Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which Another Dream is Made

This week's theme was "Animal", so a huge shoutout and thank you to Z, who caffeinated today's painting into existence!

Last week, I painted some pretty diamonds that had some neat color mixing, so I decided I'd try something similar this week! Except I did that thing I do where I do Too Much all at once...

I have 7 different watercolor palettes now - my original tube paints that I de-tubed, my Emooqi palette in the black tin, my Peter Pauper Press plastic palette, my pink-tinned metallics (another gift from Z, who is too fantastic for words), my Japanese metallic/pearlescents, my brush pens, and my watercolor pencils.

So I made a list of said palettes, and I added an 8th Category - "Mix", where I'd mix colors from 2 or more palettes together.

And for each palette, there was the number of colors plus the "Mix" category for within said category.

Yeah... for someone who supposedly hates math I sure do a lot of it for art...

Anyway, I used a random number generator and picked my palettes and colors based off of that!

For an entire image.

Last time, I just had numbers 1-96 and picked from either the Peter Pauper Press (1-48) palette or the Emooqi one (49-96).

This time, I got a number between 1-8 and then from there, I determined what the combinations were.

It was... a lot of numbers. I filled a sheet of notebook paper with two columns of colors!

Speaking of Paper, I used a sheet of my larger watercolor paper cut down by 50% across the middle. I don't use this paper often because it's 1) big, 2) unwieldy, and 3) expensive, but I'm so glad I used it today - none of my other paper would've looked as nice, and frankly, even the nice Hot Pressed block I used last week would've been too small.

"Deep Jelly Dreams"; Watercolor on paper; 2022

Top Detail

Middle Detail

Bottom Detail

This is another Dream image, and I hope some day to make a collection of Dreamscapes like this. I just really like the colors and the flow.

And yes, that's a small pink hammerhead shark sneaking out of the darkness in the bottom right corner.

I hope this piece made you smile, today. I have to say, working on it was super fun - each color, every wash and layer, was a surprise and a joy! If you've got a bunch of art supplies and you're getting stagnant on them, then I strongly recommend making a randomization table and creating based off of that!

For now though, I'll be heading off to bed. It's been a long day! If you're interested in choosing next week's theme, head over to my Ko-Fi account and send me a coffee with a message saying "Animal" "Vegetable" "Mineral" "Geometric" or "Location", depending on which category you'd like to see next!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which Being Tired Is Contagious, it seems

In spite of my best efforts to sleep, I haven't been very successful. Turns out I just had my pillows arranged wrong, and I was hunching forward in my sleep instead of draping myself over the mound of pillows for optimal airway opening...

Of course, I didn't figure that out until about 3am, so I'm a little sleepy today.

And I'm not alone! Everyone I've talked to today has been tired, including the cool person who cashiers at the local Food Service. Even the cat has been tired, lurking beneath blanket forts or sitting pointedly in front of the bathroom closet in the vainest of hopes that we'll break and allow her to coat our bath towels in fur.

So what I'm saying is: today is a sleepy day.

I still went for a walk, I still wrote a little in my manuscripts, and I still poked around at my art supplies to see if anything popped into my mind as inspiration (it hasn't...), but mostly I've just wanted to take a cool shower and rest.

I've managed to take that shower now, and I'm currently relaxing in my room with both fans running and another itch.io game in another tab.

Caffeine-wise, I did way better today than yesterday. Yesterday I had, I believe, around 6 cups of coffee. I know. Believe me I know how stupid that was.

Which is why today was 2 cups of coffee, one can of Coke and the rest of my drinks have been either Meyer Lemon tea that Z got me for Christmas a couple years ago or pure water. I strongly recommend the water option.

I also recommend dressing in natural materials when the weather hits about 80℉/26,7℃. Cotton and linen are your best bet. I can vouch for the fact that light linen trousers are even more comfortable if you're in the sun than shorts. Covering your skin is good for you in direct sunlight! I have a mole I've been keeping an eye on for years on my neck, so I've taken to wearing a cotton bandana over it to keep the sun off. I've also had less heat/sun related illness this year than in other years (though it still got me once!).

The plan for this week is as follows:

• Art for Thursday (there's still time to buy me a coffee and pick a theme!)
• I'm playing an incremental game for Saturday
• Hopefully I'll have more progress on that strap for Monday, though I might miss it, since it'll be Independence Day here in the USA.
• Next Tuesday I'll blabber more!

If you're planning on buying me that coffee, remember that the themes are:

• Animal
• Vegetable
• Mineral
• Location
• Geometric

And leave a message with your donation stating which one you'd like! If you buy me 2 coffees, I'll even let you pick whether it's Digital or Traditional!

I think, though, that that'll do it from me today.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which I Continue To Work Slowly...

It's been a long project with the Mystery Project aka Mushroom Bag.

And it'll be a few more weeks yet I fear.

See, it turns out that slip stitching 420 stitches by 12-24 rows is... a really long and boring process.

