Even though it’s getting cold and nasty, doesn’t mean it can’t look pretty from the inside. This pheasant clearly thinks he’s king of the garden. Or maybe he’s just waiting for the sparrows to drop a few seeds from the feeder…
Author: Pia
Finally
Got my painter’s “corner” set up in the living room by rearranging furniture. Now I just have to battle my performance anxiety alongside my urge to spend a fortune on supplies….
So taking up this hobby again after 10-15 years (not counting computer graphics and similar antics) has been a strong urge lately but also brought out all sorts of fears. I have no idea why this resistance exists in me, it must mean it’s somehow important and my subconscious wants to fight it with any means to make me lay off and continue my old path. It’s futile, as I’m determined to keep pushing, but an interesting process, a tug of war. I guess I not only have an inner critic I need to talk some sense into, but also a drama queen and somewhere in the far corner lives Marvin, the paranoid android.
I might get wheelies for this if I get into large paintings again, since I’m short and it’ll be a struggle to reach over a 40 cm deep shelf. But I really like these square modules with all the different kinds of baskets and accessories that you can get. And if I can just roll it to the right under the window, it won’t be a problem! You can say a lot about IKEA stuff, but it sure is easy to set up in no time, even by an arthritic midget like myself. (am I a weirdo for actually liking that kind of activities?)
There was absolutely nowhere this would have fit in here before we turned sofa and tv 180 degrees, but we don’t actually feel more cramped than before, so that’s a definite win – just have to live with one part backing up to the window. An added bonus is, I can now see the fireplace from the sofa.
To be continued….
â Leave a Comment
PÃ¥ dansk
SÃ¥ fik vi endelig drejet sofaen 90 grader og tv’et flyttet til den anden væg, sÃ¥ jeg kunne fÃ¥ mig et lille hobbyhjørne i stuen. SÃ¥ mangler jeg bare at finde ud af, om jeg overhovedet KAN male efter sÃ¥ mange Ã¥rs pause, det føles faktisk lidt skræmmende selvom lysten er der. Underligt, at man kan have sÃ¥ modsatrettede følelser for noget som bare skulle være sjov og ballade, ikke? Men jeg vælger at tolke modstanden fra min underbevidsthed som et tegn pÃ¥, at jeg faktisk har gang i noget vigtigt, sÃ¥ den indre kritiker kan fÃ¥ en finger kan den. Basta.
For at det hele ikke skal komme til at ligne et formningslokale har jeg tænkt mig at sætte et stykke klar plast pÃ¥ væggen bag lærrederne, lige til at pille ned hvis der kommer gæster, ligesom min “fine” røde voksdug hurtigt kan fjernes fra spisebordet. Til daglig er vi ret ligeglade med den slags, det er et sted vi lever, ikke en udstilling…. Og jeg ved, at hvis jeg skal bruge en halv time pÃ¥ at rydde pynteting væk og finde ting frem inden jeg kan komme i gang, ja, sÃ¥ bliver det ikke til noget. Nu kan jeg jonglere med farvepulver sÃ¥ snart jeg kommer ud af brusebadet med en god ide til noget nyt garn, og lærredet sidder pÃ¥ væggen og rÃ¥ber til mig hver gang jeg træder ind af døren: ikke flere dÃ¥rlige undskyldninger!
Fortsættelse følger…
Dye day
I decided to clean out my dye shelf and start afresh, running out of 1% “clean” colours and lots of little leftovers cluttering the place that I no longer remember the formula for.
So I dug out my bin of Suffolk fleece and just kept throwing chunks and dyes into a couple of pots of vinegar water, keeping them hot all the while.
And then I got all excited, mixed up a new batch of each dye and began mixing again to dye the rest of the fleece. For some reason all my different reds turned out a pretty similar orange, but that can be fixed….
This means I’m done “spot” dyeing my Suffolk fleece, apart from the batch I’m going to flick and spin as is or comb on my superfines.
I’d love to process the rest on a drumcarder however, because it’s not in any kind of lock formation, so I’m going to leave it for a bit to see if I can get a hold of one. Possibly spend idle hours (a concept I once read about) picking and flicking so the VM is gone.
It’s been separated into colour groups, each one will be a yarn I think.
Recently I also dyed some more Shetland for my sweater project
And a couple of sock yarns that are supposed to look like worn denim.
Paper prints
Dry flowers apparently aren’t my thing, they look very dull and broken, some leaves might be useful. I don’t know if I went overboard squishing them real hard with clamps on the books?
I do still plan to try some garden printing, when time allows. There must be stuff out there that I can use even late in the season! Maybe I can do it on pieces of cloth that I plan to plant dye, if I use acrylics, they shouldn’t wash off no matter what I put the material through afterwards, at least that’s the deal when I get it on my clothes…. (does anyone paint and manage to look pretty throughout?) I wish I had some more fluid paints than the ones I have, guess I’ll have to invest in Golden acrylics next time.
In the meantime I saw those posts on plant dyeing on paper, which I just had to give a go although late in the season. Next summer and flowers and new dyebed (which hubby at the moment has decided to till for me as a first prep! Yay him!)
First session went quite well although I had no idea how to “steam” the paper, nor how to best keep the sandwiches tight and not floating apart. So I’ll be getting some alder leaves and some coreopsis from the freezer, and hey! How about all those dry homegrown weld and Dyer’s chamomile I collected!? Any Woad leaves left out there I wonder?
Time to get a bit scientific about it. Two pair of sheets soaked in vinegar, two in aluminium acetate. Alder leaves, more yellow birch leaves and Liquidambar styraciflua. Another sandwich, same mordants, strawberry leaves green and yellow, sage, celandine. In between the 2 sets, a layer of frozen coreopsis tinctoria and blue columbine flowers.
Then there’s the consideration of temps. Will a too high temp give dull prints? How low can you go and still get steam? I started with 150 C because 100 didn’t seem to get steamy. 120 doesn’t seem to quite work either, no visible steam anyway.
I’m showing both front and back of some sheets, since they could be used either way.
Unfortunately at some point in the drying process, I lost track of which 4 sheets were aluminium soaked instead of vinegar, AND forgot in which way they were different. I could identify them by which first sheet has the grate imprint from the oven, but after a 3 day break I also forgot which batch was on the bottom. DUH. Scatterbrain.
I’m happy enough with these results that I’m going to keep playing with paper and plants. Test which seasons give the best results and see if I can find any info on it. Some also say use “dead” leaves collected from the ground, some even use older leaves and soak them first. Hmmmm – I wonder about the above pressed flowers and stuff now?!
A short search gave me:
Cassandra Tondro on eco printing with a recipe (backwards) for paper steaming
The natural surface – great forum
Threadborne list of plants to use
Next challenge: If I order a new batch of water colour paper, can I resist getting pens and inks and other lovely supplies while I’m at it?! Now that I’m getting a micro painting studio and all….
Fall forage
Just a bit of gathering while walking the dog, to keep me occupied during winter in case I get urges.
In addition to the chestnut hulls I brought home, I also gathered spruce cones from the forest.
AND I found one young alder tree on our property that had produced cones, so I got myself a bag of those too.
I then tried to strip the larch trees, but they were not quite ready to let go of their needles, and those which did mostly ended up on my sweater. Tricky! I’ll get back to them in a week or so.
Then I went foraging websites and ended up ordering this canning device with a thermostat, I’m guessing it’s real good for keeping madder root at it’s proper temp as well! Since the jars will be shut I’m wondering if I could use it for apple sauce too. Not sure if I’ve had actual mordants or acid dye in there, what do y’all think?
