Show us your favourite craft tool. Maybe with an image. Does it have an interesting story? (Or a boring story, either way…)
My favourite tools beyond doubt are my bamboo DPNs. Think they’re probably 2.75mm but I can’t remember. They’re just the ones I use most of the time (trade secret just given away there)
What’s interesting about them is that they spend a lot of time hiding down the back of the sofa. Luckily I have five and only use four at a time…
LOL just went off and took photo and resized it and uploaded it…“new users cannot post photos”
it’s a new day and I can add a pic!
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My favorite tool for painting in hot wax is my stylus heat tool, I use it like a palette knife, but its hot so melts the wax as I apply it to my support or card surface …
I have lots of heat tool, including a hotplate, this is a photo from my studio this morning, ready to go into a new blog post I am doing tomorrow …
Lots of wax melting …
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Here are my favourite tools - a whopping brush, a tiny brush and my watercolours
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And this is one of my paintings using them
Sian I wanted to post those in the same reply but was only allowed one picture as a new user
I’ve temporarily reduced the number of things you need to do to gain Level 1 access so anyone joining in after 5pm should be able to get to level 1 without me having to upgrade you manually!
I only have two tools, of which this one is the most important…:
http://img1.digitalversus.com/produits/24/15161/fujifilm-finepix-hs50-exr_1357308425.jpg
The other one is my pc but I’m sure you don’t want to see a picture of that…
well I’m jealous! I wasn’t allowed to add any photos yesterday.
I’m also jealous of your painting skills. My Art Tutor gave up on my in my primary teaching course, colour mixing is a mystery to me. I can get as far as blue+yellow=green, but to make a specific green - no.
I think my best tools are my gloves which I wear all the time I’m handling my glass.
I don’t think most glass artists bother but i find my fingers don’t heal well if I cut them, blood makes a nasty mess, glass once in a finger takes a lot of getting out and working with sore fingers hurts.
So i wear gloves when handling sheets of glass, cutting, grinding and soldering.
I get through quite a lot of my gardening, tight fitting gloves. Just ordered a dozen pairs 
The alternative to gloves are lots of plasters and adhesive dressings - I keep stock of those too !
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These are the basics.
http://images.folksy.com/aXRlbXMvNjQwNDM4LzIwMTQwNDAyLzEwMTU1NDExMDk5Nw-Q-Q-N/main
We have lots of inks and make lots of blends so our studio shelves are filled with re-cycled bottles and pots full of mixes.
Our beloved Press sits on an even older ‘Workmate’ in the corner of the studio, (covered with an inky towel when not in use which usually has a cat sat on that - rather like the pea and the Princess) 
It is such a shameful sight no photo exists of it, hopefully with a few more sales under our belt then we will get a bigger, shinier newer model 
Thanks for the compliment @NiftyKnits 
I firmly believe that painting is a skill that can be learned - you just need to know the rules. One day I’ll get myself organised and start teaching (adults) I think a lot of potential artists had their confidence shattered in school art classes. I know I did, I only took it up again 3 years ago after a 30 year gap, only this time I had a very good teacher.
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Agree totally with you there Stephie; my art teacher did everything he could to put me down in art lessons so eventually I just gave up
similar to the way many people have their singing confidence destroyed at an early age?
I’m not convinced though. It’s colours that confuse me. I look at a landscape (an actual one I mean, not painted) and wonder at the range of greens. I can see there are loads of different shades, but I can’t work out what is different, can’t tell which is more blue or whatever, so how would I paint it?
I find that my hand when holding a brush or a pencil refuses to do what my eyes and brain instruct it to. Not sure what a good teacher could do about that !
That’s why i like the artistic licence given me with my glass. I can’t draw but I’m good at Googling for shapes and images I want, the computer can print and I can trace and when tracing, move a line here and there.
Joy 
Very similar yes.
The thing with the greens (and this applies to the whole colour wheel) is that greens in real life aren’t pure green, they lean to yellow, blue, red. It’s only by using colours, mixing them, learning their names, becoming friends with them that you can fully understand what you see before you.
Of course some people are naturals and do it instinctively, but most most of us have learned it the hard way!
Try making your own dot to dot. Put a dot where you think your lines should start and end, squint at them, see if you think that will look right, and then join the dots. It’s how I draw most of my sketches.
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you see, that’s another way the tutor fooled me then! Each time I questioned her, said “but I can’t SEE which it should be”, she’d snap back "it’s obvious, you’re just not trying"
So I really did think most people were instinctive about it, just not me.
great person to train primary teachers, imagine if we all went off and treated the children like that?
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Hello, very interesting to know what everyone’s favourite tools are, hope to see more
, mine are my very fine brushes and little pots of fabric paint for getting fine detail and my paisley wooden carved blocks.
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This is my favourite tool at the moment… it arrived in the post last week. It’s a natty little gadget for squeezing every last drop from my tubes of lino printing ink, it’s addictive!!
Emma x
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Here are some of my lino cutting tools x
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