So if you have access to canvas straps or ribbons you like? USE THOSE.

Seriously. Use what you've got because it takes forever to slipstitch.

This is what 10 rows looks like:

It may look pretty decent, but I assure you, it's only about...
0.5" or about 1.3cm wide.

It's also fairly thick, though, so it should be very comfy to carry on the shoulder once it's completed.

And as for the zip-tie situation to hold the mouth open? I'm uh... I'm still working on that lol. I haven't gotten one from the basement yet, but I know that it should, theoretically, work.

We'll see!

Sorry this week's is short, but it's been insanely hot (85℉/29,4℃) for the last couple days and today was the first break from the heat that we've gotten.

Honestly, the rain was welcome and lovely, even if I did feel a bit cooped up and craved a walk.

If I don't have the project 100% finished by next Monday, I'll try to have another little One Day Make to show off instead, just so there's a little variety!

Maybe some flowers!

Tomorrow I'll have my thoughts more together, I think - today has been... very scattershot for me, so I'm not going to be able to write too much beyond my instructions for a slipstitched strap:

1. Make a row of chain stitches as long as you want your strap to be, then make one more as a turning chain
2. Slip stitch from the second chain from the hook to the end of the chain, chain one, turn your work
3. Slip stitch in every slip stitch - do not do what I suggested last week and slip stitch through both loops, the stitches will be waaaaay too tight, so just slip stitch in the back loop only! At the end of the row, chain one and turn your work
4. Repeat the previous row until your strap is wide enough.

If, like me, you find yourself getting highly distracted and cranky, pour yourself a glass of water. Every time you get cranky, pour yourself some water. It might not make your work less frustrating, but you'll have built-in breaks as you keep having to run to the bathroom and you'll end up well-hydrated as a bonus lol.

I think I should probably call it a night before I start losing what's left of my mind. Braincell number 3 may have retired today. I'll know better tomorrow.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Saturday Casual Gaming

 

In Which I'm Gaming Again!!!

It's a hot and hazy summer's day, and I have not had the guts to go outside. My father has been burning our wood pile down slowly because it was starting to put off its own heat waves and we do not want it to spontaneously combust. My mother has been gardening. We entertained the idea of taking the cat to the beach for the first time, but she has been hiding in her blanket fort all day after she had a brief outing this morning.

Instead of being active (beyond my usual squats and self-soothing rocking lol), I've been starting an indoor garden!

Oh, not a real one. I have a black thumb, not a green one lol.

But as I may have mentioned on Tuesday, I have found itch.io and been able to start playing new games!

And today's title is "Plant Daddy" by Brady Soglin.

In this game, you're the eponymous Plant Daddy - a lonely college grad who has just moved into their first apartment with nothing and no one. You buy your first plant - a "garden plant" - and start caring for it. As your plant grows, it will give you Leaves, which are your first currency, and after it fully matures, it gives you Blossoms, which act as a second currency. As you gain these Leaves and Blossoms, you can spend them in the store tab for such niceties as places to sit (or set plants on), artificial lighting, and even room expansions. Mostly, though, you'll be using your currencies to buy new plants.

Sometimes, you'll get special traits on your plants like variegated leaves and fancy stem colors! You can get special pots for those plants with the Nursery item, and you can even develop seeds from them, so if you want an army of variegated Tiny Trees named David, you absolutely can. Yes, you can name your plants. I am naming all of mine.

You can also buy decorations and more places to set plants down, which the game strongly encourages you to do.

Yes, that's a plant next to a candle on top of a cardboard box, and yes its name is Dan.

Zoomed out to show that to-do list on the wall above the shelf
It's how you find your objectives!

How's Annie?

Anywho, this game is really fun! It's relaxing and quiet and cute and you can easily lose a few days just trying to work your way through your To-Do List and raise an exceptionally cool plant or three. Currently I'm about 50 blossoms away from unlocking the next room - the bathroom - where I can then proceed to grow mushrooms on the back of my purchasable toilet lol!

There doesn't seem to be any way to pay-to-win in this, either! No "pay 99 cents to speed up" or "buy x amount of currency for 3 bucks of real money" stuff that I'm used to from generator-based idle games like this. It's refreshing and pleasant and as long as you don't turn the sound effects up too much while watering, you're not going to have to go to the bathroom a bunch of times.

In short, this is a perfect game with a deceptively simple interface that leads to fabulously deep gameplay. It looks cute, the "story" is adorable and relatable even if you're a plant-killer like me, and sometimes it's nice to just look at a room full of potted plants named things like "Leroy" or "Chad" and think "yeah, this is exactly what I wanted this to look like". 

All in all, this is a game that is absolutely worth a playthrough!

So Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

Art is... hard.

Geometry ended up being this week's theme and I thought to myself "Z got me a really cool reflective bag for my birthday with all these awesome triangles on it, so I should make triangles!!!"

Ladies and gentlemen...

It would appear that at 32 years of age, with a full 30 years of art experience under my belt, several straight-edges, and even a freaking stencil...

