoney's shop. I will be posting a hint a day for at least 3 days, possibly more if no one gets it by then. I'm also running a little experiment, as I wonder if this artist would recognize his/her work from so long ago so ... if you know people working in ceramics who this might be ... point them to this post I'd love to hear from them.
Enter by commenting here - on this post

More Testing

A pattern this time. Jen of Zooguu, maker of the cutest plush creatures, recently introduced her first pattern for sale in her etsy shop. For some reason I've always wanted to be a pattern tester, and Jen needed one so ... there you go. I won't be changing my career anytime soon, although my nephew who is one of Jen's biggest fans and to whom I gifted "Marion" thinks I should. I think the horn, or actually tooth, on my version came out looking like those hats (sans veil) that medieval maidens wore when going to the fair.

Next up (finally) some new work of my own!