SP10 - early days

A quick message to say thanks to my secret pal for all the wonderful messages she has sent me, and for the tantalising promise of something that should arrive early next week.

So far SP10 has been a lot of fun. I have also said hello to my matched SP10-er and have also posted a package off to her. So she should get it in a week or so (it's an international posting).

2 weeks of school holidays now start for us. I am looking forward to having my little chap home and being able to do things with him, but also know that the next 2 weeks will not have much time spare for crafty pursuits. The weather is supposed to pick up, though, and we hope to go camping if that is the case.

We took a family decision this year not to have Easter eggs, but to donate money to Oxfam. Through their wonderful gifts unwrapped scheme, we have bought 100 school dinners for children to encourage them to go to school and be fed and educated. Now every time I see that mountain of eggs in the shops, I can instead think of some good being done somewhere.

Happy Easter to everyone.

What do Bloggers read?

Two knights and maidens tagged me to take part in kailana's bloggers top ten books. It has been tough, and I have to say outright that Shakespeare's works and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales go without saying... but when I thought hard about it, these are the books that have shaped my life. I am sad to say that most of them were read when I was in my 20s... I really need to find another one to grip my imagination and make me think hard.

1. Saturday Night Sunday Morning - Alan Sillitoe
2. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist - Robert Tressell
3. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat - Oliver Sachs
4. The L Shaped Room - Lynne Reid Banks
5. Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig
6. Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy
7. Woman on the Edge of Time - Marge Piercy
8. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
9. The Diceman - Luke Rhinehart
10. Modern Poetry 1900-1975 - George McBeth (ed)

Just off the list are:
11. Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman - Richard Feynman
12. Godel Escher Bach - Richard Hofstadter

I will come back and add the whys and wherefores for each choice, but for now I am pleased to have settled on my list.

Puzzle

Well, I finished the shawl, and have even sewn the ends in (a stupid little job that can often take me ages to get around to!). I am pleased with the shawl, even though it has turned out a lot narrower than I expected. I find that odd as I used the same needles and yarn as the pattern suggested, and I thought my gauge was pretty much right. Oh well.

But the puzzle is, which beads to use to bead the edging. I have some delicious amethyst ones, some lovely grey ones, and some cool green ones.

Which to choose?


I have also been tagged by two knights and maidens to take part in a bloggers' favourite book list. I've been compiling my list (she has asked for 10) and shall post it soon. It is difficult to limit it to 10, and I found it difficult to have modern and classic all on the same list, it would have been easier to separate them out. Anyway, more of that another time...

SP10 questionnaire recap

I realised last night, that my SP10 questionnaire was buried way back in mid February, so now that SP10 has officially kicked off, I thought I would recap on the questionnaire...

1. What is/are your favorite yarns? - I like both fine and chunky yarns, and these can be natural or synthetic... but what I like best are yarns with different colours in them, as I love seeing the way the colours mix and build up when the yarn is worked.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in? - I keep my needles in two earthenware jugs, one that I brought back from Portugal in 1986, and one that I received from an Irish relative as a wedding gift in 2000. I also use earthenware jugs to keep my paintbrushes in and also my button collection.

3. How long have you been knitting? - I have been knitting since 1979 when our school got everyone to knit squares to sew into blankets and send to Africa as part of Action Aid. I am probably still classed as a beginner... I do small, simple or quick projects, and don't do many fancy stitches.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list? No.

5. What's your favorite scent? - Lavendar, lemon and nutmeg.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? I don't have a very sweet tooth, although I like milk chocolate but don't tend to eat much of it.

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? I sew, draw and paint (watercolours). I like trying new things, and am a dabbler. I have recently bought some disolvable fabric and am enjoying playing around with it.

8. What kind of music do you like? - I like jazz and blues and folk. Also David Bowie, Simply Red, The Scissor Sisters, Chrissie Hynde, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. I like South American music. I love the sound of the clarinet and trumpet.

9. What's your favorite color(s)?I like purple, orange, green and gold. I like strong colours mixed in unusual ways.

10. What is your family situation? I am married with a 5 year old son and a 16 year old step son. We have no pets.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos? - Yes! Especially hats and scarves. I have a woolen cape, but have never had a poncho.

