Ohio Star Quilt Block in Polymer Clay

It looked so easy!   I had almost all the tools.  When I was at the Quiltedinclay.com website, I thought, “ooh what fun that will be.”  So I ordered one of the quilt disc sets and later realized if I was serious about this project, I should have ordered the 2^nd set.  So I did.

I decided to make the ‘Ohio Star’ pattern when the disc set came.  I read the instructions – 3 times.  Since I wanted to make the extrusions that night, I had to find enough light and dark clay of one color for the project.  Yellow and Copper. 

It seems I need more practice reading instructions.  I kind of ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ and when I see something I make up my own instructions to get it done.  Usually that works.  But I know enough about quilting to know these shapes of clay need to be precise. 

24" long extruded triangle and squares

I figured out I would need a total of 13 long extrusions of dark and light colored clay. The extrusions as you can see in the photo are about 24” long.  That is quite a bit of clay.  Well that worked.  But after I finished I understood that the directions told me to make one extrusion and see how many 4 ½” pieces I could get and make as many extrusions as it would take to get the correct number.  That would have given me one 4 ½” x 1” cane.  My way gave me about five 8” canes -a lot more than I needed or perhaps wanted.

A yellow and a copper triangle are put together to become larger triangles.

There were a few other problems going on in this learning experience.  I used Kato clay which is great polymer clay but it is very stiff.  Probably not the choice I should have made but remember it was all I have in the quantity I thought I needed.  I used the Bullen's Wullens Adapter, the Makins Ultimate Extruder, and my drill for the extrusions.  (I talked about those tools last Friday in my post.)  All went well for the first 4 extrusions and then I noticed the drill was getting really hot.  I stopped and got another drill.  This one started smoking.  Not a good sign

Stages:  extrusions in the left lower, triangles in the center, squares on the right of the tray.

After talking with my brother, who is tool knowledgeable, I went to Lowe’s and bought a bigger drill with lower rpm.  As I finished the last extrusions, I had stripped the threads in the extruder.  But I finished all the triangles and squares I needed....

Today I bought some FIMO clay and a new extruder.   I’m going to conduct some experiments on drills versus clay!  I’m determined to understand what I’m doing!  In the meantime, I have my first quilt canes.

 

Finished Canes - Only the two on the right are the Ohio Star