I can't draw triangles.

Like... at all.

Seriously, look at that mess.

Yeah. I let out an audible "oh yikes, no" when I saw how bad it looked after backing away.

And that, my friends, was finished at NINE FREAKING THIRTY PM!

Yikes indeed.

"But Casual," you may calmly and reasonably point out, "couldn't you have started earlier today?"

To which I would say you're usually right but the last couple days have been cat-filled and assistive on my part. Which just means I've been serving largely as cat furniture and helping my mom with plants.

Not the most "oh I couldn't possibly work on this!" kind of situation.

But it is what it is.

I pulled out two of my palettes (the Peter Pauper travel palette and a nice black steel 48-color-set from Emooqi) around dinner time, poured a cup of paint water, filled an oral syringe with water to activate the metallics, and set to work.

And failed.

And tried again, and failed again, and then finally got the triangles above finished and realized while inking them that they looked...

Awful.

Well, that's no good, so I got up and stalked around my room for a bit, steaming and stewing, before I finally said "well, if triangles are gonna be this hard, I'll just do diamonds"

"Diamond Panes"; watercolor on hot press paper; 2022

And so I did!

I'm so happy with how this turned out! I like how the colors worked together (a real concern when you're using paint from two separate palettes) and how the diamonds interlock. I'd almost like to try it again with a thinner straight edge so that I could get more diamonds on one sheet, but I'm still very happy!

The Art Station, complete with Failure

Let me tell you, it can be hard to paint and draw on a bed, so I could not be more thrilled with the really sturdy bed tray Z got me for Christmas. Honestly, he's been a godsend for my art!

If you'd like to have a say in my art next week, feel free to toss me a coffee over on Ko-Fi and leave a message saying "Animal" "Vegetable" "Mineral" "Geometric" or "Location"! Your suggestion will determine the art I make!

That'll do it from me for tonight. I'm exhausted and it's nearly midnight lol.

Go Enjoy Something!!!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which Too Much Caffeine And Not Enough Gaming
Make Casual A Dull Birb

What a week. I've had too much caffeine in the last couple days - just finished a cup of coffee after seven despite 6pm being my cutoff - made a whole crochet project yesterday, broke a fan on Friday, and had to hold my cat's tiny furry face in one hand to show her the chipmunk she was stalking because she thought it was under the car but it was watching her from the stairs lol.

I also discovered that itch.io is a thing.

Holy crap how did I not know about this? There's so much on here! It's awesome!

I mean, after Kongregate basically stopped adding new games and Deadwhale died, I've been looking around for another game aggregator that wasn't Newgrounds or ArmorGames!

So if y'all want to have me review an RPG, idle game, or something, feel free to leave suggestions! Bear in mind that I have an office-work-ready laptop, not a gaming pc, and that I am an unabashed coward and also kind of an idiot, so anything that requires smart planning, graphics-intensive hardware, or is pants-poopingly intense is not very likely to be featured on le blog. Also I worry that my Niblings might find this blog someday so "adult" games might not be okay either lol.

Yesterday, I made that bag for my dad. No word yet on how he's gonna use it, but he might use it in the camper once the new canvases arrive. He just sent the old ones out today! I'm pretty excited about that - the camper has been quite the saga for him (it's his latest and longest-lasting restoration project and it's looking fantastic), and also, it could be a great space to use as a semi-outdoor office. It does need new sealing around the roof vent, but once that's done and the new canvases arrive, that little popup could be a great spot to hang out.

On Friday, I messed with my window and succeeded in accidentally breaking my window fan's button. It could be used, but it couldn't be controlled properly. My dad came to the rescue by... removing the button altogether. Or at least, the broken plastic outer button. The small rubber inner button is still intact and fully functional. Tomorrow I plan to thoroughly clean said fan so that I can then pop it back into my window and designate a plastic pen or pencil as the button-pusher lol.

As for the chipmunk, I cannot recall if I've already mentioned, but we used to have two chipmunks - a bigger one and a smaller one. I regret to inform you all that Smol Chippy has been killed in action. They were buried with honors somewhere in my mother's garden. Big Chippy has taken to taunting the neighbor's dogs and sitting on my porch while barking loudly. Evie, who we strongly suspect may be hard of hearing if not wholly deaf, doesn't notice this, but boy does she like to see Big Chippy when she can.

So I help.

By holding her in my arms and carefully pointing her face at Big Chippy.

Because otherwise it would seem she can NEVER see him lol!

Usually when she's outside, she tries to scoot under my mother's car because both chipmunks have attempted to use the car as a hideout while the cat is in sight. My mother hates this for obvious reasons. The chipmunk, meanwhile, will literally watch my cat do this while he sits on the deck and judges us all.

So when I see him on the steps and I can snag Evie, I help her get an eyeful lol!

