Project 111
Jill Cannon | Photography
Graphic Design | Fiber art

{design} — hand-carved stamp concept

I’ve been working on making some homemade rubber stamps. They are so much fun to concept and then carve, the physical aspect of cutting away at a carving block is so therapeutic! My hopes are to make some card sets to list in my Etsy shop, so stay tuned!

— Jill

{made} — purple star zipper bag

Sewed this lined zipper bag for a friend. It was a fun little project that had instant gratification. I will probably be making many more of these to organize all my hobby materials I have laying around my office. 

Pattern can be found in the book Sew what! Bags by Lexie Barnes.

{made} — red fire lace cowl

Made this crocheted lace cowl for a scarf swap at Wildfiber yarn store in Santa Monica this past week. This time around everyone swapping had to use the same brand of yarn to keep things on an even playing field. We used Madelinetosh Merino Light hand dyed yarn and it was amazing to work with. I even bought a few extra skeins to use for another project. Everyone picked their favorite color, it went into a stash and each person randomly picked a skein to make a scarf with. The lovely ladies at the store kept track of who had what color and all was revealed at the swap. I picked this bright red color because it’s out of my normal color palette so it was a nice change of pace to work with.

I followed the pattern except I doubled the width of the scarf to 10 inches, and made it into a nicely draped cowl instead of a scarf. We had to use the whole skien of yarn which was 440 yards, but since I made mine wider I was running dangerously low to compete a scarf long enough to wear. To finish the cowl off, I added a few rows of single crochet on the top and bottom with a picot edging.

All the scarfs turned out fabulous, I’ll take some pictures of the one I received and post them soon! 

This pattern is available for free on ravelry, if you have an account.

{made} — lace necklace

My first true lace project. Definitely found following the chart was easier than the written instructions which surprised me because I usually get lost in a chart, but these instructions were just too intense.

I couldn’t find a 1.5mm crochet hook so used the closest size I could find which was a 1.25mm which means mine is about an inch smaller than the pattern suggested, but I like it smaller. It still dips pretty low and it looks best when it’s not laying over a shirt.

Used a copper color crochet thread and silver metal beads for the accents.
It was a challenging pattern, worked only on the right side. That meant binding off after each row, and way too many ends to weave in afterwards! Weaving in ends is not my favorite part of a project, but this turned out so fun it was well worth all the frustration. 

The pattern can be found in the May/June 2010 issue of Crochet Today!

{food} — spiced cupcakes with orange citrus glaze.

My husband’s office announced that they were having a Cupcake War and of course we had to get in on it! We wanted a cupcake that wasn’t too sweet and something that would stand out, so we made this spiced cupcake recipe from scratch together. It ended up being a lot of fun working in the kitchen side-by-side; we threw on some girly rock out music, our aprons and had a few beers along the way. 

We did end up putting a lot more orange zest in the glaze than the recipe called for, and more fresh squeezed orange juice. The glaze did help bring out the spice flavor in the cupcakes which was nice since they weren’t very sweet.

I’m just bummed I won’t get to sample all the other entries; I’ll just have to live vicariously through my husband :)

Ingredients used:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for tins
4 cups cake flour (not self-rising), sifted, plus more for tins
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground mace
Pinch of ground cloves
1 1/2 cups packed dark- brown sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 cups milk, room temperature
Citrus Glaze, made with orange juice and zest

{photography: Jill Cannon}

{made} — emerald market bag.

Crocheted this fun market bag for a swap at Wildfiber in Santa Monica on September 15, 2010. I might have to keep this one for myself and make another one for the swap since I’m finished so early :)

I purchased this pattern on Ravelry for $3. It comes in two sizes.

I was one of the first to do this pattern and I did find a few little typos while I was making it, but the author saw my comments on Ravelry and quickly updated the pattern with the changes. So the pattern is now correct when purchasing. 

It is a really simple pattern to understand and it goes pretty quickly; you don’t have to read from the pattern for the repeat after a while because you retain it to memory fast.

There were a few things I changed though, I didn’t turn the base each round. I did only after the last row before I started the side pattern.

My gauge was a little off, my large ended up being 9 inches in diameter instead of the 9.5 the pattern suggested it would be, which is okay because it’s plenty big.

If you go to famers markets a lot like I do, this is a perfect way to be green and stylish at the same time.

Happy crafting!

{made} — petal baby bibs.

