Weaving Rainbow: This & That

Just stuff

This is a mobius cowl I wove on my Rigid Heddle loom... Saori inspired! It was nice & cozy! I'll have to take a photo of it laid "straight" sometime!

Been painting a little bit & am blogging my artwork at this link

New (to me) Spinning Wheel coming home soon

Well, I've arranged to buy an older (1980s) Ashford Traditional spinning wheel & will pick it up next week... meanwhile, I need to do a little research for what all I need to get for it (and where)...

Here's a photo:

I know I'll need the following for it:

drive belt
tension knob
footman connector
whorl (if you want this one is chipped but works)

I'm not sure how many bobbins it comes with, so may need some of those. I already have a Lazy kate & will probably use that one for now...

I'll be reading my book "Care & Feeding of Spinning Wheels" and posting on some forums for ideas...

I'm looking forward to this!

re: other things: I'm probably going to start on a Briggs & Little Country Roving cardigan.. have been swatch-practicing & because of the way I knit, I will probably have to go down 2 needle sizes to get gauge... I'm already using a smaller needle and used a size 8 (us) for the ribbing...

This is the pattern (and I plan to add pockets and may do the design differently):

Sorry about the photo quality, but it's all I have at the moment...

I still may do Shawnigan, not sure though! I'd like to work top down, but have heard that there are issues with the fit for Shawnigan, too tight or something...

The pattern can be found here on Ravelry or here on the Rams Wools' website

Plus I do prefer the style of the B&L jacket. It looks warmer!

I had a great time at the last art guild meeting: Ken McFarlane came & demonstrated scratchboard drawing & gave us small boards to try & a picture of a lion.. that was awesome!

Ken McFarlane

I'll take a picture of what I did sometime...so now when I look at things with ideas for drawing, I think in terms of scratching out the lighter areas as well as drawing the darker areas! :)

Nano! NaNoDoWha?

Okay, I want to start a sweater/jacket... can't find one that I like in the thrift stores, or even in the local stores, so I'll try my hand at something Cowichan inspired. I'm not sure if it would have 50,000 stitches or not, so may or may not qualify for NoKniSweMo... not even with an added hood, though there was one gal who was thinking of making more than one child/baby sweater...

WHAtEVER.. this is my jacket, whether or not it qualifies for NaNoSweMo, I'm fine with it...

Plus, 50,000 stitches would butt into my painting/art time, so, I'll just call this my NaNoDoWha month and just DO stuff I like to do... :) That works for me...

I oughtta come up with some sort of badge for this...

This and That

Okay, 29 Faces barely happened for me last month, only did a couple of pictures... hopefully today I'll have started a new trend with myself: I got out of my sketchbook today & did a painting. Granted it was one of those Creatology Canvas paint kits, with the design outlined & 4 or 5 tiny tubes of dried out colors. I ended up pulling out my Liquitex Acrylic paints & did this:

Click picture to embiggen. The angle is weird, but that is because it was hung on the wall by the foot of the bed.. and there were a couple of laundry baskets in the way & I wanted to get close to the picture. Someday I'll learn to take good pictures, OR I'll get someone else to take them for me.

I think of this as a warm-up for familiarization with the materials.
Yes, I used the design that was imprinted onto the canvas.
Yes this is a child's version of paint by numbers.
SO WHAT!!! It was fun!

I don't see how people paint on easels! I kept turning the painting around to work on it from different angles. I mostly used a painting knife & a couple of small brushes. This piece was on the small side & I think I may enjoy painting on a larger scale... and knowing me, I'll still want to turn the painting around and around as I work on it.

I put it up on the wall, out of reach of the cats, so it can dry overnight & tomorrow I'll see if I want to do any touching up on the colors & maybe put a coat of varnish on it, but may need to wait until Wednesday for that. Need to read the instructions on the varnish bottle first... I think it's 24 hours before you put varnish on.

I figure, if I can keep this up and paint regularly, the 100th painting will be a lot better than this one.

I have several masonite boards (or whatever they are called these days) in different sizes, and I'm not sure how we're going to put them up on the wall; perhaps some type of hooks or sawtooth hangers or similar or come up with some way to store the paintings while they are drying... they can be put in frames later on, but need to find some way to hang them to dry, especially with the cats around... plus having them on the wall is a good way to analyze them & also see progress...

Other stuff

Stealth knitting, so won't talk about those projects right now... :)
I do want to make myself a warm tam/beret... and I've got some bulky thick/thin yarn that I'd like to handpaint, but that will have to wait unless I want to use the colors I have OR use kool aid...

Also, I've been looking for a job... not really getting anywhere with that, but will keep trying. Tomorrow, Gary has to go to the doctor's office for some bloodwork, so I may not be able to tomorrow. Idea: Maybe I can find out if Dollar General in 2 different towns does their stocking on the same or different days. Hmmm... the only other jobs that they have are general running the store/cash register, etc... I'm not super comfortable with the cash register part & am also not sure about talking to customers. I used to be able to lipread better..

Will just have to keep trying, that's all! And maybe in a few weeks, I'll be able to sell some paintings. I really enjoyed playing with the paint & the texture with the knife and brush. I don't need to have a sharp/clear edge...