Rambling Warps

Finger mitts & children's art

I don't have any photos, but I have a sort of FO to report, which I'm wearing now: a fingerless mitten for my right hand. I'm thinking about making short fingers for it because the openness feels weird and my hand is still cold, well my fingers are where they're still exposed.. must be a circulation problem related to how I hold the mouse.

Actually might go ahead and make a cashmere fingerless glove to keep my right hand warm, I've got some 4 ply and it would be thinner than my worsted weight fingerless mitt is and more comfy...the yarn for this mitt is Stahl Big Print, the rainbow color... it's a little itchy... the other one will probably be a full mitten with a pointer finger, which will be good for driving...

Jane Pauley's show today

Today Jane Pauley's show featured children's art & brought up the sore spot I have about art in the schools... it's become less important, though this year, Evan, Micah & Harrison's school are trying to do more with fine arts than in the past, but the regular teachers are supposed to cover it. I don't remember seeing it listed on their report cards, and they don't have an Art Teacher... still is better than nothing, but I do try to encourage art at home to some degree...

I thought some of the children's art on the show was pretty cool... their abstract paintings seem to0 be better than some of the "professional" abstract paintings!

Project Insanity

I need to figure out what's going to be my next project...here are a bunch of possibilities:

Knitting:

(ongoing: socks & dishcloths)

Something with White Buffalo: either the Poncho in "From the Hip" (which would be WONDERFUL for chilly soccer days)... or a cowichan style jacket.

Bulky Donegal tweed pullover

Philosopher's wool sweater for Reuven

Rogue with worsted weight Donegal Tweed

Weaving/Tapestry weaving-
No decision dilemma here: I'll be working on a poncho on the largest setting of my triangle loom with Scandia yarn when the loom is free..otherwise, I'll work on shawls to send the gallery.

Tapestry Bag on a box...need to get a bit more comfortable with tapestry techniques... can pick this up anytime I feel like it...

Drawing:
Cats & more cats... in prismacolor...

Plus I've got yarn for a couple of other projects including a slip stitch sweater with some yarn I bought from MD S&W in 1991...and Annabel Fox's Tattoo, an intarsia project... I'm still not real sure about the background yarn, but I have all the foreground yarn!

Our heater broke down...Gary's been trying to fix it. He tracked the problem down to a wire that goes between the heater and the circuit box. Right now he's waiting for the battery for his drill to charge up so he can drill a hole in the floor to replace the wire. I hope that's all that the problem is and we'll have heat again tonite. It's supposed to get cold... we've had decent weather the last few days, but tomorrow it is supposed to be in the mid 30s... those of you in the cold climates shut up... especially if you have working heaters...

Have a wonderful holiday season, everyone!

Prismacolor cat & shooting star shawl

Here's a picture of an in progress colored pencil painting of a friend's cat:

It's pretty small, around 2-1/2" or 3" square and I did this to see how well I could get the cat's expression/attitude and also to see how much I could do without using a grey colored pencil. It has a bit of a Van Gogh influence, doesn't it? But I still need more work and I plan to do a bit of experimenting with grey pencils since this cat & the other 2 that will be in the piece are Russian blue kitties...I will definitely still use blues for the undercolor even with the grey... my friend said that I caught Purl's pissed off look!

As far as color goes, I'm not a purist about color or methods...and I like breaking rules...whatever works!

I brought it to the art guild meeting since tonite's program was critiques... the professor recognized the medium as prismacolor right away... not sure if that is good or not! He said he liked the build up of color. I felt like I got positive response to the picture from others even though it is a WIP (work in progress)... the others had their work framed, except for the sculpture pieces... and one painting was on an unframed canvas...

Here's the shawl I wove using bulky wool handpainted yarn around Thanksgiving:

It's in a gallery now... hopefully someone will buy it and will be warm!

The boys are on their winter break now.... they'll be home until the first Monday in January. Hopefully there won't be TOO many fights, and hopefully we'll find things to do over the break.

Friday I'll work on getting another dishcloth or two done and hopefully wil get them photographed!

Reuven woke up and now he is asleep sitting in my lap with his head on my forearm... limbs are starting to get numb!

this and that

Got a bit of a bug or something...woke up cramping this morning & was doing good to put the twins' lunches together...and was alternating between that & sleep for about 4 hours. It's subsided since... Micah had something like this last week and Harrison had it yesterday or/and the day before so I guess it's viral and not something we ate...bleah.

At least it's not making me throw up, I'm one of those people who think the world is ending when I feel like I have to throw up... granted we usually feel better after "the purge" but I'd rather not, y'know? LOL Evan's that way... the rest of the family seem to be more neutral and blase about throwing up, but Evan & I get emotional & panicky!

I will have some photos soon, of a shawl that I sent to a gallery and maybe some other things as well. They're on a CD rom, all I need to do is crop and save.

Evan's teacher is leaving after this week: she's getting married and moving to another state, so I've been working on making some dishcloths and also trying to figure out a place to get a couple of nice soaps to make up a pretty basket. I'm doing at least one of the dishcloths using Tahki Cotton Dot... the one that i just finished is beige with black dots and I'm not sure which color I'll use next. I'm working on a petal dishcloth in yellow with white dots, but need to see what else, may pick up a ball or two of the Sugar & Cream from walmart...

Also I'm going to start a pattern from philosophers wool soon... I have their book and will probably do a Jenna Louise in blues and dark reds for Reuven... will dye some of the yarn myself (I have slate blue, dark wine red, yellow and green) and am getting some other colors to go with it such as light blue, turquoise, gold and a couple of others)...

Last week I got another book by Ann Kullberg...titled Colored Pencil Portraits. She is awesome. Someday I'll write more about her work...and maybe post some more of my own. The possibilities in colored pencil are awesome, it's not just grabbing a pencil and putting a little pigment on paper, but you have to build up the color... I just need to practice!

Gonna go rest for a bit!