12. What are your favorite items to knit? I like to knit small pieces that I then sew, embellish, cut up or otherwise work into other objects. Last year I knitted 17 hats as gifts for various people! In the last year I have also knitted bags, purses and journal covers.

13. What are you knitting right now? - A hat made from recycled sari silk, I am also using some fibres spun by a friend of mine to make lampshade. (late addition - I am now knitting a mohair/silk blend shawl.

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts? I love to give and receive handmade gifts. The love and care that they embody makes them all the more special.

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic? - I tend to use aluminium needs, but only because that is what I have. I have never used circular needles, although I once knitted a pair of socks on four double ended needles.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift? No.

17. How old is your oldest UFO? I am ashamed to say it is 21 years old - it is a half made cross stitched tea cosy in the shape of a cottage. I don't think it is ever going to be finished. Apart from that I tend to finish items within a couple of weeks of starting them.

18. What is your favorite holiday? May bank holiday - the weather is nice, and it is the start of the season of garden fetes and country fairs which I really enjoy visiting.

19. Is there anything that you collect? Soda syphons, wooden fruit and ceramics decorated with fish motifs.

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? I'm working my way through my mother's old set of "Golden Hands" - a craft series from the 70s, so I have not been looking at books and subscriptions recently.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn? Felting, shibori stitching, machine embroidery.

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements? I have only once knitted a pair of socks - I was 14 years old at the time and the socks were fluorescent green! I take a UK size 5 shoe.

23. When is your birthday? 11th January.

Mother's Day

Why 3 posts today? Because I can!!

I had a wonderful day on Sunday. My husband, step son and son all spoiled me for mother's day.
I was cooked a breakfast of smoked trout and scrambled egg on bagel.

I was given a picture of a vase of flowers and homemade pasta brooch from my 5 year old, a card and bunch of flowers from my 16 year old, and a Sanctuary incense set from my husband.

Then they took me to an art gallery to see an exhibition I had wanted to see: Matisse to Freud - A Critics Choice. This is the collection of film critic Alexander Walker from the London Evening Standard which he bequeathed to the British Museum, and which is currently touring the country. The collection is a series of modern prints and drawings reflecting the major tendencies of British and American art movements from the 1960s onwards, and contextualised by a small number of early 20th century modernist pieces by artists like Picasso and Matisse. I had a wonderful time looking at them, and found some to be very inspiring, while others were just baffling.

Then home for a roast lamb dinner cooked by my husband.

What a wonderful day. I am very lucky.

Soft and fluffy

I have been meaning to post this for a week, but life in our house has been a bit too manic.

Anyway, last week I went on a girls' outing to a local yarn shop in Nottingham (yarn-in-notts.co.uk) ... absolutely brilliant! and run by a lovely and really helpful person.

Thankfully, I did the sensible thing and took my "one skein wonders" book with me so that I would only buy the yarn and needles I absolutely needed (oh so sensible!).

Anyway... I ended up with 2 yarns, some needles and a set of crochet hooks...


I am knitting the "sea foam shawl" from the one skein wonder book. It is in Rowan kidsilk haze... and is so lovely and light. It is going to have a beaded edge. I am dreaming of early summer evenings outside, when the temperature drops just a little, and what is needed is a pretty little shawl.

The other yarn (the turquoise one) is a mohair mix (Bergere de France - Symphonie), and was a very good price, so I am happy to experiment with it. I am hoping to try a shrug from this one.

In the meantime I knitted a flower brooch for my sister in fiery orange eyelash yarn with a crimson and orange button centre. It was a little thank you for her being such a good sister, and all the things she has helped me with recently.

Art class week 10

This week in my art class, we were invited to begin our own project and receive personalised help with the piece of work. The tutor also brought in an arrangement of glasses and bottles, which we could paint if we wished.

Well, I decided to fulfill my objective for this class, which was to paint a picture of my house. I am pleased with what I have done... I think I managed to keep it well under control, and there is only 1 piece of artistic license!!!!

The night before Christmas

It feels like the night before Christmas. The secret pal pairings are due tomorrow, and I am looking forward to getting to know my secret pal, and also becoming a secret pal to someone else. I have been saving small boxes in which I can post my gifts to my secret pal, and have had so many ideas of great things to send, but so far have resisted so that I can find out what she (or he) likes and what she (or he) is in to.