As for this coming week, my plans consist of:

• Paint something for Thursday! If you want to have a say in what, send me a Ko-Fi by Wednesday night saying what category (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Location, Geometric).
• Maybe play and review something for Saturday!
• Crochet more on the Secret Project for Sunday. Maybe even finish making the reinforcements for the mouth?
• Blather more next Tuesday!

Aside from that, I don't have much planned. I think.

Plans have a habit of changing, so keep an eye out!

and Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which A Break Was Taken

Everyone who knows me knows, by now, that I am absolute garbage at remembering dates, holidays, and birthdays. I barely remember Christmas, Halloween, and my own birthday. So of course, I did what I always do.

I forgot it was Father's Day.

Thankfully I have an understanding father and a stockpile of yarn and the internet.

I sat around for an hour or two trying to figure out what to make and then I realized that a bag you can hang off of a horizontal board or pipe or whatnot would be useful for him. Mostly, he'd be able to toss the Roku & tv remotes, a tablet, maybe a netbook into it easily if it was looped around the arm of the wooden futon in the other room.

So then I went looking for something nice & masculine. I have a lot of masculine colors right now - black, red, dark green, etc. I chose a brown and green combo that wouldn't look too out of place while camping. Some of my best childhood memories are of camping with my family, dad teaching us axe, knife, and fire safety (no river stones in the fire pit!, say thank you when you have a grip on a bladed object that someone is passing you, point the front of an axe away from you), overboiled hot chocolate in little brown plastic cups that kind of smelled and tasted like detergent no matter how well you washed them, hamburger helper...

Rain literally every single time we set up and took down camp. Every single time. I don't think we ever struck camp on a dry day, not even when we were using the camper.

I also remember fishing trips where I never caught anything but logs and grass, but I got to enjoy sitting with my dad. I remember hiking and canoeing, though I was terrible at both.

What I'm saying is, when I was little, we were outdoors a LOT.

So I chose a pretty cabin pattern charted out on Ravelry by Abi McIntyre @ GetYerHookOn. If I were to make a suggestion to other crochet artists - don't do this pattern while tired and actually read what the pattern dictates. I just used the chart, but the actual pattern itself looks amazing when followed correctly.

Seriously, go download that pattern and follow it to a T, and you'll be so, so happy.

I'd say, though, that for doing everything in Single Crochet, carrying the colors through, and then making it into a bag (which I modified without a pattern!!!) it looks pretty great!

The shapes are pretty well-defined!!!

And the colors are pretty nice!

What you cannot see here is that I made the back of the bag by using the same yarn and the same hook and the same stitch tension and alternating 7 rows of brown and 7 rows of green until I had 49 rows (7 more than the front). Then I started row 50 with ch3, skipped the first stitch, dc in next 6 sts, turn, and repeat from ch3, placing the 6th dc in the top of the previous row's ch3. I did that for 25 rows, then slip stitched the end of the dc-based strap thingie onto the opposite side of the back from where it began (see above). Then I ran a row of sc around the outside of every flat surface, joining front to back.

If I were to do this again, I'd take a little more time making sure the seam looked nice. Maybe instead of an sc row, I'd sew the seam shut properly. I'd also ease my tension significantly on the front!

That being said, this came out really well, and if you put the body of the bag through the handle to secure it to a surface like a railing or a futon arm, it really does hold up to even a Dell Latitude laptop or an iPad in an Otterbox lol!

I'd like to make a few more bags in the future, too. I really enjoy doing mosaic work, and I adore doing filet crochet, so some fun character bags (there's a super cute pattern with a squirrel and an edging/insertion lace that could easily be used for handles that's all acorns and oak leaves!!!) might be in order.

Don't think I've been totally neglecting the Secret Project aka the Mushroom Bag, though! I worked a whole bunch on that strap...

It's just that slip stitch rows are... very very very thin. And that means building up to a proper strap width is taking quite a bit.

I might go the i-cord route for the hanging loop I'll make for the top... or do a single-loop slip stitch instead of the double-loop I'm doing for the should strap...

In any case, there you have it! A finished Father's Day gift that has been delivered and is, to the best of my knowledge, currently in use.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Had A Busy Day!

Today started a little weird - I woke up around 8AM and couldn't really fall back asleep. I got up around 9:30 and then started making my morning coffee and taking care of the little morning chores and such. Then I got distracted by the internet, as usual lol. By the time my mom got home for lunch, I was in the shower, and after I came out there were jalapeno poppers, which is always a welcome treat. When we finished eating, she took the cat out for her daily walkies and I started to load up my bag.

I filled a pencil pouch with 2 HB pencils, a sharpener, erasers, and a lineart pen and then tossed it into the cool geometric reflective bag/purse that Z gave me for my birthday. I also packed a small sketch book for drawing, and just in case, I packed my travel watercolor kit from Peter Pauper Press and one of my Arteza notebooks. Then I sauntered down to my local library and started scouting out locations to draw from.

