Category: Chit Chat

Monday morning

PiaChit Chat

before the storm

After a fine weekend getting a few of the outdoor chores done, Sunday afternoon began to drizzle with high winds promised for Monday and Tuesday, possibly even a storm at some point. Must remember to fetch some more firewood! Sofa, blanket, fire, tea, knitting, a movie – not such a bad autumn vacation if you ask me.

I tried to play with some long exposure photography, only to find out that both my old tripods (one of them I bought used in 1987!) are dysfunctional. One is missing the gizmo that attaches the camera, the other one swivels horisontally by the slightest touch and won’t lock in place. I guess I have to do a bit of shopping with winter and low light on the doorstep if I want to try more than snaphots.

long exposure leaves - no photoshopping!

I also managed to harvest and use dye plants from the garden, but more about that later since the wool is still drying. I had to make quite a thick layer of fleece to fit everything on the clothes rack, so it’s going to take some time. That means the carder is also resting, because however long I’ve wanted one I don’t actually have any recently planned projects for it, and I’m rather in a picture mood at the moment. (until I’m not)

There’s a tweed yarn planned which involves carding silk noil into longer fibers, but all fiber I have is already blended or white, so that requires more dyeing. Well, technically I could start on the part of the fleece that was dyed last year. But that actually requires me to remove all my paint stuff, and I don’t want to right now. I think next week will be a good week!

But apart from 20-odd bushes that need to be moved, I think I’m pretty much done with reporting on outdoor activities this year. Time to look closer at the painting, the yarn and the Photoshopping. Suits me fine, I couldn’t care less about the garden right now…. Just need to make that apple sauce – perhaps today?

The little house in a field

Mens vi ventdanisher på storm

Den lune weekend blev til regn og rusk, heldigvis kan jeg sidde inde med god samvittighed, da vi fik ordnet et af efterårets udendørs projekter. Må huske at få hentet mere brænde inden det går rigtig løs!

Legede også lidt med lange eksponeringer, men begge mine gamle fotostativer er i stykker, så jeg må vist ud at shoppe lidt igen, hvis det er noget jeg vil bruge i den mørke tid.

Og sÃ¥ nÃ¥ede jeg endda at høste og bruge lidt farveplanter fra haven, men mere om det senere, for ulden er vÃ¥d endnu. Jeg har ikke sÃ¥ meget plads til at tørre uspundet uld indendørs, sÃ¥ det ligger i et ret tykt lag og tager sin tid. SÃ¥ kartemaskinen stÃ¥r og venter – selvom jeg har ønsket mig en meget længe, sÃ¥ har jeg ikke nogen aktuelle projekter pÃ¥ listen bortset fra ovenstÃ¥ende. Noget tweedgarn ganske vist, men det kræver mere farvning før jeg kan karte.

Ude mangler vi vist kun at omplante nogen buske, og så er jeg bare helt klar til indendørssæson med maling, garn og Photoshop. Tænker slet ikke havetanker lige nu. Skal lige have kogt den planlagte æblemos, men det er jo heldigvis også indendørs. Måske i dag?

Hodgepodge

PiaBooks & reading
october view
How the view from my office window distracts me from matters at hand.

What, no plant dyeing post this Monday? Well, yes, I do have a couple in my drafts, but they are rather dull and not very urgent, so I thought I’d find a time where I push the lot out at once “final natural dyeing week at the colour cottage 2013”, like. I do have a few more dye jobs waiting too, but as I’d mentioned, I needed a break, because I feel no urgency whatsoever.

No worries, in fact my entire first page of wordpress posts list are drafts! Surely I can find something else to talk about, right? Except they all pretty much require me to do things that I can show and tell. The knitting, the coughcough tapestries, the WIP paintings, the daily(?) postcards etc. etc. Lots of sketching/designing going on behind the curtains though.

yarn sample spinning
Yarn sketch showing how I do not intend to spin this fiber. 2×2 cable.
dried leaf
What happens to leaves encased in acrylic painting medium?

