Splash of colour.

A few days ago I finished a project that was really enjoyable. I decided to make a cat blanket, using scraps of yarn left over from other projects. The result was amazing. A rainbow of colours. Are cats colourblind, I wonder?  If that is the case, it may be a blessing, otherwise they might be dazzled.

I made approximately 100 little 2.5 x 2.5 granny squares, with a well known pattern (I see it all over Ravelry and other crochet sites), and double crocheted them together. The yarn I used was one of my favourites, Patons Sorbet. I think I have mentioned it before. It’s a cotton blend, aran weight (worsted weight for those who are in the States and Canada), and its good for things like bags or something that needs to be fairly thickish  or rugged, like a bathmat. So should be good for a pet blanket 🙂

I enjoyed making this so much, that I am now making something similar, though not for a cat. It’s so easy to pick up, do a few squares and put down again and makes my 50,000 stitch target for NaKnitMo, a breeze, (at least I think it will). I’m so proud of the girls who are doing this challenge, (actually, I think there is a male in there someone as well), but the totals some are racking up every day are incredible. For the rest of us, it’s just a chance to pick up unfinished projects and get them finished, make presents ready for christmas, and generally have a lot of fun. It’s surprising how quickly the stitch totals increase and several people have upped their targets already. I don’t think I will be doing that yet. I am managing to keep up with this blog for the NaBloPoMo, but haven’t done much for NaNoWriMo. I have been planning my plot, but not writing the book! Ah well, tomorrows another day.

Artistic endeavours

I spent much of Sunday drawing buttercups. It wouldn’t have taken me so long to do the drawings if I’d just read the Swap requirements, but I think I’m so used to creating ATCs that I just had it in my mind that that was what I had to do. So, I got my tablet out and did a digital painting of a buttercup, and I’m quite pleased with it. The only trouble was that when I re-read the requirements, I was supposed to do a much larger sketch. I think I had asked previously if I could do a digital, one, so that part was ok, but it needed to be much bigger. Ok, so I could have enlarged it and printed off a bigger version, but that didn’t seem like playing the game. So…I toddled off to find my pencils and watercolour crayons, and a sketch pad, and created another sketch.

Well, this one was ok too, until I decided to colour it. It actually looked much better as a pencil drawing. As soon as I put colour to it, it looked awful. By now I was running out of time, and still had a card to make for the swap, so I decided to leave it. All I did was laminate it to stop it tearing, and cut it to size. Then I set about making a card, having had a brainwave when I saw the blank card stock. Why not do another buttercup for the card, just to prove that I can draw? So, Buttercup number three followed, which was very good until I decided it would look better if inked over. It didn’t! I finished off, pretty disillusioned by now, by drawing three more mini buttercups in a left hand margin, and left it at that.

And the lesson learned? Don’t leave your swaps till the last minute. Do them straightaway, so that you have plenty of time to red0 them, and redo them…and …

See what you think..

 

 

Fun with ATCs

I have been having fun making more ATC’s for swaps and as ‘extras’ for my swap partners. I also made some bookmarks, remembering to keep them as flat as possible so that I could laminate them.

 

 

 

 

 

                      

And lastly some cat ATCs. I didn’t plan on making these…they just happened!!

 

                  

Random cards

I have been holed up today crafting, making cards and ATcs. Two of the cards were for family, and all the ATCs are for swaps. The first set is flower themed. The swap was for one flower ATC, but I always do an extra, and then, thinking I had finished, I checked for my partners address and realised that I had not read her profile. Reading her profile meant that I learned that she particularly likes violets, so I made another ATC with violets and then a card to accompany the swap package. I quite like these. People always seem to add text, but I think it’s often nicer just to let the images do the talking. Anyway, here are the ATCs.

         

 

 

Having finished these, I then turned to a card for my neice who celebrates her first birthday shortly. I decided to stick with easy images, ladybird and butterfiles, and some toadstools and leaves, and made them brightly coloured. I used my cuttlebug for all the images except the butterflies. I hope it is stimulating enough,or at least colourful enough to capture her interest.

 

Next was a card for my daughter. I am sending her the bag I crocheted for her (previous post) and made the card to accompany it, and explain the surprise. This card is in colours I wouldn’t normally use. I love my purples and pinks, blues and greens…but yellows, oranges, peachy pink?!! Well I quite like the colour combination in this and I think it’s refreshingly different for me.