"Lamp Sketch"; HB pencil on sketchpad; 2022

I sketched that while standing in front of the lamp in question. Pretty much as soon as I got situated and ready to draw, the wind picked up and the clouds began to gather. Since I'm on the coast, that can either mean it'll feel really nice for a bit.... or it's about to pour cats & dogs. I didn't want to get my art soaked, so I packed up and took a bunch of reference photos.

It's about quarter to 9PM now, and I'm pretty sure I'm hearing thunder, so even though it never rained wile I was out there, I'm glad I trotted home afterwards.

When I settled upstairs after my lovely jaunt, I noticed that I had taken another sketch a while back, but it had faded due to friction (as sometimes happens with graphite). I would like to paint this sketch, too, someday. It's pretty much the opposite of the lamp image above in real life, colorwise, being mostly reds and blues instead of greens and grays.

"Thai Tugboat"; graphite on sketchbook; 2022

As for the reference photos I shot, there were some of the Location (today's prompt, courtesy of Z), and some potential future botanical references if anyone puts their 3 bucks down on Vegetable in the next week ;)

Library Lamp Post with Ivy-Wrapped Window and Red Granite Column

Ivy Detail (plus I think the back of the microfiche machine...)

The plants nearby, plus the trashcan because oops

Really Cool Looking Tree!

Love how the flowers face Up but the leaves drip Down!

The Peonies are actually That Magenta in real life! Even more so!

I know it's a weed, but I love purple vetch

All in all, though, the town smelled incredible today. The Rugosa Rose are all in bloom, the cypress spurge have gone by so their stinkiness is no longer a factor, and no one was burning willow, so it was just roses and the occasional waft of fried food from Main Street lol. The walk was wonderful, too. I wore a bandana around my neck mostly to have something I could mop up colors with if I needed to, but also to protect my neck from the sun (more fool me, the sun vanished!), and I can't recommend linen pants (trousers, not underwear, guys) enough - kept me from overheating in the slightly humid 70℉/21,1℃ weather.

Do I recommend going for walks with art supplies? YES. If you have anywhere remotely walkable and peaceful nearby, grab something do draw on and with and go. One of these days, I'll get my energy up and I'll bring an actual chair with me down to the waterfront and chill out with my art supplies and a bottle of water (or two).

So from today til next Wednesday, if you buy me a coffee on my Ko-fi account and comment "Animal", "Vegetable", "Mineral", "Geometric", or "Location", I'll use that as my prompt for next Thursday's art!

That'll about do it from me for tonight - I'm gonna try to doodle with watercolors for a bit and then go to bed.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which Adventures Were Had, Anniversaries Recognized, and Coffee Sipped.

This week I had a blast hanging out with my guy and my friends because they scooped us up for a quick jaunt around the midcoast! We stopped by JJ's Schooner Dogs in Rockland (I strongly recommend the 1/4lb all-beef hotdog with the hickory smoked bacon bits and some of Johnny's homemade pickled red onion and/or his homemade sauerkraut!), had lunch, and we even taste-tested the forthcoming Snapperoni (a red snapper hotdog mixed into a cup of mac & cheese topped with those same hickory bacon bits)! It was a blast, and I strongly recommend popping down there if you're in Rockland during the summer months.

I had so much fun, in fact, that I forgot to take any pics lol! Thankfully my guy had me covered, so here's my 1/4lb All-Beef Hotdog with Hickory Smoked Bacon Bits & pickled red onions and his Kielbasa with all the fixins!

Kielbasa with mustard, pickled onions, homemade sauerkraut and more!
Credit to Z.

The 1/4lb all beef hotdog with bacon bits & pickled onions!
Again, Credit to Z, who was the only one with the presence of mind to take any pics lol!

And if the delicious dogs at JJ's weren't enough of a splurgey trip of awesomeness, our friends packed our overfull selves into their car and took us to Camden and led us through the sugary wonderland that is Uncle Willy's Candy Shoppe! This fantastic little candy shop is exactly what you'd imagine from an old-fashioned candy store! The main floor sold handmade chocolates (their peanut buttercups are enormous, the fudge & divinity look exceptional, and the dipped nuts & espresso beans were gloriously shiny thickly-coated), as well as a lot of fun gummies and licorices, plus there was a small cooler filled with glass bottles of soda (including local "favorite," Moxie).

Upstairs at Uncle Willy's has a wall of Jelly Bellies, candy bars I've never even heard of, and a wall of bags of chocolates and candied nuts, among many other things. There was even a fill-your-own Pixie Stix kiosk!

I got a 1/2lb bag of Sixlets because sometimes you want spherical not-M&Ms that vaguely taste like Double Bubble on the outside. Z got himself a candy bar (Zagnut maybe? [Edit: It was a Big Hunk!] it was peanut nougat with peanuts in it) and a bag each of Boston Baked Beans (red, candy-coated peanuts) and something that was essentially the same as Boston Baked Beans but with added crispy bits embedded in the crimson candy coating. Our friends picked up some candies of their own, and we headed along a scenic route to ooh and ah over Mt Battie and the absolute beauty of Maine's lakes and ponds. Somewhere in the middle of Camden, one of our friends handed Z & I our first taste of violet candy. 

