Laura Kate

Stash-Busting Border

Posted on December 8, 2023 by Laura Kate

I’m onto a new project that, I hope, will enhance my home while using up a ton of fabric scraps that are stacking up in my studio. It all started when I got tired of looking at the naked drapery rod over my bedroom window.

So I did what any practical woman would do. I browsed images in Pinterest to find out what is trending in home decor these days. Here’s what grabbed my attention:

I like the look, but wasn’t too keen to make this curvy pattern. Instead, I seek to emulate the look of slate mosaic, like the tile border in my shower.

Settling on a pattern of 1-inch squares surrounding a 2-inch center, I pulled all the gray, beige and white fabric left over from my past quilt projects. Next,I sliced them into 1 and 1/2 inch strips, then sewed these together in twos, and fours.

The white strips will serve as sashing between blocks.

Strip sets on the work table.

Attaching the strips to the center, cutting back extra.

After three sessions, I have 25 blocks made with low volume, neutral colors. My estimate is that I will need about 30 for the two borders, depending on how long my draperies end up.

Time to lay out a few to see how the border might look.

Gosh this would be easier if I had a design wall (sigh.) Maybe I’ll have room for that in the next house.

painting

Watercolor Wednesday: Holiday Fun

Posted on December 6, 2023 by Laura Kate

Loose and colorful poinsettia, completed at open studio today. I used a limited palette of lemon yellow, Winsor green and quinacridone red. To finish, I splashed on some metallic yellow paint in a starburst pattern.

drawing

Sunday Sketches: Winter Birds

Posted on December 3, 2023 by Laura Kate

Today I am pondering a painting subject that illustrates wintertime. Pretty quickly I settled on the humble chickadee. It is an ever curious, constantly moving little bird. Today our backyard chickadees are flying back and forth from the tube feeder. Each bird selects and grabs one sunflower before darting up to a tree branch where it consumes its quarry.

Fortunately for me, Bill has shared two photographs of chickadees suitable for my planned painting. But working out a composition that uses both birds is not coming easily to me.

Chickadee 1.

Chickadee 2.

My first try at a composition is awkward and unsatisfactory to me, so it won’t even get shared. I decided to make ink sketches of these two photographs, which will get them familiar and warm me up to the task.

On an 8 by 8 inch piece of paper, the little chickadee, which measures barely 4 inches, can be drawn at its full size. First, I worked out the placement using pencil, then inked the contours lines, adding value with various types of marks. My sweet subjects, black and white IRL, were rendered with ease.

This one is very curious indeed.

This one is demonstrating his love of sunflower seeds.

My two chickadee drawings are numbers 42 and 43 in the 100day project.

Now I need to figure out a scene that will serve as a setting for the two birds.

drawing, painting

Friday Finish: Tutorial with Shari Blaukopf

Posted on December 1, 2023 by Laura Kate

Earlier this year I shared some work made following a tutorial taught by Montreal artist Shari Blaukopf. She is an urban sketcher and watercolorist who offers a wide range of online lessons through Teachable. Today I finished painting A French Village Scene, which is the final lesson in her course by the same name.

https://learn.shariblaukopf.com/courses/

The challenges were multiple: perspective drawing, sketching in ink, and completing the scene with watercolor.

Here is Shari’s reference photo. She took it while teaching in France this year.

I labored over the perspective drawing for 2 or more hours. Perspective drawing doesn’t come easily to me, and I wanted my work to be believable, if not 100% accurate. When satisfied, I inked the important lines and erased the pencil marks.

I was forced to take some liberties with the scene, because my paper was not proportional to the original. Mine is wider.

I did most of the painting before our Thanksgiving trip to Wisconsin. Returning home, I was keen to finish this and get it off my workspace. Other projects, both started and planned are stacking up awaiting my attention.

Here is my (almost) final painting.

It’s a truism, at least for painters, that they must take some time away from a work before deciding that it is finished. So that’s what I will do. Even looking at it now, I see a few areas that need more work.

knitting

ThWIP Thursday – SOCK!

Posted on November 30, 2023 by Laura Kate

Back from Wisconsin and fresh off my no.1 cable needles is this fancy sock – the first of a pair for my beloved husband. It turned out to be a pretty good travel project, as long as I confined my knitting to daylight hours. Under artificial light, the tiny stitches were very difficult to navigate.

I used Kate Davies’ pattern for the Mary Delany sock, with some significant modifications. The first was to make it wider to fit a man’s foot. Fortunately, choosing a larger needle got me most of the way there. I also substituted a 6 st. by 7 row stranded pattern for Kate’s 37 stitch diamond flower pattern.

This pattern is found in 750 Knitting Stitches, the Ultimate Knit Stitch Bible. It worked up beautifully with a light solid and dark-to-medium variegated yarn.

This sock is knit from the toe up. When I got to the cuff ribbing, I switched from a size 2 to a size 1 needle. For a looser bind-off, I went back to the 2..