“Yet Another Quilt” Follow-up – Introducing Hadar’s Molds

Washers

Organic Mechanics

Mokume-Gane 7

Mokume-Gane 8

Cat's Eyes

Mokume-Gane 5

Holey Hexagons

Empty Spaces

Empty Circles

Mokume-Gane 3

Mokume-Gane 4

Quilt

What the textures on the quilt and in the photos above have in common is that they are all hand-crafted and part of the first series of Hadar’s molds, which is are now available on my online store.

Creating texturing and forming molds is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. These are molds that I created for my own work. They are not copied from natural or found objects nor computer generated. All masters are hand-made through an elaborate, labor intensive process.

Before getting into this venture I asked myself whether, being a teacher, I should teach how to make these mold rather that make them for sale. Indeed, my books include projects for making a few of these molds. However, they take a long time and much effort to make. Most of them also involve the loss of substantial amounts of clay, and have to be done over and over to reach the desired result.

The first collection includes 33 molds. They are all flexible, made from high-grade silicone putty which picks up fine details. They are all reversed: when you press the clay into the mold you will get the positive, the original pattern that the master displays. There is no need to make a mold from the mold.

In the next few weeks I will be posting projects and suggestion for using these molds, on my blog. Here are some options for using the set of molds called “Holey Rectangles”.

This is a set of three textured rectangles with slightly different size and pattern. They can be made into earrings, bracelets and necklaces.

Earrings

1. Rub the mold with an oiled toothbrush. Press the clay into the mold and pull it out.

Press the clay into the mold

2. Stick a wire eyelet or embeddable at the top of the rectangle.

Add an eyelet

3. Repeat step 1 and 2 for the second earring. Sand, fire and finish.

Brilliant Bronze earrings

Bracelet

1. For a bracelet you may want the links to be 2-sided. In this case, make two pieces for each link.

Make 2 pieces for each link

2. Dry the pieces, and attach them back to back with wet clay.

Attach back to back

3. Dry again, then seal the joint with wet clay.

Seal the joint

4. Dry again, then drill two side holes in each link.

Drill side holes

5. Sand smooth, fire, finish and assemble. The bracelet in the photo bellow was assembled with flexible cord and black pearls as spacers.

Holey Link Bracelet

Suggestion: Make a mixed metal Holey Link Bracelet:

Mixed metal links

Necklace

The process is the same as that of the bracelet. The links don’t need to be two sided, though, and require only one side hole.

Steel Holey Link Necklace

Necklace by Sherry Johannes

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