Tackling the skinner blend with a rolling pin

Considering that the last time I tried the skinner blend using the pasta machine the sheet of clay ended up in bits, I decided to try a more controlled method using the rolling pin. For this I chose a very strong blue clay and white clay for the blend. Following the instructions I found on the internet I rolled out two very small sheets of each colour, cut them into rectangles of exactly the same size, and then cut a diagonal across each sheet using the tissue blade.

It's been a while since I took the time to do any crafting, and unfortunately the clay I have stored in plastic boxes is not as fresh as it once was. In fact, it is now a little crumbly. This means it's quite difficult to condition with the fingers and cracks when folded, and makes the process considerably more difficult! Unfortunately this is all I have at the moment, so I had to persevere. With some rolling and squeezing, the clay begins to get more workable, but I am sure using older clay like this is best avoided.

After placing two rectangles of each colour and softly pushing them together to form the sheet to be blended, I used the rolling pin this time rather than the pasta machine. It's interesting that although rolling by hand is much harder work, I found it easier to control the sheet. It wasn't quite as easy as I had seen on the YouTube clip, but I was certainly able to maintain the size and shape of the sheet during the rolling and folding process. I didn't count how many times I folded, but it certainly wasn't anywhere near 30 times!

Despite this, the sheet was a success. I was able to roll a small cane from it, starting from the white end of the sheet and rolling to the blue, finishing with a completed cane with the white gradient at the core. And then I became really ambitious and decided to create a basic flower cane by cutting the cane into sections and combining around a white core. The cane isn't anywhere near large enough to make it worthwhile, but this is only my first effort, and I would definitely take the time to make a much larger and more intricate design next time. You can just about see the skinner blend in the outside 'petals' of the flower design.