". Arranged Words: shawl
Showing posts with label shawl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shawl. Show all posts

29 Aug 2017

Tuesday It Is

Hi everyone,

Since I've been on the go, it's been awhile since I've been here on Tuesday. 
I hope you all had a great summer, and or fall/winter. Not that summer is over yet, but I do feel that nip in the air.  And a few trees have been stroked by nature's paintbrush to keep us aware of the beauty yet to come.

Because I wanted to travel light, I only had a cell phone with me while traveling. I don't have the pics organized yet, but, hopefully, I'll have a few arranged soon, especially a pic of the seahorses that  I saw at Ripley's Aquarium in Toronto. I've waited all my life to see them. Sweet things!

Chrysanthemums . . . traditional autumn blooms.

I love the divine colour of these Begonias. 
My dahlias didn't grow very big, but they are appreciated.

 Common Arrowheads. So pretty!
Abigail--mission control.  
My first attempt at fashioning paper clay. A trinket dish painted with acrylic paint and stamped in the middle with a stamp I carved awhile ago. Can't wait to try another. Next time I'll try watercolour paint.
If you haven't tried Paperclay, I think you will love it. It's light weight and versatile.  It air dries in a day (no heat required) and you can paint it with acrylic or watercolour.  

 Water colour added to my sketchbook doodles. Tricky...you can only add a bit liquid or the paper lifts. My Stillman and Burn Zeta series sketchbooks recently arrived, so they should be better for watercolour.

Fern frond and maple seeds.


On the needles. . .
Swallowtail shawl.  Yarn Brooklyn Tweed's Vale... so lovely and squishy to knit with.


Cultivate your dreams.

  Have a lovely week...and enjoy a great long Labour Day weekend for my U.S. and Canadian pals.

19 Apr 2016

Knitting Projects ~ Tulip Tree Shawl


The tulip tree shawl has been in my knitting basket with just three rows left to knit for a long time, so hurray to a finish.  I had hoped to make it larger, but I didn't have enough yarn. Raverly page here.

Enjoyable, meditative, and patience enhancing are just a few of the things/qualities that knitting brings to me and probably a whole host of other knitters, although I can't speak for them. I wish I could do more of it, but about three years ago arthritis struck suddenly and with it came tendonitis, so I was forced to put my needles aside. On the bright side, I've still managed to finish a few projects, including my Rosetta Mitts pattern in 2015. And I've nearly finished knitting another pair of those mitts in yellow, but I've put them away for now.  

Drawing and painting are so much easier on the hands. It's a reinvention of sorts, but one that I really love, too.

For those who may not know, lace knitting looks rather like a jumble of uncooked noodles (forgot to take a pic) and then it morphs into a fine tuned garment once soaked and then blocked.

An old yoga mat that's been cleaned to use as a blocking mat.
After blocking, I noticed the bottom points looked flat, so I re-wet and re-pined those points to sharpen them.
The yarn has a golden hue, but the camera had other ideas.

You will find the free Rosetta Mitts pattern here.

A Maestro cutout from an earlier painting. I usually cut any trash bin paintings into strips and use the white side of the strips to test paint on. But even though he's not finished, I couldn't cut through this birdie. The cutout might work in a shadow box, or as a book mark, although it may be too delicate for that.

Warm weather arrived on Sunday. It was 19C or 66.2 F. The crowd that had been hibernating most of the winter were about and about...many in shorts and flip flops.  Although those temps are cool, the spring sun was warm...hot even. Liberation! 
As the woman in the woods,  and I saw one of the first harbingers of spring: a  Mourning Cloak Butterfly. I've never seen or heard about one before. What a surprise! Another first for my nature journal.

A huge thank you for all your kind comments and support for my wee new shoppe.
xo

Have a lovely week...

9 Feb 2015

Ready to Wear


I finally finished the shawl that I began knitting in December. I don't own blocking wires, but after knitting and blocking several shawls I am getting faster at the block out, and I enjoy it now that I've gotten used to the smell of wet wool, which I vividly remember from snowy childhood walks. Well almost...I wear a mask.

What's not to like about this pattern? I love the knit-on edging and the pattern is beautifully written. That makes me wildly happy because a well written pattern makes knitting fun and so much easier, and emphatically states that the designer, in this case, Carolyn, of Carolyn Knits really cares about her product and loves her work!

 You can find my Raverly project page and a few more pics here.

* * *
Think Spring!
Heads up!
As you can see, I am thinking about spring.  And since the groundhog didn't see his shadow on February 2nd, I reckon it will happen soon. Ha! Well, officially in 6 weeks...

~ I will leave you with a tip that I read somewhere. To keep the heads on your cut tulips from drooping push a straight pin through the stem a wee bit down from the flower head; remove pin and continue until all tulips have been pierced.  Because tulips like the cold, I drop a few ice cubes into the water now and then as well.

P. S.  The envelope I bought for the draw on the  Feb. 15th just needs an address that will be chosen on that day with the help of a random number generator.  Good luck!  Click the GYB post on the sidebar for details.


Have A Happy Valentine's Day! ♥ 
              

30 Dec 2014

On the Cusp of a New Year

I've been loving the sunshine that ripples through the prisms in the morning, creating fiery displays on the floors and walls. The colours are gorgeous. It really brightens up the day!
And outside my window it looks like spring. Over the holidays, we had temps in the teens, and that has made short work of the two feet of snow we had. What a welcome reprieve!


My sketchbooks are getting fuller and I have a few items ready to paint. One 9 x 12 sketch that I am hoping with turn out well with the help of some new paints that arrived the other day. 

 


On the needles...




With the stash dwindling drastically,  I couldn't find enough contrasting yarn to work the stripes in this shawl in another colour, so I've opted for the monochrome look, but I think I have enough navy blue to work the lace edging. If, that is, it doesn't look too stark without the stripes to balance it.

Thank you for reading along this year.


    Happy New Year!