laborer, craftsman, or an artist?

A man who uses his hands is a laborer

One who uses his hands and mind is a craftsman

He who uses his hands and his mind and his heart is an artist

I came upon this quote recently, and it helps me evaluate what I am when I'm doing something. I enjoy creating new pieces, sketching up ideas, making prototypes. Right then I feel like an artist - using my hands, my mind, and passion from my heart.

Then there are these times like today, when I was making 15 of the same necklaces to fulfill an order. It relaxing to sit by the window, basking in the sun, and work on felted necklaces mindlessly. Yes, mindlessly. A sudden frustration sneaked upon me, realizing that I missed out the beautiful spring weather. I took off my laborer hat and left my work table.

There seems to be a fine line between a laborer, a craftsman, and an artist.

wall decor inspiration

i love the colors, texture, composition of paper flowers in this wall-decor photo. This is a photo from Stella McCartney's shop (don't know where exactly), and I instantly fell in love with the spring-ness of this piece. Maybe I'll use some of the colors and ideas from this photo and use it on my wall at Unique LA Spring show. Let's sketch, sketch, sketch...

San Francisco

Welcome to San Francisco!

I recently moved back to my beloved San Francisco - the foggy and beautiful city.

Packing, moving, and searching for housing (thus the small halt in my delica blog and new updates at the shop!)... and working at the same time! But I brought my yarn stash with me so I can crochet bowls in the MUNI on my way to work. I started a new collection of dotted bowls, and I quite like how it turned out! Yellow, red, blue.. more colors to come :)

Lavender buds and acorn caps

I love acorns, the combination of woodiness and soft felted fabric is fantastic. I have few lavender filled felted pebbles in my room, and I like having the scent of lavender slightly fills up the space. So I decided to create a lavender filled acorns. A handful of these in my drawer and next to my bed is so delightful.
I recently got giant (i mean GIANT) size acorn caps to work with. It's double the size (or more) of regular acorn caps I've been using to make felted acorns. First I felted a thin sheet of felted fabric, then added a spoonful of fragrant lavender buds from a farm in Oregon. With some sewing and glue, tada! A lavender filled felted acorn!
I read on a knitting blog that lavender scent/buds keep away moths from eating sweaters (a hole!) stored away in a closet. I'm keeping some of these lavender acorns in my drawer!

Rain and felted rings

When the weather is cold and rainy, it's difficult to get myself into wet felting. It's just too cold to work with water! So I've been crocheting instead, making felted bowls, but I did get to do a little bit of wet felting. Tada! I made a few custom felted rings and it always amazes me how a small fuzzy ball felts down into a nice-smooth-warm-soft ring. Here's a before-and-after picture I took of the ring.

I hope the weather calms down tomorrow. I miss the California sun!

midnight blues and passionate reds

My felted pebbles were featured yesterday in a treasury curated by AveC. This is one of my favorite treasuries - love the colors, layout, and overall feeling. First time saving an image of a treasury.

This morning I selected few pebbles in shades of reds to create a 'passion pebble' set. I'm not a huge fan of bright reds, but I like colors with a mixture of red - cranberry, merlot, mauve pink, raspberry...

Delica spring scarves!

Here they are, first few pieces of my new spring scarves! I made few more last night after I got back from my uncle's birthday dinner. I actually wore the yellow scarf with my black blazer and received a lot of compliments.

Today, I'll make couple more of scarves (I love selecting fabrics and matching them together), and start working on felting necklaces and pebbles to send to London (I'm working with a larger children's clothing brand, and my pebbles and necklaces will be part of their fall collection!).