I've had candied violets before, so I knew some of what I was in for, but Z had never experienced the sheer bizarre nature of eating something that your whole being wants to tell you is probably straight perfume and not a treat. It's not unlike tasting Moxie for the first time, to be honest, because it's such an unusual flavor if you've never had it. 

The candy is very very different from the candied flowers, but only in so far as, to me, the candied violets having a more subtle flavor. The little pale violet tablets have a mint Lifesaver texture but the flavor is... well... it's extremely floral. It's like eating an entire bouquet of candied violets. It really lets you know you're eating a botanical.

And once you get the initial reaction under control and just surrender to the absolute floral assault, you may just find, like Z & I, that you absolutely love it!

To be clear, Z adores Moxie, too. I like the smell, and the initial flavor isn't bad for me, either, but man... that aftertaste on Moxie... it's so unappetizingly bitter to me. Like an earwax bean from Bertie Botts.

There's no earwax aftertaste to the violet candies. Just some faint floral notes that fade slowly like a nap in the sun.

I bet they'd be amazing crushed over some vanilla ice cream.

This trip was on Saturday, and I still have a palmful or two of the Sixlets. No word on the status of the candied nuts, but they were good enough that I'd bet they'll be gone soon if they aren't already ;)

If you're ever in the midcoast Maine area, those are definitely a couple of spots to check out, and afterwards, if you're still craving a small adventure, I'd give Birch Point State Park a peak or dip your toes at Crescent Beach in Owl's Head. I grew up going to both and I have to say, they're lovely places to enjoy the sea, if a bit crowded sometimes.

After Saturday came Sunday, of course, and that saw me getting the longer parts of my buzz shaved down by one of my older siblings (THANK YOU!!! That one tuft was tickling my ear so bad!), and then came Monday.

Monday was what it was, as you probably saw on my blog. I also did not sleep last night. I finally fell asleep around 4:30AM, which was a real pain, but that's life sometimes.

Today, I was lucky enough to catch a ride with my mother and return a bunch of bottles, then I took that money and turned it into oddly religious cheddar popcorn and Peanut M&Ms. When we got back, my mom took Evie outside, and I realized it was our cat's Gotchaversary! On this day 11 years ago, my mom & younger sibling brought home a very cautious and weirdly foot-obsessed cat. Today, she's more interested in demanding half & half and cuddles. And beating the absolute tar out of our neighbor's barn cat.

Poor Sky caught those paws again today, and when my mother swooped in to defend the poor lad's honor, Evie hissed at him!!!

What a cantankerous turd lol. He hasn't really threatened her at all, either. He's easily half again her size and a successful hunter, so I doubt she'd fare well if he decided to defend himself, but he never, ever does, and usually after we "ground" Evie by bringing her back inside for the day, he'll call mournfully into the windows until she comes and sneers back through the screens.

She needs to chill lol.

This coming week I plan on working more on those stupid straps for my Secret Project (the interminable Mushroom Purse), drawing or painting something (there's still time for you to put your 3 bucks in on whether it'll be an Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Geometric, or Location based picture!), and possibly having more adventures. We'll see how naughty Evie continues to be, regarding the other cats. Thankfully the last time I saw Orange Boy (a newer fluffy orange cat who I once saw limping) he seems to have healed all the way up from whatever misfortune befell his foot.

Thanks for wading through this wall of text this week, guys. That's about all the news updates I've got for y'all!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

Slow progress is still progress

So it's week 22 and we're still working on this "Secret/Mystery Project". Unless you're a better pattern engineer than me and figured out how to close & carry the bag on your own lol, then I'm the only one who's still working on this 22 weeks in.

I have, however, figured out what to do about the straps!

Good old slip stitches.

That's right, I made 421 chain stitches with my 1.9mm hook and I'm going to slip stitch each row (chaining 1 before I turn and slip stitch down each row) until it's wide enough for my liking. Will it be quick? No. Will it be stable? Heck yes.

This is nowhere near wide enough

But it is very sturdy!

I'll probably do 12-24 rows at 420 stitches for the main strap and then switch to red for a 120 stitch long 6-12 row wide loop for the top of the bag. Just something nice and short to hang the bag by!

And since I do not have any other zippers to sacrifice to the mouth of the purse where the cap & stem connect, I will be attempting to attach something stiff like maybe a plastic cable tie to the inside this week. And then it will just be time for spots and maybe a cute charm! We'll see...

Still, thank you all for coming on this journey with me!

I know this is the first week I haven't included the rest of the bag pattern, but in my defense, it's 10pm and I'm heckin sleepy. Yes, I've only got that much done since this morning. I'm disappointed in me too.

But hey, that's life sometimes. Sometimes you work all day on something and the progress, once you set it down, seems minute.

