fishwifetales: Give it up for Lentils!

Once again, life has gotten in the way of keeping up my blog. Yikes. Never a dull moment around here. Yesterday, we had to get to the Country Store by 8 a.m. and at 7:30 the battery in our car gave out. But thanks to a helpful neighbor (who will be getting a 6 pack of MGD), we got a boost and then hubby and I made it to the Country Store just a few minutes late. DH then went and bought a new battery. It seems even the inside dash lights are brighter now.

Speaking of bright lights (big city), Bonnie, one of my fellow members of the AZPCGuild, made a swirled lentil bead from my head dress cane that we had swapped a couple of weeks ago. She does an awesome job of swirled lentils...I gave that up, lol.

You can see the gradation of colors that I used and part of what I call the window pane cane. I don't know if that is a real name, but that's what I call it. It is the part that's sort of squarish (in the original head dress cane) and is one of the three options that I put in the cane between the 'swirls' part. One was the window pane, the other was a checkerboard and one other was a graduated spiral cane that I cannot name. All I know is how to make it. I like doing taxonomy, but since there is no taxonomic key for polymer clay canes, I will just have to think of a name in future. Playing name games.

And what's in a name anyway? Earlier this week, we spent some time with my California Cousins...I only get to see them once a year, but this year is different. We usually see them when we visit Arizona and they bring their gorgeous motor home and park it a few miles from here. We schedule a few get togethers to play 'games'...cards or trivia or dominoes, the usual. Later on this spring, after we return nome, they will be travelling up to Canada where her dad will be inducted into our province's Baseball Hall of Fame. He was a pitcher in the minor and semi-pro leagues back in the late forties and early fifties. The entire clan will attend the dinner and induction ceremony and the next day we'll go to a Baseball Game and my cousins (and their father who'll be honored posthumously) will be out in Center Field. That day the Goldeyes will be playing..sound a little fishy? The Goldeyes is the team name. It's named for a favorite fish that thrives in our local waters.

And just to make things more convoluted, just the other day I completed binding a book with a gold fish on the cover. (Well actually, it's kinda orangey.. How Koi!!!!)

I drew a picture of a fish and then used the crackle technique. It wasn't an entirely new technique for me, but just a revisitation of something I've been working with. It's kind of a bird's eye view of the fish and I am not quite sure if that's discernable in the photo. The book has watercolor paper in the interior, and like almost all my books is bound using the coptic binding technique. It measures about 4 1/2 inches wide and is just over 4 inches in height, which seems rather small for a book, but I find this is about the biggest I can make the sheets of clay without having to worry about any slumping. I did use Kato Polyclay for the covers and find that it is quite sturdy and doesn't have the 'bendiness' of some of the other types of clay after it's finished baking.