This month's #craftblogclub challenge was to create something for Hallowe'en, but working in a craft that is new to you.
I chose to use a wire jig. I've used a jig a grand total of one time previously, and that was just to make sure I understood how the thing worked. This was the first time I wasn't just making a practice shape.
When I was a kid my parents used to give me puzzle books and colouring books to work on during visits to the grandparents so I wouldn't get bored (because, er, yes, it was an issue). My grandmother saw some of the geometry puzzles in one of the books and taught me a puzzle her mum had taught her. You make a partly-filled grid of twenty-one dots on a piece of paper, and the challenge is to encircle each dot, without lifting the pencil from the paper, in the most efficient way possible. She showed me the solution, and added a bit shyly, "Plus it makes a pretty pattern."
That was when I was eight years old. It's now the only shape I doodle — my notebooks for work are covered in different versions. I've done some research, and found out the same shape shows up all over the place (India, various points in Europe), and has all sorts of different meanings attached to it. To go through all of them would make a too-long blog post, but here's what it looks like when I pegged it out on the wire jig:
Off the jig, it looked like this:
I finished the ends to make a necklace bail, and made some smaller components with extra loops to use within the strap part of the necklace:
The next steps will be to make beaded sections to go between the components and add a clasp. Right now I'm running low on time, so I don't know if I'll get it done in time for Hallowe'en, but at least it's on its way.
In case you're wondering what this has to do with Hallowe'en... I went with the broader "day of remembrance/day of the dead" understanding of the day.
I wish I could wrap the wire on the jig well enough to make evenly-sized, perfectly spaced loops, but for now I'm willing to leave that at, "oh well, this is something new." I do find it amusing that the wire version of the shape is wobbly in the same way as my hand-drawn doodles.
I chose to use a wire jig. I've used a jig a grand total of one time previously, and that was just to make sure I understood how the thing worked. This was the first time I wasn't just making a practice shape.
When I was a kid my parents used to give me puzzle books and colouring books to work on during visits to the grandparents so I wouldn't get bored (because, er, yes, it was an issue). My grandmother saw some of the geometry puzzles in one of the books and taught me a puzzle her mum had taught her. You make a partly-filled grid of twenty-one dots on a piece of paper, and the challenge is to encircle each dot, without lifting the pencil from the paper, in the most efficient way possible. She showed me the solution, and added a bit shyly, "Plus it makes a pretty pattern."
That was when I was eight years old. It's now the only shape I doodle — my notebooks for work are covered in different versions. I've done some research, and found out the same shape shows up all over the place (India, various points in Europe), and has all sorts of different meanings attached to it. To go through all of them would make a too-long blog post, but here's what it looks like when I pegged it out on the wire jig:
I finished the ends to make a necklace bail, and made some smaller components with extra loops to use within the strap part of the necklace:
In case you're wondering what this has to do with Hallowe'en... I went with the broader "day of remembrance/day of the dead" understanding of the day.
I wish I could wrap the wire on the jig well enough to make evenly-sized, perfectly spaced loops, but for now I'm willing to leave that at, "oh well, this is something new." I do find it amusing that the wire version of the shape is wobbly in the same way as my hand-drawn doodles.