Red-Tail Designs

Dancer from the Spring Powwow

The August Powwow at the Museum of Indian Culture snuck up on me! It’s next weekend.

Thoughts of quilling turtles and birds got me up the hills on my 4-mile run the other day. Hopefully I’ll have time this week to put those ideas down on leather.

Visit the tipi in the LifeWays area.

If you haven’t any plans for these beautiful days of summer, come on by and see Native American Indians show off their regalia and dancing skills. The Powwow runs from 10:30 a.m. until 6 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday, August 16 and 17. Dancing doesn’t start until after opening ceremonies at noon. Then chow on a buffalo burger or Lakota taco. Yum!

I’ll be in the LifeWays area, demonstrating porcupine quillwork and selling my quill and horse hair jewerly. If you’re thinking of getting horse hair jewelry made, come on by with your tail. I can show you the styles in person.

Speaking of horse hair, I have a new Horse Hair Bracelet class coming up at Out of Our Hands on September 21, 2008. The class will last from noon to 2:30 p.m. and you’ll walk away with a horse hair bracelet you created with your own hands.

Porcupine quill plaiting technique.

On September 20 I’ll be teaching Quillworking at the Museum of Indian Culture. Quillwork Part 1 will go from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and Quillworking Part 2 will be 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.

See the events page for more details.

Hope to see you next weekend!

Out Of Our Hands is sponsoring a new class in July: Horse Hair Earrings!

As you saw in a previous post, we had a great time learning how to make porcupine quill earrings. You get to see what goes into creating something by hand, plus you go home with a new piece of jewelry.

Here are the details:

Horse Hair Earring Class

Sunday, July 13 from noon to 2 p.m.

at Out Of Our Hands, Emmaus, PA

Class Fee: $45

Please contact me or Out of Our Hands at 610-965-4806 to register.

While we’re on the subject of horse hair, click out the Horse Hair Jewelry tab along the top of the page. I finally added the horse hair earrings to the page so they are available for custom ordering.

Also notice the changes in the product descriptions. Each product is named after a horse I’ve known during my life. In the future I hope to include photos of each of these horses, but given some of them are steeds I met 20-some years ago, I have to do some digging to do.

Remember the days of film cameras? Push the button, advance the film BY HAND. Then wait ages, no eons for the film to get developed and sent back to you in the mail (the anticipation alone, made me stare down the mailbox for days). Then, the big question: are the photos good…no heads cut off or blurriness.

Yup, those were the days before digital cameras and many of my four-legged friends were captured this way. So after I wade through that huge box, I hope to add those critters to the site.

In the meantime, enjoy your summer. I know I am!

You have a chance to learn how to make these porcupine quill earrings.

Out of Our Hands will be sponsoring my Porcupine Quill Earring Class on Sunday, June 1 from noon to 2 p.m. The class costs $40 and all supplies are included. You’ll come away from the class with a pair of earrings made with porcupine quills, silver or gold-plated earwires and semi-precious stone chips. Amethyst chips are featured above, but you can also choose from peridot (green), citirine (yellow) or aquamarine (blue).

Classes like this give artists and customers a chance to meet and chat. I get a greater understanding of how the rest of world sees my pieces. The results are sometimes very surprising. Customers get a glimpse of the creative process and working with the materials, giving them a greater appreciation for handmade items.

So come join the fun. Space is limited, so sign up soon with Out of Our Hands, Emmaus, PA, by contacting OOOH@ptd.net or 610-965-4806.

In other news, my Vanilla blog post is featured on The Crafty Crow today. This fun site is tagged “a children’s craft collective.” Created by Cassi of Bella Dia as a way to wrangle interesting kids crafts from all over the Internet, it’s a great resource if you’re stumped on how to keep the wee ones busy today.

Making vanilla gets kids involved in cooking at the very beginning of the process and helps them see that all ingredients come from somewhere, not just the store.

The vanilla beans went into the bottle almost 6 weeks ago. Today the liquid is the color of strong tea, a beautiful golden brown, but it still has a mightty vodka bite, so it needs a little more time. Visuals on that to come, as my husband just walked out the door with the camera.

Check out Crafty Crow’s other posts for the day, too, and have a great Memorial Day weekend!

What a great way to celebrate spring that with a festival! I spent the weekend at the Museum of Indian Culture’s Spring Corn Festival. Some highlights:

Lots of dancing by native peoples in regalia. Head Dancer Robert SilentThunder performs a special dance in honor of the Museum of Indian Culture.

The turtle I worked on the last few weeks found a happy, new home.

Two of the teaching tipis.

My little pink with her uncle, learning to throw the atlatl, an ancient hunting weapon.

Yes that’s me wearing gloves while demonstrating quillwork at my booth. Saturday was overcast and the breeze blowing off the Lehigh River was c-c-c-cold. Sunday was sunny and gorgeous.

These are the final days of the charity auction at Out of Our Hands, a shop of fine handcrafts in Emmaus, PA. I have my items on sale there, and I’ve donated porcupine quill earrings to the auction. You buy raffle tickets at $1 each and they pick the winners out of the hat this Friday, January 18, 2008. Call the store if you’d like to get in on the action. Artists have donated more than $1,500 worth of merchandise to the auction.

Proceeds from the raffle go to each of our chosen charities. My charity is Lehigh WildCare Wildlife Education Center. This nonprofit organization is near and dear to my heart as I have volunteered there over the past few years. As a wildlife educator I take non-releasable wild animals out into the public sector to educate people about wildlife and wildlife issues. Hence the red-tailed hawk pictured at left.

I have been involved in wildlife rehabilitation and education since 1996. I’ve worked with all sorts of animals over the years, from herons and owls to squirrels and rabbits to turtles and snakes, but one of my favorites is the red-tailed hawk. This beautiful bird inspired the name for my business. I’ll save the full story of how that came about for some other day.

As you’ve probably noticed by now, I’ve finally made the jump to the blogging world. For those of you, who have been to my web site before, you’ll notice a new and improved web site with blog component, plus a link to my Etsy shop. I’ll have horse hair jewelry, porcupine quill jewelry and fabric items up for sale in Etsy soon!

I’m finally here, in the blogging world. After lots of encouragement from several people I’ve decided to take the plunge.

Although I’m by not means a techno-phobe, I’m usually a little slow to embrace new technology. I tend toward the skills that have been around for a while…things like jewelry making, embroidery and tanning. But here I am, ready to take you a wild adventure that is what I create.

My main business products right now are jewelry, specifically horse hair jewelry and porcupine quill jewelry. I plan to have them up on my Etsy shop soon so you can buy something new and exciting.

Plus I also create custom pieces. Click on the horse hair and porcupine quill tabs at the top of the page. For the horse hair jewelry, like this ID bracelet above, I use hair that a person sends me from their horse and create a very unique piece. It’s lot of fun for me and the people who get to wear always have a reminder of their horse around.