My Viking Knit Epiphany

My method of learning a new jewelry technique usually goes like this:

 

Look up a ton of tutorials/you tube videos of said technique, then try and visualize the instructions the instructors are saying.  Go and try said technique, then if I am not getting it still, either go back to the video after doing it, and then try again with new perspective.  If that doesn’t work, I go to a sighted friend or family member, ask them to look at the video, and they describe whatever step I ask them to specify the best they can.  Then, I go back to trying the technique until something clicks, and I get it right.

 

That has pretty much been my Viking knit journey, and earlier today, when I was looking up blog posts about the technique, I had my “Aha, it clicked!” moment.  With Viking knit, every instructional material I’ve seen says to put a dowel/pencil/round object in the middle of the starter daisy, so you can start your weave around the piece, and make a tube with your weaving.  To that I went, “Bah!  Who needs that?” because what I was visualizing as the knit, was having the starter petals straight across from each other, instead of in a circular, more flower shaped setting.  So what I was doing, was weaving straight across, and making flat tubes of knit instead of weaving around any sort of circular object.

 

Is this wrong?  Yes and no:  I’m still practicing the technique that is Viking knit, and have a few flat pieces that honestly, I really like.  I don’t have a draw plate yet, so not sure how they will look when I pull them through, but as they stand now I think the flat looking Viking knit looks gorgeous, and I’m really happy I stumbled onto doing it this way.  One of those happy accidents, I suppose!

I do want to learn how to do it properly, though, but at least I’ve been practicing the process of Viking knit, so now all I have to do is get used to weaving it in a tube, instead of weaving it flat.  I really hope I’m getting it right this time XD I have a list of notes I wrote down, to try and get weaving in a tube to work for me.  The main reason why I stopped trying to weave around something in the center of the knitting, is because it was really hard for me to keep a tactile “eye” on keeping my work even.  So I took some notes on how I can work the knit in a tubular fashion, and still be able to keep my hands on the work, because that’s how I make sure my work is even.  We’ll see what happens after I experiment some more tonight!

 

Have any good Viking knit tips and tricks?  I’d love to hear them, because I’ve only been weaving with this technique for a week, and am freaking obsessed XD I know I won’t stop Viking knitting for a while!  Now to get a draw plate…

Splitting my Time

The problem with having a few creative hobbies is going through these spurts of being obsessed with both.  My new love of jewelry making through wire work has really gotten me just coming up with so many different ideas, looking up sooo many tutorials, researching wire wire wire, beads beads beads, tools tools tools and wanting to spend money on it all until I am found in my room tangled in a mass of wire weaving XD

 

Oh yeah, there’s that music thing.  And honestly, being inspired to design all of these different pieces has gotten my musical juices flowing!  I have so many ideas spinning in my head for things that I want to cover, some arrangements for things, and writing too.  Being creative in this one aspect has made me want to be in other things, but there’s one teeny problem….

 

I just want to keep on making jewelry!  Or amercing myself in watching videos, and learning techniques, even if I don’t have all the supplies to do so.  I’m such a one track minded person that I’ve been focusing on jewelry, and nothing else, even though I have musical projects, and things I’d like to be focusing on.  But nope:  As soon as I go into my room, at it with the wire again!  Not a bad thing, but I just really want to learn how to balance both, instead of the days I’m not making jewelry, plopping into bed and relaxing XD I really have to get back into my music again, because I miss doing it so much.  I think what I need to do is schedule days to do one or the other, and it’ll be a lot easier for me.

 

But…since I have no major deadlines to meet, for now I will just stick to my wire!  Well, for the next week or so anyways:  After that, I really need to get cracking on some arrangements of songs!

