KARABOUTS

Painted Chandelier

This is our new chandelier for the office.

I love the way it looks now, but when it started it looked like this:

This old brass chandelier was originally hanging in the bedroom. When we put up new lighting in the bedroom we took this down. Mike figured we'd put it in the trash. Mike was WRONG. He didn't know that I had a plan for this baby involving Dawn dishwashing liquid, apple cider vinegar and four cans of spray paint.  

First I took off all of the parts that were easily take-off-able and scrubbed everything down with dishwashing detergent. Then I soaked the loose pieces in a strong apple cider vinegar solution, and applied straight apple cider vinegar to the rest of the chandelier with a cloth. I let it sit for a day or two and then rinsed off the vinegar and gave it one more good cleaning with Dawn.

Next I took it out to the backyard and hit it with several coats of white primer spray paint.  I used Krylon because it was the only brand they had at the nearest hardware store.  It worked great.

I let the primer dry overnight and then put on the color - a nice bright yellow.

I sprayed the bits and pieces separately.  It took a number of coats of paint to achieve a smooth even color. 

I threaded the tubular candle sticks on a long strip of cardboard to keep them still while I painted.

After another day or two of drying time, I put the whole thing back together.

Because I wasn't sure I had done the wiring correctly, I spliced the main cord to an old extension cord and plugged it into a wall outlet to make sure it worked.  It worked!

Mike did the installation while the Karabouts dolls looked on.

And here's the final effect.

 

Our Big New DIY Project

Mike and I recently purchased our first home.  It's a two-bedroom garden apartment in a 100+ year-old building.  

On the broker's website the apartment looked like this:

But once we got in and started work we found many things like this:

And this:

One of the first things we did was paint.  We used Benjamin Moore Aura paint on our last apartment and I hated it.  It was hard to apply, I had problems with sagging, and it wasn't any easier to clean than other paints I've used in the past.  

This time we went with Home Depot Behr Premium Plus.  For the hallway, dining area and living room we chose Silky Bamboo. 

After we painted the walls we put down new molding that I'd painted bright white.  We also painted the odd, previously-black, strip of half-round molding near the ceiling bright white.  

It was a lot of work but it was worth it. The Silky Bamboo has just the right amount of contrast with the white molding.  The place looks bright, fresh and clean.  I haven't been this happy with a paint color in years.

Another thing we did before moving in was tear out the existing closets and build in new closets.  The old closets stopped two thirds of the way up and had cheesy sliding doors.  

Here's the old bedroom closet:

 

And here's the beautiful new floor-to-ceiling bedroom closet built by Mike and his friend Buddy.  This closet has 8-foot bi-fold doors and is big enough to hold all of our hanging clothes, our dresser, blankets, towels, boxes, you name it.

Here's the office closet before:

and after:

Mike and Buddy made the office closet a little narrower to give us more floor space.  What we lost in width we more than gained in height as this closet also now goes to the ceiling.  

In these photos you can see the bedroom and office paint colors (bedroom - Whitened Sage, office - Summer Moon) and the new doors Mike and Buddy hung to replace the cheesy (there's that word again) hollow core doors.

After finishing the painting, the molding and the closets the place was looking pretty good but it was still missing one important thing.

The fish tank!!!

Now that the fish tank is here it feels like home.

Thinking About Origami Today

Today is the anniversary of both the birth and the death of Akira Yoshizawa.  

Yoshizawa is credited with raising origami from a craft to an art form.  He created more than 50,000 models and wrote 18 books.  He also pioneered many techniques like wet folding. Last summer I learned more about Yoshizawa when I did some wet folding at the Origami USA annual conference held in NYC.  

This is the wet-folded luna moth I made in one of my classes. 

We followed a pattern by Michael LaFosse and we got to use LaFosse's handmade Origamido paper - what a treat!

During the conference I also made a cactus and a mouse.

The "Cactus in a Pot" by David Petty was a very clever design folded out of one sheet of silver paper. We laminated green tissue paper to the "cactus" area before folding.

The mouse is by Masashi Tanaka.  If you want to make a mouse of your own, the directions are here.

I thought my origami skills were looking great until I went to the exhibition space where some real masters had works on display.  

I was wowed by these amazing insects and spiders by the great Robert J. Lang.

I was impressed with this beautiful grasshopper by Brian Chan (see Brian folding the grasshopper here).

 

And I fell in love with the work of Beth Johnson.  Beth's models have a sculptural element that is so appealing. It was like nothing else at the exhibition.  You can see more of Beth's work here.

 

Thank you Akira Yoshizawa for your amazing contribution to this wonderful art form we call origami.

Feline World Mourns The Passing Of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs died last week. The world lost a true visionary and design genius.

With Steve at the helm, Apple designed revolutionary products that we have come to know and love like the iPhone, iPod, iPad and iMac.  

However, one product that hasn't received much attention is the product our cats consider Apple's greatest technological advancement - the iPurr cat bed.

These portable, heated cat beds come in three sizes (13-inch, 15-inch and 17-inch) for small, medium and large cats.  The beds have an adjustable LED back support panel and a sleeping surface made of individual "keys" that depress to cradle your cat in comfort - much like a coil-spring mattress.  Every bed has a battery that heats up and keeps your cat warm, and an internal fan that makes a gentle hum to lull your cat to sleep.  The beds are made of aluminum which won't irritate kitty's coat and is easy to wipe clean.  Sure they're a little more expensive than other cat beds (new models start at $1,199.00 on Apple's website).  But if you love your cat, it's worth it.  As you can see, our cat "sleeps different." 