Someone gave me a great way to sum up a day... it is to answer 5 simple questions. I jot these down every now and then, it is amazing how much it shows about a day and your frame of mind... Here is today's:

1. If today were a colour what would it be? answer: orange.
2. What smell sums up today? answer: freshly mown grass.
3. What did you dream of last night? answer: dancing the flamenco.
4. Name one thing you will do tomorrow. answer: paint my hallway.
5. What is the best thing that has happened today? answer: going to my art class, and getting feedback on my painting of the riverbank.

There are no pictures to post today. The art class was mostly a demonstration on acrylic and oil painting, and I am waiting to buy a crochet hook before I can start my amigurami.

I got some nice reactions to my knitted flowers yesterday, and showed someone else the strange twisting thing you do to shape the petals.

Anyway... when you read this, hello secret pal, I am pleased to meet you.

Another attempt...

So, mid ground and background brush strokes, and to an extent colours, are still eluding me. But here is my latest attempt at a painting. I am pleased to have included trees, buildings AND a PERSON!!!! in this picture.

I like the fineness of the work on the buildings. I see all the mistakes in the mid ground trees, but am not sure how to correct it. But still, overall, I am quite pleased.

This was homework, so I will see what teacher says tomorrow....

Tomorrow's lesson is a foray into acrylics... Yikes!

Here we go... here we go... here we go...

Please excuse the completely out of character football chant, but I am feeling so pleased to have mastered the "provisional cast on" method from the one skein wonder book... with the help of a friend and the loan of a crochet hook...

I can now tackle the shawl I have been longing to try... and also one of the hard-to-find knitted patterns for amigurami (as opposed to crocheted ones).

Feeling very accomplished tonight! (A rare feeling!)

Art class week 7

The challenge today was to paint a picture in water colour from a picture or photograph of our choice.

Mine is of an Australian outback farm building.

I really enjoyed doing this picture, and I learned a lot about mark making in the foreground, mid-ground and background.

In my art class, I am sitting next to a young Muslim girl. She is very interested in drawing objects from her culture, and today she brought in an ornate brass coffee pot to do a painting of. It was lovely, she got the shape beautifully.

There is also an interesting fellow who sits the other side of the class from me. He looks like John Prescott, and is quite gruff. He likes to do Turner style pictures, and boasted that he took the same approach to painting with watercolour as he does to emulsioning. He is odd, because he pretends to be a beginner and declare that everything is too technical and too complicated for him, and yet he gives away, through his comments, the fact that he knows a lot about painting and art.

Anyway, a most enjoyable session today.

Half balls and scraps

My knitting needles have been busy this weekend. I have been trying some more of the patterns from "one skein wonder" which is proving to be a great way for me to try out new stitches and techniques.

I tried the tamashanta pattern this weekend. Something went a bit wrong though, as it is not wide enough in the main part of the hat, and not flat enough on top. My little boy likes it though, and has claimed it for himself. Athough I was disappointed overall, I was very pleased with my seed stitch, and the very neat way of decreasing at the top of the hat. I had also adapted the pattern to knit on 2 straight needles instead of a circular needle, so maybe that had something to do with it.

More successful were some knitted flowers which I intend to sew brooch backs onto and use to liven up my spring jackets (yes spring is here now!!). This involves a very strange twisting action which twists the entire piece of work around the needle, and then catches it in place with the next stitch.

Homework - trees of green

This week I have managed to do a piece of homework for my art class. I wanted to use the colour theory we learned a week ago to produce a range of shades of green that could be used to convey distance. The brighter, purer greens being foreground colours, and muted ("greyer") greens in the distance.

Our art teacher insists that we use a palette of only 6 colours (2 yellow, 2 blues and 2 reds) and mix all our shades from first principles. That way we understand what we are doing with colour.

My attempt below is a little confused, but the basic elements are there. Disastrously, I changed tack part way through, and so some of the colour ranges I had established became wrong in relation to the other items I was putting into the picture. So, for example, although the foreground trees have good foreground colours, the greens immediately around them are more mid-ground, and some of the mid ground colours come too far forwards. I also struggle with changing the brush strokes I use to help to convey distance. I need to work on a range of different brush marks.