Tree Of Life Pendant First Go

I’ve seen people making these tree of life pendants for a few years now, and never really got the appeal.  I guess it’s because I can’t see the pictures, but I saw a pretty descriptive tutorial about one a while back, had all the materials for it, and decided to give it a go.  I wound up with this:

Seeing one in person, I get it a bit more:  I know this one isn’t perfect, but I really like the way the trunk and leaves turn out.  That nice, thickness to the roots looks really pretty, and I think adding some wrinkles at the base of them so it looks more natural looks really nice.  Since I was working with what I had on hand, I didn’t really have properly shaped beads for it (I really think some leaf shaped chips, or maybe little flowers would look nice) but my 4 MM turquoise had to do.  Since my branches weren’t even, I just decided to do some filigree leaves on 2 of the branches since I couldn’t fit a bead on them lolol.
So yeah, I’m glad I did one just to see how it looks.  I get why people like them, it just isn’t’ my style and I don’t see myself really making any more of them in the future.  I like all the techniques used for making them, though, and might use them in other designs.  I just much prefer that medieval, Victorian style that’s more fantasy themed.  I will say, though:  I really love how the branches look when they’re finished!

Developing my Style

I’ve been thinking about this recently, and I think I’m finally coming into my own with my style, both with music and jewelry making.  Primarily with jewelry making, because in order to start with my style in music, I need to learn how to play a keyboard XD but I do have a general idea of the two styles I want to incorporate in my music.  That isn’t what I want to talk about today though.

 

When I look at tutorials for jewelry techniques, I don’t like to copy the design at all.  I look at tutorials more for how to do a certain something, and even then I tool that certain something into a style set I like, and can understand.  So basically, I use tutorials just to see what techniques and styles are out there.  I realized, through this, is that I’m starting to develop a certain style, and it’s very exciting!  It’s the style that I’ve wanted to do ever since I started stringing beads 2 years ago.

 

I like dainty, airy looking pieces.  I love the fantasy, medieval style of jewelry, and love shiny things.  I’ll never be someone who wants to oxidize, or antique their jewelry, because I feel like that detracts from the piece.  I really love filigree, and twisted wire designs, along with weaves, and love love love the look of braided wire and Viking knit chains. I love incorporating gemstones and accent beads into the work.  And, what I also realized, is I like smaller beads!  When I first started, I had such a basic grasp of the beads I wanted.  “I need 6 MM beads, all round, no exceptions!” but now, I see the worth of having different shaped beads, and smaller sizes.  In fact:  I use smaller beads, with cabochon gemstones as the focal piece. Aka:  what I always wanted to do from the getgo, before I found out wrapping stones intricately was a thing.

 

I know I’ll be advancing in this style too:  I have metal clay, and crystal clay on my radar as things to start incorporating into my designs, and last night just figured out how to wrap smaller stones (woooo – another post on that will be coming XD).  The somewhat annoying thing about this is, now I have to upgrade my bead stash!  Because all the beads I have other than gold and silver spacers are soooo big and I just use them as accent pieces, or focals on designs.  So now I have my eye on buying a lot of seed beads in different sizes, and some dagger beads as well (love those).  Luckily, I have a ton of loose gemstones to work with already, because my entire family are gemstone collectors.  Which is perfect for me haha.

 

I’m really excited about starting to develop a style, both in my music and jewelry.  Here’s hoping it continues to evolve through the rest of 2016!

The Great Pricing Debate

This week on all of my jewelry making groups seems to be ask how you should price your goods week, and hoooo boy the differing responses that have come from this, along with the debates.  No hostile debates, mind you:  I’m lucky to have my first wire wrapping group be a very supportive understanding one, but just seeing everyone give their opinions was interesting.  And it made me realize something.
There is no right answer.
Sure, I knew that before:  I have a formula I like to use for base price, then adjust accordingly.  Granted, I haven’t tried selling anything yet:  I just did this as a mach pricing exercise a while back, and saw that the prices added up to a logical conclusion.  I realize though, that pricing is the tip of the iceberg.  Your mindset heavily goes into whether you feel good about charging a certain amount for a piece, whether you factored all of that in with a formula or not.

