Jess Caudill- Caudill Glassworks

I wanted to highlight an artist who has tremendous talent and also happens to be my husband. Jess has been working with glass as a glass fuser for the past 11 years, but has recently tried his hand at glass mosaics. He has boxes full of scrap glass from his fusing projects and decided to use the scraps to create these beautiful mosaics. Jess finds old windows with the glass still intact and covers them with his scrap glass to make colorful pictures. We have them placed on our window sills and with the sun shining through them, they are breathtaking.

Wyeast Bag

My husband challenged me with the task of making a bag for his boss using their company's packaging as a Christmas gift. At first I was excited by the idea of using a new material to create a bag. I had seen a similar bag and had an idea of how I wanted to make it. I don't know how many times I have thanked my lucky stars for buying my industrial machine this year! I can sew through anything! Little did I realize how difficult this project was going to be when I agreed to it. I should remind you that I am a self-taught sewer and that I rarely know what I am doing when I begin a project. Once again I found myself in the situation of not thinking through the project and wishing I had sewed the straps on before constructing the bag. This was also the first time I had finished off a bag with nylon cording. The liquid yeast bags are not very flexible, compared to traditional fabric, and working with inflexible corners was difficult. After 3 or more hours and 2 attempts, I completed the bag.
I am very proud of completing this bag because there were many times that I was ready to call it quits. I think my husband's boss will love the bag... I just hope it doesn't fall apart!!!

Coffee Sleeves

My local coffee shop, Ten-Speed Coffee, roasts their own coffee. The coffee comes to them from around the world in large burlap bags. Of course, I wanted to make something out of the bags and coffee sleeves seemed like a logical choice. I am now making reversible coffee sleeves using the coffee sacks, cotton batting and scrap fabric. This serves the purpose of re-using the coffee sacks and dwindling down my extremely large stash of scrap fabric.

New Last Minute Holiday Sales

I just added two more holiday sales to my agenda this year.

December 17th-18th
Local Artists Holiday Sale
Downtown Hood River.... in the old "Frolic" store space between "Parts and Labour" and "Hood River Stationers"
12-7pm Friday
10-7pm Saturday

December 17th
Artisan Holiday Sale
3 Rivers Grill
5-8pm

I am looking forward to these two sales since I will be surrounded by other Gorge artists. Hood River and the Columbia Gorge is full of creative individuals who have a similar passion to create as I do.