So many friends and family having little ones this year! I’ve been busy making lots of baby related things, here are two knitted petal bibs that I made in a light sky blue and grass green. 

Learned a lot from this little bib pattern, was the first time I’ve done short rows with wrapping stitches, also making an I-cord. So, it was a great learning experience and it ended up turning out quite cute.

I did pick up the tails of all the ends and knitted them in with the working yarn for a few stitches, even when joining the petals together, this made for hardly no ends to weave in which was wonderful.

This is a great fast pattern when you don’t have a lot of time or if you have a lot of baby gifts to do… 

The pattern is from the book: One Skein by Leigh Radford.  

{photography: Jill Cannon} 

made — pottery

A few months ago I took a pottery class at a very quant little studio in Santa Monica called Earthstone Pottery. Antara was so friendly and knowledgeable it was such a fun experience working with her. I went for 6 sessions and made 13 pieces on the wheel… all with dark brown clay except four were with porcelain. It was great getting right into it and working on it, I hadn’t since high school so I was egger to see if I still had any skills left. Throwing clay is very much like yoga, it’s very calming and soothing to do, relieving stress along the way. And, with each time you improve and get better as you learn to embrace the clay and the process. I can really see a difference in my work as I progressed through, each session seemed to get a little cleaner, straighter, and more what I was envisioning in my mind. 

I found that I really enjoyed working with the porcelain better, it felt smoother than the brown clay and I liked the end result more — the glaze seemed to coat it cleaner leaving a more polished piece.

Out of so many pieces, only two were a total bust in the kiln, there was a malfunction with one of the glazes and it didn’t adhere correctly, leaving flaky glass shards falling off and the pieces unusable. Pretty good odds though I’d say, I’ve heard of worse horror stories.

Once I get a little more income coming in, I’m looking forward to taking some more sessions and having fun with it.

{photography: Jill Cannon}

photography — world pinhole day

1] sweet furniture at the lomography store 2] old radio at the lomography store 3] lomography storefront 4] modern building with fire escape 5] reflection in car mirror 6] royal-t parking sign 7] vintage school bus 8] yarn gate opener 9] shopping cart collection

» see larger on flickr.

Sunday, April 25th, 2010 was world pinhole day and we [yes we, Ryan was sweet enough to partake in a photography event with me] visited the Lomography store in Los Angeles to participate in the festivities. They had informational workshops and a build your own pinhole camera class that was a little more than we had bargained for and was quite the endeavor to complete - the directions were more for how to build a rocket ship, very complex and lengthy - but we were able to complete them in about two hours with some guidance from the helpful store employee. It was so much fun to create a camera from pieces of cardboard, though, and enjoy the results in picture form later. 

Here is the beauty I put together! It was a kit by Sharan.

 My expectations for the first roll were pretty low, of course I hoped some would turn out, but tackling the mechanics of a good pinhole photograph would probably take some experimentation and time. On the square format camera I built, there are four different combinations: normal, soft focus, normal with a SP filter, and soft focus with a SP filter. So there were a few things to test out and see what the outcome would be, but there is also the whole time issue… how long to leave the shutter open? In most cases it’s a gamble and I had to guess. They do put a grid on the back for the most common times and conditions, but they’re only for outdoor scenarios. So, indoors I ended up just guessing and as you can see, there are no indoor pictures represented above :) Lining up a shot is also fun, there is no view finder, so it’s pretty much a point it somewhere, open the shutter and hope to get what you wanted!  Another big issue is shake. The camera really needs to be anchored on something stable, just holding it in your hands produces a very noisy picture. Didn’t think I shook that much, but I guess I do.

I did stress that it was a homemade camera to the photo developer so they would know to go in and select the photos by hand, since they aren’t very even on the roll. Overall, they did a great job with that and didn’t seem too annoyed by the hassle. 

Even just getting the handful of fun shots above has me totally addicted. I am going to have so much fun playing with this camera I created and am hoping to come out of it with a fun show/book down the road. 

made — vintage bobble bag

I was commissioned to make another crocheted bobble bag by a friend and I really like how it turned out. The color of the yarn mixed with the lighter zipper and floral fabric lining just fit so well together. I tried something new this time and sewed a cute little coin purse to go along with it. This really adds that special touch and makes unzipping it all that more fun because there is something unexpected inside.

The pattern is from the book: One Skein by Leigh Radford.  

{photography: Jill Cannon}