 

I realized something for myself during all of this.  I’ll just charge what I want!  Like, why not charge what you think the piece is worth and not worry about it?  The way I see it, the person is either going to buy it or not, no matter what price you have the piece at.  I remember being at a craft fair a few years ago and seeing a jewelry vender, falling in love with their work (it was a style of necklace I always wanted) and although I didn’t have the money the day I saw it, the next day I went back to their booth at the fair and bought the piece.  This was before I started making jewelry, and looking at the piece now…it’s still nice, but I see what components the necklace was made of, and all the materials really weren’t that expensive.  Did I know that at the time?  Nope!  Did I know how much experience the artist had when I bought it?  Not at all:  I just saw the necklace, fell in love, and bought it.  In fact, I almost bought two!

 

I know I go back to this a lot, but it’s really important to not let your self-doubt make you underprice yourself, and your hard work.  No matter what experience you have, you’re still offering a piece of merchandise that you spent your time, effort, and money on making  that should be priced accordingly.  Maybe someone won’t buy it, sure, but if not then ask them why, see if you can improve on the design and hit the grindstone again.  But never, never, never undercut yourself, because the hardest thing to do is start charging higher prices when you’ve set a pay rate for yourself.

Causing Your Own Creative Block

It’s really weird how you can cause your own creative blocks sometimes, and not even realize it.  For the past few weeks, I was putting off mixing the game sized version of the Mana Aeliria theme song (I had recorded the vocals for it weeks ago, and was just sitting on the mix).  I was also working on some Kill La Kill covers that I have yet to go back to because of “lack of motivation”.  Today, I finally decided to sit down, stop being lazy, listen to takes and mix this thing.  Low and behold:  My creative energy has returned!  I no longer wanted to sit around and not record, I started to make jewelry again, and my brain and body are just overflowing with that crazy manic, excited, probably not super healthy creative energy I tend to get when I’m in major creative moods.
This all happened after I finished this one project.  Before it, I was dreading doing anything music-wise.  I was practicing a song that I needed to polish the chorus on for days, and haven’t gone back to it in 2 weeks, even though I have the chorus down pat now.  My vocals were not as good as they could be when I was recording, and I just overall felt discouraged.  I didn’t realize, that it was my subconscious telling me to get this song done first, and then move onto omy other projects.  After all, people were waiting for this, and in the back of my mind I felt guilty for sitting on it for so long.  Sure, I wasn’t given a deadline, but I had a personal deadline I wasn’t meeting, and it was nagging at me so much that my other projects were suffering.  I had never had this happen before, so experiencing it for the first time, and realizing that was the cause was…interesting, to say the least!

 

I guess lesson learned:  Don’t procrastinate on projects!  A lesson I have to continually keep reminding myself of, because I do this far too often XD

 

What about you, do you ever get into procrastination slumps?  How do you get yourselves out of it, just power through?  I’d love to hear in the comments!

Never Knock a Certain Form of Art

Never knock a form of art.  I have a firm belief in that.  No matter how silly it may seem to you, how odd, or whatever hang ups you may have, never knock someone’s form of expression.  I’ve seen so many people say that fanfiction writing isn’t real writing, and they are so so so wrong.  I read fanfiction more than I read books, and find them far more interesting than any book I’ve read in years.  I don’t mean the amateur, or intentionally bad ones, but the ones where you get so invested in the plot and characters, where you’re feeling gut-wrenching, visceral emotions towards a certain plot point or character.  Where the story is still affecting you all through the next day, and you can’t stop thinking about it.  Where you can replace any character from the fandom, make it an original character, and it would legit read like a stand-alone novel.

 

I love when I find gems like this:  In fact, I just finished binge reading a Sailor Moon fanfiction like that yesterday and ugh…I just can’t stop thinking about it.  I’m feeling all emotional just thinking of the ending, thinking of the implications of the world building, thinking of how the characters faired after the fact, thinking of what can, or will happen next if the author continues the story…

 

And it’s just so great.  I haven’t done this for a book…ever, actually.  But to feel this deep connection to these characters, to the authors writing, shed tears and root for someone, or genuinely dislike someone.
That is what true writing, true art is about.