There is in fact some knitting. I’m almost, well sort of, back to the same place where I frogged my blue reversible sweater, now in a longer, slightly wider version with I hope a better looking raglan. And I’ve decided to first knit a hat in some old leftover yarns from my stash (needs busting anyway) before I commit some of my handspun, as I’ve never knit a hat before, so sizewise it’s a bit of a mystery. There’s something to be said for small items like this, though. You get it over and done with pretty quick compared to sweaters. Unfortunately I go through a lot of the latter and don’t really use accessories much. I may reconsider of course: The hat looks tiny on the needles. If I end up having to knit it three times, not much time is saved. Or I suppose it could become a Thing-finder pouch, to have something to show for it.

knitted hat wip sweater

I “accidentally” ordered some more random library books instead of reading the ones on my shelf/ordering from my study list. I did have an ambition to order only one or two at a time, to take my time reading them and perhaps remember more of what they say. Problem is, sometimes they take almost a year, at other times I get 10 in a week. So I need to finish these and then try to be more systematic with my reading, so it doesn’t take away my crafting time because I have a deadline. Twice I can renew – sometimes. And only if nobody else is in line, so I sometimes have just 30 days for a whole pile. Fine for novels, I can do one per day, but the others I need to put down regularly.

books

Then I thought I did have some really exciting news to share with you, but right now I’m almost afraid to jinx and postpone it even more if I say it out loud. An exercise in patience for sure. Going on three weeks now… And I’m not even superstitious! I need to learn to not agonize over other people’s tardiness and supposed intentions. Do you master calm in the face of “bad” excuses? I seem to be getting better at seeing the logical side of it and not just fret, you could say I stand aside and watch myself do it for a bit. 😉 So while it still distracts me I seem to be getting over it faster, even when things happen in droves, as they are prone to do.

october garden belle de boskoop
I really should be making apple sauce before we have another frost.

Blandet landhandeldanish

Denne mandag er der ingen plantefarveindlæg, dvs. jeg har et par stykker, men de er kedelige, sÃ¥ jeg regner med at udgive dem i en bunke. “Sidste farverunde i 2013-uge”. Jeg har nogen flere ting jeg vil farve med, men jeg trænger stadig til en pause kan jeg mærke.

Heldigvis har jeg jo masser af blog-kladder, en hel side fuld. Nå, ikke, de handler allesammen om noget der ikke er færdigt til at vise frem. Der sker en masse forsøg og skitser bag kulisserne, men mere om det senere. Lidt spinding, lidt collage og maling og forskelligt andet.

Strikket lidt har jeg ogsÃ¥, sÃ¥ jeg kan blive færdig med min ret/vrang omvendetrøje som blev en anelse for smal og kort men for stor i ærmegabene. Nu næsten tilbage hvor jeg var nÃ¥et til sidste Ã¥r, og forhÃ¥bentlig ogsÃ¥ en lidt pænere raglankant, jeg fik eksperimenteret lidt for meget sidst. Det virkede i teorien som jeg ønskede, det var bare ikke særlig kønt! Og sÃ¥ forsøger jeg mig med en demo-hue i restegarn – er lidt spændt pÃ¥ den, for den ser godt nok bette ud pÃ¥ rundpinden. MÃ¥ske det i virkeligheden er en tingfinderpung?

Jeg er “kommet til” at bestille flere tilfældige biblioteksbøger, sÃ¥ nu har jeg igen travlt med at læse faglitteratur pÃ¥ deadline, det holder virkelig ikke. Jeg mÃ¥ prøve at holde fokus og ikke bestille sÃ¥ meget og kun fra min officielle liste, sÃ¥ jeg bedre kan fordybe mig. Romaner sluger jeg hurtigt, men fakta kræver at man lægger det fra sig og fordøjer i ny og næ.

Og ellers har jeg gået et par uger og ventet på at fortælle en spændende nyhed, men den lader vente på sig. Selvom jeg er blevet bedre til at træde et skridt til siden, så lader jeg mig stadig gå lidt på når ting går i hårknude uden min indflydelse og jeg er i tvivl om den anden parts intentioner. Er du god til at sige pyt og fordrive tiden med noget andet imens?

Watermark 2

PiaChit Chat

Trying today to incorporate my logo without getting a huge watermark, and testing it on various backgrounds.

As well as sneaking up on my intent for my homeschooling, loafing around in Photoshop, while not exactly studying it. But I will. Equal measures of play and reading is a good mix I think.

MotherOwl says the font is quite how she sees me as a person, so perhaps I’ll stick with it. But I suddenly began to wonder why I’d made the first C a capital letter, since it’s a URL. So now I’ll have to go check whether it looks better all lowercase.

ahorn maple