Flower cane and Bottle of hope- part 1

I am going to start a new flower cane with a skinner shaded cane and the go to covering a Bottle of hope.
1st we will start with the shaded cane to make the flower.
You will see that when we build this it is pretty close to the African Trade bead canes but using Skinner shaded canes. This is a technique that Judith Skinner came up with to make our cane (or rod of clay) shade from one color to another. She, with this technique changed the Polymer clay world.


You will need:

Violet Cernit- 1, 2.2 ounce packages
Opaque White Cernit- 2, 2.2 ounce packages
Black Cernit-1, 2.2 ounce packages
Porcelain White Cernit- large package 1.1 pound
Clay Machine
Clay Slicing Blade
Acrylic roller
Ruler
All links lead to my hubby's store www.clayfactory.net
Thank you so much for looking, we appreciate that. ;-D
Mix all of the colors, even the black and opaque white with an equal amount of porcelain white.

1.   Roll out a sheet of the opaque white clay on the thickest setting in the clay machine and fold in half to double the thickness and the sheet. Cut the sheet so it is 2" high and the width of a 5 3/4" machine. If you have the longer machine you and use a 2"x 1" magnet to make the rollers small in width.

2.  Roll out a sheet of the violet and fold it in half to double the thickness of the sheet. Place the folded edge against the cut edge of the white. 
Trim off the right edge so it is straight up and down.

3. Trim off the top edge of the violet sheet to form and complete rectangle with the white sheet being half and the violet sheets being half.

4. 2" high by width of the clay machine and half white and half violet.
Roll these together with and acrylic roller.
Place the White side into your clay machine and roll through on the thickest setting.
Bring the clay out of the machine every time the same way and do not change directions ever.
When you get used to this you can play with flipping it around and not lose you way. I bring it out of the machine with my left hand and rotate my hand 1/4 to lay the sheet in front of me on my work surface.







5. I fold the sheet from left to right every time.

6. Always match the edges I am pointing to, not the top or what will be the top when you place this in the machine rollers.

7. Place the fold in to the rollers, see the top edges are not even and matching.
Roll through the machine on the thickest setting.
Bring it out the same way we did in step 6 and fold from the left to the right again always matching the side edges.
Place the fold in to the machine again on the thickest setting and roll through again.
Do steps 6 and 7 twenty more times.

8. The sheet will look like when it is blended completely.
Fold from left to right one more time and...

9. Turn the folded sheet up on the end and roll through the machine on the thickest setting.
Turn the dial down to the 5th thickest setting and roll the length through again to stretch out the length again.

10. You will have a long strip that goes from light to dark.

11. Trim off the light end of the strip for a straight edge. 

















12. Mix the cut off part until it is one color.

13. Roll the cut off mixed up part in to a coil that is the width of the long skinny sheet of white to violet. Place it on the sheet.

14. Roll up the coil and the sheet together.

15. Roll all the way up and roll on the work surface to smooth a little but not reduce.

16. This is what the end will look like and it will be light in the middle and darker on the outside.













Part 2 coming...
http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/06/flower-cane-and-bottle-of-hope-part-2.html