Saturday, November 3, 2012

Take-out Anyone?

So this month my guild's challenge theme was Asian.  My first thought on this challenge was to make a Chinese take-out box out of clay... but the logistics of working out how to hinge the sides in order for the box to be fully functional were a bit daunting... keeping with the genre of items I associate with Take-out, I struck upon the idea of covering the handles of a pair of standard bamboo chopsticks.  Wanting to do something more, I decided to also make a matching chopstick rest.  Initial idea settled, my next move was to consider the surface design of the polymer parts.  I have quite a few Asian inspired fabrics waiting to be incorporated into the perfect quilt or sewing project, so looking to my fabric collection for design inspiration was a given.  I chose a batiked fabric with Asian characters as my surface design inspiration… but I wanted to say something more than characters that mimic the fabric pattern, with meanings I could not decipher.  So, I decided to Google references and make canes of the Chinese character 吃 and the Japanese Kanji 食 for the word "Eat".  I also tried to emulate the background and colors of the fabric in the polymer surface design… and I turned a piece of the fabric into a little pouch with a matching polymer button, to complete the set for carrying the chopsticks and rest.
I'm not too experienced with making canes, this is something like my 3rd or 4th cane project ever, so this truly was a challenge for me to assemble and reduce these canes.  I was pleased with my results... what do you think??




More (larger) photos of this set can be found on my flickr and in my etsy shop.  Voting is already open for this challenge and will run through November 7th 2012 Midnight EST, so be sure to head over to the PCAGOE blog and cast your vote for your favorite 3 entries.  Three lucky voters will win their choice of prize... you could be one of them, but you have to vote to be entered!  Here's a peek at all of the fabulous entries that were created this month:


Aren't they all GREAT?!?  Please take a minute to go vote at the link listed above!