Rothko Rug

What do abstract artist Mark Rothko and former letter turner Vanna White have in common?  Probably not much but I've managed to unite them in my latest crochet project - a rug based on a painting by Mark Rothko made out of Vanna White's acrylic yarn.  Rothko's painting sold for $72.84 million at Sotheby's.  Vanna's yarn sells for $3.99 at Michael's Crafts.

Here's the painting:

And here's the rug:

To make this rug I used a technique called wiggly crochet that I learned from Susan Lowman.  If you're interested in learning how to make a wiggly crochet rug of your own I suggest you order this excellent booklet written by Susan.

This rug is so pretty I may just hang it on the wall (and someday sell it for either $72.84 million or $3.99). 

 

a day at the track

Mike and I were fans of the Animal Planet show "Jockeys" so we decided to make a jockey doll.  Today we took our jockey to Belmont Stakes, the racetrack that will host the third and final leg of the Triple Crown in about two weeks.

Our jockey stopped by the stalls.

Then he checked on his horse.

He finished the day by watching a couple of races from the stands.  

We got a lot of attention from the "real" jockeys.  These three guys were pointing and smiling as they rode by where we were standing.

It was a good day.



 

Year of the Rabbit

This is the Chinese year of the rabbit. Or more accurately the year of the hare, since China has seven native species of hares, but no native species of rabbit (Wikipedia told me this!).  A rabbit year is a placid year, very much welcomed and needed after the ferocious year of the tiger.  In honor of the year of the rabbit, Origami USA offered a class on how to fold John Montroll's origami rabbit during their March fun folding session.  I made a rabbit in class, then came home and folded up a few more to send to my nieces and nephew.  If you want to make a rabbit to celebrate the new year you can find the pattern in Montroll's book Mythological Creatures and the Chinese Zodiac in Origami available on Amazon.com.

I had such a good time at the fun folding session that I decided to join Origami USA.  Because I'm now a member I get their magazine, The Paper.  The Autumn issue of The Paper had a pattern for this Northern Cardinal by Roman Diaz.

Roman Diaz's designs are ingenious and elegant and since every crease has a purpose, they are fun and satisfying to fold.  You can find more of Diaz's interesting work here.  I've ordered his book so expect to see more Diaz models showing up on this blog.

I'm looking forward to the big Origami USA convention the end of June.  It will be held at F.I.T. here in New York City.

Adventures in Entrelac

I recently learned a new crochet technique called tunisian entrelac.  This technique creates a checkerboard pattern.  It's fun and not hard to do once you get the hang of it. To practice I made myself this scarf.

The scarf is my customization of a pattern for a pretty wrap by Allison Cohen.  I love how the variegated Alchemy Migration yarn forms blocks of color.

As soon as I leaned this new technique, I decided to incorporate it into a Karabouts doll.  Mike had done a sketch for a jockey doll (we're addicted to the Animal Planet show "Jockeys") so I figured entralac crochet would be a great way to make the diamond pattern on a jockey silk.

Here's Mike's sketch:

And here's one of my early attempts at working out a jockey shirt pattern with some yellow and blue crochet thread I had on hand:

Once I got a pattern that I liked, I put it on a doll.

I'm really excited about this guy, not only because I get to use my new skill of entrelac crochet, but also because he STANDS UP ON HIS OWN!!!!!!!!!  I've been working on figuring out a way to make our dolls stand for some time now. 

Here's a close up.

It's like magic - only it's really more like lead fishing sinkers in his feet!  Hey, whatever works...

Let it snow

We're having a snow storm today in New York City...

so I thought it would be a good day to blog about my first attempt at making crocheted snowflakes. 

I was inspired to make snowflakes by my friend Johanna who sent us a crocheted snowflake with her lovely handmade holiday card.

I'm not sure which pattern Johanna used, but I used this free pattern I found on the blog Attic 24.  I made half a dozen snowflakes out of some natural wool I had in my yarn stash. Since I learned about starching from my crocheted lampshade project, I decided to starch my flakes.  

Below is a comparison of a blocked and unblocked snowflake.  You can see from the photo how starching and pinning really brings out the beauty of the crochet stitches.

My snowflakes look great on the tree...

but once the tree comes down I think I'll hang them on my windows so that I can enjoy them all winter long.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Crocheted Lampshade

Mike and I found a floor lamp at Bed Bath and Beyond that was around 15 bucks because it had no shade.  We brought it home and I decided to crochet a shade for it.

I started by crocheting a big circular sort of thing with a hole in the middle.  I used Lion Cotton yarn.  I alternated rounds of single and double crochet.  On the single crochet rounds I increased the same way you would if you were going to make a crochet ball.  When I was done it looked like this.

Next, I cooked up a stiffener.  I used regular old cornstarch and water.  I mixed about 8 tablespoons of starch into 2 cups of water and cooked it until it got thick, shiny, and translucent.  

I poured the starch into a bowl and let it COOL DOWN (very important!!).

Then I threw my crocheted circle into the bowl of starch and worked the starch evenly into the cotton yarn with my hands.

Next, I rolled the crochet circle in a clean towel to get rid of the excess starch.  When I was done it looked like this (it grew quite a bit).

Then I stretched the crocheted circle over a big bowl (covered with saran wrap) and let it dry.

Once the shade was dry, I attached it to the top of our lamp with the existing hardware and flipped the switch!