The weather outside is cool today, so cool that I had to turn on the heater. Fortunately, the cardigan I started in September is finished! Here is a close-up, as it lies drying on the blocking mat.
The yarn is Plymouth Encore worsted weight in color 686.
As you see in the photo, I made the sleeves longer. They come to slightly above my wrists – long enough to keep my arms warm but short enough to stay out of the way when I am making objects or washing dishes. You also see the little lace motif added throughout the body and sleeves. I believe it’s called Snowflake, and can be found in 750 Stitches, The Ultimate Knit Stitch Bible. Other adjustments include picking up 2 extra stitches on either side of the armhole openings, so that there would not be holes in the fabric.
After it’s dry, I’ll sew on the buttons and ask hubby to photograph me in it, so you can see how it fits.
I’m really happy to finish before the week-end. Now I can cast on something new with the yarn I bought at the Farmer’s Market in Madison, WI. More about this on Monday.
My creative bent took an unexpected turn today. I started the day by thinking about Van Gogh. You see in the photo the sunflowers I planted this year. I took this image over my garden fence with the idea that it would make a good reference photo for artwork. To further this end, I made a sketch of the photo this morning.
This is a simplified image that I thought would work well for either water color or fiber. Since I am currently up to my eyeballs in reference photos suitable for water color painting, I decided to make a small art quilt featuring sunflowers.
This is what led my brain to Van Gogh. Sunflowers were a favorite subject of the artist. He liked to paint them as still life images, cut and arranged in a vase.
I intended to portray them growing in the garden. But I wanted to create a “Van Gogh” like background – full of color, motion and energy. Think of Starry Night as an example.
During my blog browsing today, I came across a post from the group 15 by 15. This is a very creative group of quilters who like to work challenges. One of the members mentioned that she used the “confetti technique” to create the background of her new work for the current challenge.
My brain started firing up! What is this “confetti technique?” I must learn more!
Of course You-tube came to the rescue. I found an explanation on how to add confetti to a quilt. There are several techniques, but I watched this one by Gail Hunt.
The rest of the afternoon went like this:
Find a bunch of scraps. (I used several from my Under the Sea quilt, because they already had adhesive attached to them.) With your rotary cutter, slice them to bits.
Arrange on a background fabric and press them down with your iron.
Cover the piece with a bit of tulle or netting. Glue or stitch it in place.
With sewing machine and free motion foot, stitch over the piece like crazy. (I used black thread to meander on the background and sew straight lines over the pale bits.)
Front and Back
I then switched to white thread and made swirls into the dark areas.
I’ve moved on to the next tutorial by Shari Blaukopf. This one is exciting to me because it’s all about techniques for painting water. Still water, moving water, rapids, reflections, waterfalls – these are all subjects that interest me greatly.
First off was brush techniques frequently used to paint water.
Sketchbook – first attempts
Hm, I think the wet into wet needs a little more practice.
A little better.
There’s no substitute for learning by doing, so I moved on to the first subject: Still water. Here you see my sketch and the first washes.
While I might have made the blues darker, I was well enough satisfied to move on to the next steps.
In my enthusiasm to paint, I failed to get photographs of each stage. Let’s just say that there were two more layers of wash (mostly on the trees) and then final details. Once everything had dried, I applied some white gouache lines to the still water.
Completed painting:
While I feel that I succeeded in getting the reflections right, I’m not terribly satisfied with the overall painting. I’ll probably try it again.
Friday, Oct 2nd. Today I painted the still water scene again. This rendition is much more pleasing to me.
The colors are cleaner and more transparent. The sky and water are vibrant instead of washed out. And the vegetation in the background is clearly defined.
Blogger friends, I was pleased to be selected by the folks at LYS Harps and Thistles to appear in their weekly newsletter. This yarn shop is in Cuyahoga Falls, OH, next store to where I grew up. If I only lived in Ohio, it would become my regular hang-out. (sigh)
Anywhoo, the newsletter is full of interesting articles and links to events. Here is the issue that features myself and my blog.
Their webmaster did a great job with the images and narrative. The only correction I would make concerns my mom. The newsletter says she was a quilter. She STILL IS a quilter at the ripe age of 90. She even has a high-end, computerized sewing machine with all the bells and whistles. Go, Mom!
Daily Fiber 