Julie Picarello presented “Tube Bails with Meshed Up Imprint Mokume, Lunar Feather Beads and Faded Tapestry” in July. We jammed as much as possible into this weekend! This is what happens when you can’t decide which of the wonderful classes Julie teaches you want. So you say, “Yes, please!” These are pictures of Julie’s tube bails and pieces of ‘meshed up’ mokume.  We worked toward combining the looks. She offered to do a similar idea with her lunar beads, creating feathered lunar beads. We wrapped up the weekend with ‘Faded Tapestry’, an awesome look to add to your repertoire. Even if you have taken a class with Julie before, there is always a lot of new ground to cover. Besides, she is just so nice!

At the start of August we hosted Lynda Gilcher with her magical extruder! She has spent some serious time developing a line of acrylic extruder disks. They are wonderful! Being a little thicker than what is currently on the market, the disks hold the clay a little longer which results in a better crisper extrusion. She has made designs that are meant to mesh together to create canes….a quick butterfly, a rose, a daisy, an interlocking tessellation. She also has a coring tool that works like a champ. She also showed us how to use her acrylic templates. She has created some wonderful polymer tools and spent the time to develop interesting variations on their use. My extruder has become an important part of my tool arsenal!