On my online workbook this week: A Stay Open
Dear
This week's inspiration is … being open to what fuels your own special flavour of creativity.
My tip for you this week is about dowel sticks. Every design room needs a healthy collection of dowel sticks. Even a really chunky one that just happens to be great for round-ish handles like I needed for this week's design (see the picture above).
Use a dowel stick to shape the willow ring over. Of course you can use anything round to shape the circle but I find a longer dowel stick the most convenient. A glass container is heavy and can distort the shape of the design below. A plastic container is too light and can distort while you wrap around it. Anything that is not perfectly smooth will damage the wrapped stems as you remove them. But a dowel... perfect!
Lift the design (or bend your knees) so that the dowel stick rests on your shoulder and extend it to be level with the place you want to craft in the design. This way you can angle it exactly how you want it with your shoulder and have both hands free to make sure you can carefully wind and wrap and manipulate the willow without breaking or snapping the stem. I also find that the dowel weight is exactly what I need to keep everything stable below the place I want to add the shape without distorting the shape of the design.
Wrap the stem firmly around the dowel, release slightly to expand and slip it off by pulling out the dowel and you have the most perfect circle to design with.
Enjoy!
Every good wish,
Christine
ps: if you want to weave a few of these birdcage handles at once place the designs in a row, one behind the other. This way you can weave the first design handle using the dowel to shape it and instead of removing the dowel press it through the circle to the next design. Weave that one and press it through to the next design. This way you do not need to reposition the stick every time, all the circles are the same size and the designs are also at the exact same height without having to measure each one.