 

And lastly, I made some ATc’s for a swap called ‘The colour Purple’.  Self explanatory really. Of course, being this colour, I was in my element. I had the drawer of flowers out after making the flower ATC’s so I ended up using more flowers. I did try to vary the theme a bit in one of them…the stripy ribbon one, but even then the desire to add a flower got the better of me. My favourite is the one with the crochet diamond. I really like these, and make no apologies for lushness or overcrowding. They are sumptuous and purple. Brilliant! Gosh…I really hope my swap partners love purple as much as I do, and flowers! 🙂

        

          

 

Quite a day for crafting, and at least three cards to make tomorrow!.

Best get some sleep!

Today’s cards

This morning’s cards turned out well. Three little notecards to accompany prizes or swaps and a congratulations card. This made use of a quilted leaf, which I couldn’t resist using. I was sent a pack from Ebay this morning, three different colours and I intend using them to make a mobile, but I pinched a couple for this card, and for an ATC.

 

   

Black and white ATCs

I have just finished a swap, ready to send to my swap partner. Three (I had to do two, but I did an extra one) black and white hand drawn ATCs. The theme was our own choice and wasn’t defined by your partner’s profile, which is just as well as it took me ages to decide what to draw. I’ve had a migraine for the last four or five days, and found drawing quite difficult. I managed to finish tonight, and although not my best art, better than something I could have done at the beginning of this blog, a year ago. I think I am progressing. I still have difficulties avoiding a woodeness about my drawn objects, but that is improving slowly. I just haven’t twigged what it is that’s stopping it become more realistic. Possibly my shading needs to be softer or blended more appropriately.

 

        

The quiet season

For all that I have been busy, I haven’t done much crafting. I thought that there would be a load of stuff to put onto the blog, but had to search to find anything at all. Definitely a lull in productivity. This is partly because I have been concentrating on the back room, but partly because I have not been well. I have fibromyalgia which has been bad the last few weeks and slows me down completely. It would seem that the mojo has disappeared and all I can do is hope that he will come back! meanwhile, here are some piccies of recent work…not many though!

 

                               

 

Long time no see…

It seems ages since I was on here. So much for being disciplined abd writing every day. Trouble is, I have an interest in too many things and I don’t have time to devote to them all. I love my art, but equally love my crafts, and my writing. There are different aspects to each, such as reading , which also take up time, and then there is life, which has a habit of impeding you, just as you think you have everything under control. Not that anything has happened to impede me lately, but I just get very tired!

I have been busy though. Very busy. I got Corel Painter X for my birthday and have been playing with that. I wasn’t convinced that it was going to be worth all the money I paid, (which in itself was a fraction of the full price), but I have to say, I am hooked! The variety and options for brushes and techniques is mind boggling, and it will take me a long time to become really familiar with it. I lost the programme the other night. It wouldn’t open up for more than a second and then crashed. After two hours of trying every possible remedy and reading what folk on the forums said (it is apparently a common problem) I eventually said to my OH, that the logical explanatopn was that I had done something while using it to change it in some way which it didn’t like. So I thought back to what I had done…the last action being to import a photo into the resources file. So I deleted the photo and hey presto, back to normal. I eventually discovered that the picture should have gone into another folder, within a folder, which was within a folder in the resources folder…if you follow. So now we know! The point of this story being that I was wondering what I was going to do without my Corel Painter X. I am already relying on it!

That aside, I think the results of my efforts are getting better as you can see above. When I consider my work a year ago when I first began art again after a very long break (35 years), I think I have come a long way. Still much further to go, but it is a very pleasurable journey!

 

Pear No.2

I had another go at using my new pear rubber stamp. After several more attempts and a flat surface, I managed what I thought was a better print. I have made it (well two versions of the pear..to make it 3D) into a copy of yesterday’s card. This is the result, though I am not sure that it is much better. I think I need some more practice.

I then decided to do a challenge , set by Daring Cardmakers, to make a card incorporating a teabag. This was my effort… 

 

and I finished off with another stamp, this time of flowers (Hero Arts), in my favourite colour – purple 🙂

I will start writing soon!

 

First attempts

Well. I still haven’t been writing. No, I am still in the clutches of crafting and art. I have been trying out my new Corel Painter software. I haven’t checked out the tutorials yet, but I will. With the help of publisher, (I suppose it should be photoshop) I have painted and put together the following:-

                        

 

I also managed a couple of cards. I actually got out some watercolours to paint the stamped images. First time I have ever painted with them ( well…coloured in).