A while back, my husband Bryan and I got the O.K. from a catalog company
for an order of polymer clay buttons, needle cases, and thimbles. We had
been working on interesting the company in our items for over a year (these
things take time !) and now it was time for the actual labor-- thus begins
The Saga Of Our 13 Pound Cane. Having agreed to make 150 cards of six buttons
each, all EXACTLY alike I was committed to making a much larger cane than
I was used to doing.
My former canes were usually four or perhaps five lbs. each, for the
really detailed faces. They are the diameter of a dinner plate, and a depth
of about five inches. Less massive canes were started around the size of
a soft drink can, though not as tall.
For this one, I knew I had to make the cane for all three items all
at once, as the chances of being able to repeat it perfectly were not good.
I had recently started working with Premo Polymer Clay, (made by Polyform
Products) and we decided to use it for this mammoth project. Just
the thought of kneading up the clays made us cringe, and the Premo was
a very pleasant surprise. All the colors had to custom blended, and done
in one day, to keep the texture of the various colors from becoming too
different from each other.
So Bryan, who has big warm hands, kneaded them up. He didn't even need
to use the food processor! He just cut slabs (like cheese) straight from
the block, and ran them through the pasta roller. It took far less time
then FIMO or even Cernit.
As he did this, I laid the cane components out, putting them together
a bit differently than usual. Normally, I look straight down on the cane
as it grows, putting the bits together like pieces of a child's puzzle,
then flip it to its side for reduction. This time, the cane would be taller
than I am, so it was built on its side, laying
out L O N G snakes, triangles, etc...then building the flower and leaves...it
was as thick as my arm!
I whacked it in half, lengthwise, then put one half aside. The other
half then was cut down the center, making two half circular canes. These
I then layered onto the uncut piece of cane, to build a bouquet, adding
more clay to bring it all back to round cane shape.
This was wrapped in a sheet of clay (#1 on a pasta roller) the same
color as the background (and yes, we had run out and needed to prep MORE!)
We now had a four ft. length of cane, with a diameter of about 8 inches.
..that we had to reduce before it got too hard!
We let it (and us) rest for an hour or two, then began reducing,
using all four of our hands, going up and down the length of this huge
thing. It was rather like doing Very Rude Things to an elephant's trunk. When we got it to about 6ft. long, we whacked it in half again, and
worked on each section one at a time.... repeating this as it got longer...and
longer....until we had it reduced to a 1 inch diameter!
We alternated between the slow squeeze-y-pull-y business, and rolling
the cane carefully on a conference table---never too long or too hard in
one direction....and eventually....there it was. With my heart in my mouth,
I looked at all the cut ends, and it had reduced beautifully, with a very
minimum of distortion. In fact, we started out with 15 lbs of clay, and
when I had chopped off the less desirable ends, there was thirteen lbs.
of usable cane.
We had two lbs.of leftover "schmutz" clay, which is still
perfectly good for something else, and four hands worth of very rubbery
fingers. I wrapped all the cane lengths in Handi-Wrap (now sold as Saran
With Cling) and set them aside for another day's work.
Later, when I cut the canes, I found that I had enough for the needle
case and thimble sets, 1000 buttons....and enough left over for doing it
all again, should they need more!