 

This is why I love reading, writing fanfiction.  It’s utter perfection to me, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop.

 

Never be afraid to express yourself in whatever medium you feel the freest in.  Is it fan art?  Pick up your tablet or pen.  Fanfiction?  Write to your hearts content!

Back to Wire Weaving, My First Wire Wrapped Stone

I’ve been getting back into making jewelry recently, and have been having a blast.  I primarily work in wire work, and love how you can either do free form, or patterned designs.  A while back, I joined this Facebook group for wire wrap tips and tutorials, and it’s helped tremendously with my confidence in re-teaching myself these techniques, as well as not getting down on myself for trying (and sometimes, failing) at trying, or retrying, new things.  The technique I’ve retried recently?  Wire weaving.

 

I tried this a few years ago, when I didn’t really have any idea of what you would use wire weaving for and was like “This doesn’t really look super nice on its own” and stopped practicing it.  That, plus trying to line up the wires, keep them tight, keep them even, was a huuuge pain for me at the time.  But now, I don’t know if it’s just that I’m looking at this with a new perspective, or that I’m more patient, or have a better work space or something, but I gave it another go and did a basic weave on this piece of rose quartz I got from my brother recently!

 

Originally, I wanted to do a wire braid and wrap it around the wire this way:  But, I forgot how exactly to make a braid look well, decent, and scrapped that idea.  I knew how to weave, though, and decided to try it – after all, it is basically the same type of design element I wanted around the stone, so I figured why not?  And after a few tries, I got the hang of weaving and got the above picture.  The bottom of the stone seemed a bit empty, and I wanted three wraps around the quartz, so I decided to throw in some twisted wire in 24 gage at the bottom, and really liked how it looked!  Getting the wire secure around the stone was a pain, though:  So I went to my jewelry group, and got a great tip for securing the wire after getting it on the stone, so I didn’t have to do it all over again.  Hurray for team work!

 

So yeah:  This is the first piece I’ve done, that I actually am proud of.  I really like how it came out, and am glad that I stuck with it!  I’ll definitely be giving wire weaving another shot, and really want to get more stones to work with.  But for now, I’m off to practice braiding some wire!

Asking For Help Isn’t Necessarily a Bad Thing

I always like to be in control.

 

No matter what it is, no matter how  poorly I may do at the task, I always want to be the one to do it.  I like my independence, and think that asking for help stunts that in some way.  I think that if you have to ask for help, it’s because you’re a failure at a certain task, and for me that’s inexcusable!

 

Until recently, I didn’t realize how wrong that thought process was.  I didn’t realize it, until I really wanted to start taking better pictures of my jewelry.  So I brought out my webcam, and started to fiddle with the inaccessible software I need to use for my cam.  My Mom saw me struggling and was like, “Do you want help with that?” so I sighed and went “OK”.

 

She took the picture in a third of the time it would usually take me to take a picture, hope it’s in frame, and send it to a friend on skype to see if it’s in focus.  I’ve done this for hours at a time before, and failed at trying to take a good picture:  having someone sighted do the picture taking, was a lot easier, and now I am sharing my pieces with my Facebook group, and starting a new album on Facebook for my jewelry.  I’m really happy I get to share my work, because it’s helping me grow, and stay creative as an artist.  So much so, that I’m almost out of wire XD

 

I’ve always thought asking for help was a sign of being a failure.  That if you asked for help, that meant you were weak, or not competent.  I didn’t realize, how much easier it makes my life asking for help for things I actually need help on, instead of minor, trivial things.  Being blind, you want to try and do as many things as you can on your own, and I think that partially plays into my insecurities about this:  just something I realized, and am slowly getting over (I hope).  I’m going to try and keep this going, and ask for help for other sighted things:  Like setting up recording video footage.

 

Speaking of jewelry:  I’ve been on a creative spree!  I have a few pictures of pieces I’ve done, and am working on blog posts for each because I have a lot of stories attached to them haha.  So be on the look out for some jewelry posts the next few blog days!