But especially with crochet, any progress you can see is going to be way smaller than the effort you put in, because you can't see the sixteen times I had to frog it or the six attempts at mushroom lace I failed at or the many many many curses I uttered while stabbing myself in the thumb with the pointy end of my hook because those stitches are super tiny and I can't stop making them super tight. I need to chill lol!

So that'll do it from me for today!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which A Mineral Was Painted
And A Story Is Told (Two Days Late)

On Tuesday, I told you all about my previous week, and uh... I may have mentioned something about my dad getting swarmed by ticks and then failed to follow up.

Sorry about that, guys! Totally slipped my mind with the rest of the tales!

So here's the Dad Vs Ticks story:

Once upon a time, my dad and I were both in the local community band. I backed out a few years ago because I didn't have any weekends off to do things with my friends or just to relax during the summer, but he has stuck with it, and he and his trumpet go every week from the first warm week in Spring to about the last warm week in Fall. On Sunday, they had a rehearsal, so he packed up his trumpet and headed out to the rehearsal space, which he explained to me as the middle of a parking lot. I've practiced in weirder spaces, so I buy it.

(lookin at you, weird, creepy, almost certainly haunted and fairly abandoned century-old community building in the middle of nowhere...)

So they're all set up in their chairs and playing along when my dad feels something crawling on his leg. It's summer, so it's bug season. He figured it was a fly or something equally benign, but looked down anyway (because what if it was a horsefly or a hornet?).

It was a big flat tick hook-handing its way up his leg.

Needless to say, he destroyed it by plucking it off the leg, putting it on the hot tar, and grinding a rock down on top of it. Then he told everyone why he was screwing a rock into the pavement and everyone started checking. A few more ticks were found and killed. Weird, since again, they were in the middle of a parking lot with no grass within ten feet.

Here's where it gets really upsetting, though.

They go through a few more pieces of music - practice, practice, practice - and then my dad feels a lot of tickling on his legs. Big whoop, everyone feels the crawlies after finding a tick, right?

Wrong.

There were dozens of ticks swarming the band, and he kept having to brush them off of himself.

Think about that for a second!

They were in the center of a parking lot and being swarmed by dozens of ticks!

And of course the story doesn't end there, no. He was relating the tale to me because he stormed up the stairs, shirtless, asking me to check his back (thankfully tick-free). So we go downstairs to freak out about how bizarre the whole thing is and he stops mid-sentence, looking at the laundry basket over my shoulder.

One of the freaking jerks must've hidden in a pocket of his pants or something because it was crawling up the wallllllllllll!

No thank you.

We killed it very dead - just your standard dog tick, so not really a risk for Lyme (though it could carry other stuff I don't want!).

So that was my Sunday lol!

But you're not just here for the ticky followup to Tuesday, no.

You're here for art!

I didn't paint the tick. I did a bug last week.

Instead this week's topic was "Mineral", so I painted some emeralds!

"Emerald Cluster"; Watercolor on paper; 2022

That was a lot more fun than I thought it would be to paint! I drew it out with a green watercolor pencil and then filled things in slowly with the colors all going different directions like the inclusions and fractured planes that emerald crystals really have.

Lab created emeralds bother me with their purity. If I want a clear green stone, I'll get a locally mined tourmaline. I want my emeralds cloudy and preferably second-hand. I worked from a bunch of reference for this, and I'm actually pretty happy with how the weird purple rock came out. Believe it or not, that sucker was supposed to be a brownish gray, but I grabbed the wrong color and I really like the contrast!

Now you know the secret of the Tickpocalypse, and you've got a fun bunch of emeralds to look at! I think my work here is done til Monday!

Get out there and Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

It's Still Tuesday in my Heart
Even if it's Wednesday by the time I post...

So...

It's technically still Tuesday, but let's be real, I put this blog off all day so it'll probably be close to midnight when it goes up.

If it goes up tonight at all lol.

So what have I been up to that I'm all dopey and avoiding writing anything down?

A LOT, but in a good way!

Since last Tuesday, I've been on a journey northwards and back, my younger sibling got engaged, my mom went to help her mom out for a couple days, my dad got swarmed by ticks, my cat was a velcro kitty for a day but not with me, I managed to figure out a potential stabilization solution for the Secret Project on Mondays, I tried a few new things, and I also ended up having a bunch of new ideas I have no clue what to do with lol!

Let's begin:

Saturday was a long day and one which saw a friend of mine and Z's snagging the two of us and whisking us away on a multi-hour adventure northwards. We stopped at a drive-in and I ordered a 3oz cheeseburger with ketchup and ate that, most of a slice of tortiere (which seemed to be a mashed potato/turnip and spiced ground meat pie), a lot of fried green beans (which may have been fried from frozen since they were a bit limp and watery on the inside but were otherwise good), and a few bite's of Z's Brunch Burger (fried egg, two 3oz patties, maybe caramelized onions?). The drive-in, Belanger's I think it was called, was fantastic. 10/10 would eat there again, even if the tortiere was... weird. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. No idea what their turkey pie is like.

My tasty lil burger with a small preview of maybe the curly fries our friend got?
The bun on this was super soft & fluffy and the cheese was perfectly melted.
They grind their own beef, and I thought the balance of fat to lean was perfect.

After Belanger's we went to a Dairy Bar in another, even further-north town, where I got a conservative small chocolate soft-serve (I wasn't feeling the best that day, since I'd scarfed down a bunch of cheddar cheese before I got in the car for several hours lol). Z on the other hand got a big ol Moxie float with Moxie ice cream. I tried a little of the Moxie and found that while my aversion to beets has gone away, I still think Moxie has an earwax aftertaste. Moxie ice cream, however, lacks the aftertaste, so it's a yes from me. Gives you all the fun herbal/medicinal flavors of Moxie with a creamy vanilla overlay that kills the aftertaste!

I'd love to make Moxie ice cream myself sometime. Maybe a chocolate Moxie ice cream, even!

I came home to news that my little sis is engaged! Congrats! (Though I doubt any of my siblings read these, they're busy!)

Guess what we had for dinner that night at nearly 9pm because no one was hungry til then?

Burgers. They were good, though, so all around, very nice (if beeftacular) day!

Sunday was mostly everyone getting ready for my mom to head up to her mother's place to take care of her while my grandmother gets ready to start treatment for her cancer. The cat could obviously tell something was up, and once my mother was gone, she pulled a velcro-kitty and stuck herself to my poor dad, who was just trying to work from home, which was very hard when the cat was determined to be right where he needed to be and insinuating herself deeper and deeper into his lap until he was forced to sit like a frog or lose the insides of his thighs to her kneading claws.

Poor thing didn't even want to go outside!

Monday came and I worked on the solution to my mushroom purse woes (yesterday's blog), but I also took the cat out for walkies and tried out a thing I picked up while hanging out with our friend on a previous day. I also took pics of the really nice Mexican Hot Chocolate Z bought me for Valentine's because he's the bees' knees!

He picked this up at one of the newest bookstores in the area :)

You can really smell the chocolate & cinnamon

This little puck fits in the palm of my hand.
I'd say for comparison's sake it's about as big around as a soda can.

You whisk the puck briskly into milk, and I promise it dissolves fast.
And that's when the pecan notes hit!

I'm pretty sure they use the pecans as a thickening agent...

Because this is a THICK cocoa.

The hot cocoa was incredibly sweet and velvety thick and smooth like melted ice cream almost. It was, in fact, almost too sweet, so I added a shot of coffee to it and...

I am convinced that's how it's supposed to be drank because it was heavenly.

Meanwhile, someone was pretending she didn't care about going outside.

But cats are like Maine weather. Wait five minutes...

... And suddenly you'll find yourself outside!

But she didn't seem to want to be out for very long.

Me not letting her sulk and skulk underneath the camper and the deck probably had a lot to do with it...

But she got to stalk a chipmunk and squeak at a bird, so she was satisfied.

You know what else is satisfying? Pouring yourself more coffee when you're done letting a bored cat explore the yard and topping it with a Stroopwafel.

Look how perfectly it fits on this mug!
It's like they were made for each other!

Two minutes of rest over a steaming cup and it's perfect.

Just the right balance of soft & crispy & gooey.

Stroopwafel are something I've been meaning to try for a while. Makes sense to me that I'd like them - I like waffles, I like caramel, I love treats that go with coffee. But I never remembered to grab them!

Thankfully, I noticed them while Z & I were shopping with our awesome friend and we picked them up. I can't wait to make him a nice cup and let it cool down a bit with the stroopwafel on top, softening slightly.

It's nothing like a sugar or waffle cone you'd get for ice cream, to be honest, and that surprised me. The crispiness is subtle, the sweetness not as overpowering as you'd expect from something with a caramel layer, and the softness from the steam is nothing like the staleness you sometimes get from a slightly soft sugar cone.

All in all, I've been very busy lately lol! But delightfully so, and I can't wait to keep being busy this week!

Tomorrow will be drizzly and cool (high of 63℉/17,22℃), so I think I'll stay in and sketch.

Thursday should have the fruits of that sketch on the blog! And maybe I'll slip out at some point to snag some snacks and a Jarrito?

Hopefully by next Monday I'll have A) finished my strap or 2) found another short plastic zipper to cannibalize for my purse. If not, I have another potential solution: Zip ties & thread. Yeah, I might just zip-tie a couple of circles, stitch around them in either crochet or just sewing, and call that good lol. Might even be less of a headache than trying to track down another zipper. We've only bought just so many sheets and blankets, which is where the first zipper came from...

But this has already become an obscenely long blog where I just babbled and blathered at all of y'all.

If you want a say in this week's art, feel free to shoot me a coffee over on my Ko-Fi account (the link should be in my sidebar? Idk, is that what it's called?) and tell me Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Place, or Geometric! If I get multiples, I'll do my best to combine things ;)

Go Enjoy Something!

FC