Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Am Blob

For the last couple of days I've been taking advantage of the cool weather and just popping outdoors at the slightest excuse. I saw the hawk yesterday, watching out for tasty pigeons in my yard, and I've been holding scintillating conversations with the savage little hummingbirds who keep throwing beaks at the feeder my mom put out. I've also been a bit racy by watching birds bathe in the bath we put out.

But I haven't just been luxuriating in the springlike temperatures!

I've also been trying to figure out what good pricing would be for crochet projects!

Obviously I can't compete with Fast Fashion, they've got some vastly underpaid children working 18 hour days in a sweatshop to make their crochet goods, but I've been trawling Etsy and other handmade sites, looking to see what the average prices for things might be!

I've been surprised by some of the prices, especially considering what the materials costs must be, but it also does my heart an enormous amount of good to see craftspeople really valuing their time and efforts! I haven't seen a single major garment under fifty dollars! How cool is that?

I may be somewhat alarmed, however, at how many women are apparently comfortable with the idea of a crocheted g-string. Then again, I'm just alarmed by g-strings in general, because I am a Square.

In any case, I'm going to keep working on my pricing guide, and then I'll start figuring out how to make enough projects to support selling them!

As for the rest of the week til next Tuesday, these are my plans:

• Art for Thursday - feel free to Ko-Fi me your suggestions for this week's piece! You have until Thursday morning!
• Gonna see what I can get done for Monday, crochet-wise, but no promises sorry
• Gonna blather more on Tuesday.

If I seem distracted tonight, I am! My brain is doing that whole "why can't I hold all these ideas?!" thing, and it's very annoying.

I hope you're all doing well, and I look forward to any suggestions, comments, questions, or random thoughts you may have!

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

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Struggle With Timekeeping

I was supposed to write this blog post 12 hours ago, but uh... I didn't wake up until almost noon. I started writing tonight after 9:30PM (2130 in 24hr). I didn't sleep well, though. I kept waking up. Sometimes it was the wind (we had 35-40mph/56,3-64,4kph gusts), sometimes the rain (we got almost 1.5"/3,81cm of rain last night), and sometimes I just felt cold (it was only about 38℉/3,33℃).

tl;dr - I overslept in tiny, unsatisfying chunks all night because the weather sucked so now I'm mildly grumpy and my brain is lumpy.

In nicer news, tomorrow should be sunny, though it'll still be windy, so I might go do some errands to get outside for more than five minutes. Then I'll do my best to write some notes, do some crochet, sketch, etc.

I wish I'd finished something artistic last Thursday, but it wasn't gonna happen. The art project I was trying out just didn't work right, and none of my sketches looked even mildly presentable. Bleh. Just not having a very creative time lately.

I keep thinking I'd like to work on something like a clay sculpture, but let's be real, I'm not spending money on yet another art supply I'll get bored with in 3 weeks. And if you buy clay, you have to buy something to paint it with, and acrylics can be as pricey as watercolors. Bleh.

You know what, though...

I think it might be my bed.

See, usually, my bed only squeaks if I rock back and forth, but now it's freaking insane. It groans and squeals when I move even a little. Yes, I'm heavier than I was even a year ago, but... I'm pretty sure it did this last year, too. In fact, I think it did something similar in the fall...

I'm dumb.

Of course the bed makes noise. It's a transition period. Relative humidity, temperatures, and air pressure are in flux. My bed frame is over 70% wood (the only metal being the rails). Of course it's having issues!

I'm glad I've figured that one out!

Anywho, here's the plan for the next 7 days:

Tomorrow - go outside, touch grass, maybe do some sketches, some errands, etc.

Thursday - Art. I hope.

Friday-Sunday - catch up on crochet, maybe work on some of my book ideas.

Monday - Crochet!

Next Tuesday - Blather!

Alright. I think that'll do it for me. I am le pooped lol!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Am Derp

I... don't remember what I wanted to talk about today lol.

I could tell you about the weather (it got to about 45℉/7,2℃ on Sunday and was a mere 35℉/1,7℃ today), since it's been rainy and weird lately. I could tell you about the deer that have been pillaging our bird feeders, the turkeys at my grandmother's house, the 11 Mallard ducks we had in my backyard, the possibility of a bobcat in the area...

I could tell you about the art supplies I bought, the Thai food I ate, the walks I've taken, the silky feeling of Red Heart Unforgettable slipping through my fingertips as I chase a small wooden hook through loose stitches and try to turn an aquatic mammal into a hardass marsupial.

I could mention the naps not taken and the sleeps interrupted with angry winds whipping at the cracked siding across the house, the ceaseless rumble of the railway's turntable that seems to drive everyone but me crazy, the clinking click of my lamp shifting subtly that drives no one insane but me, the way I've tried to introduce my cat to the consequence of being swept into my arms if she doesn't stop clawing the woodwork next to the doors.

I could even talk about how hard it is to find pajamas that work in March (too fuzzy = too hot, not fuzzy = too cold, there is no in-between apparently), or how I need to take some expired salmon into the farthest part of the back yard so the crows may feast on it (and hopefully not invite the local seagulls who are the least grateful birds in the neighborhood).

But since I've already mentioned all of these things, now my fickle brain doesn't want to expand on them lol.

So instead, I'm going to talk about my plans for the next week or so!

I don't have anything to discuss this Wednesday, but keep an eye out for an upcoming Wednesdaymania. You can probably guess what it'll cover if you watch wrestling.

Thursday, if it goes well, should be a double-header! I have, indeed purchased yet more art supplies and will swatch them. Equally exciting, I have nearly finished that pixel art project and since it's 200 pixels by 200 pixels, you'd think it'd be exceptionally tiny, right? Well.... it's 10 pixels per centimeter, so no. It's 20x20cm. That's a little under 7.9"x7.9"! Small, but not infinitesimal, which 200pix sq sounds like lol.

I'm not 100% sure why I go pixels per cm instead of pixels per inch. Probably just because that's how someone did it in a tutorial I half paid attention to ages ago.

Again, pretty pleased with Thursday's projects!

Next Monday I really hope I can sneak out to a WalMart for that crochet thread. It's getting to the point where I'm just gonna have to break down and order it, hoping that Cardinal Red is the actual color I need...

Next Tuesday I hope I'm more focused and don't forget to post during the day lol!

That's the next week covered! I hope you'll stick around for Thursday's art post!

And Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Am... Not Done.

Now, usually, when y'all are kind enough to visit my blog while I'm working on art, I have the art finished, or at least presentable for you. This is... not the case today. That's nobody's fault but mine! I embarked on another "let's experiment with colors, math, and pixels" journey and... it's really neat looking, but it's barely half finished.

So I figured I'd give you guys a peek at how this particular image is going!

"Squares ver 0.1" digital art; 2022

No, you resolution isn't off, it's just TINY for now. I'm going to fix that once I'm done by decreasing the white space and increasing the pixels-per-centimeter, but for now it's tiny and blurry. The blur is intentional (sort of) because it's something of a color study! I'm pretty stoked about how it's coming along, and eventually, Squares ver 1.0 will release lol.

As for why it's going up so late on Thursday, that's because I'm kind of frazzled this week. I have no excuse for that besides the wind. It's been windy as heck up here.

The threat of possible nuclear war certainly isn't helping me sleep either, but I'm not gonna talk much about the situation in the Ukraine because I'm not a journalist or an expert on European geopolitics. I am anti-war, pro-democracy, and I'm getting really sick of constantly having the world change for the worse. That's where I am on that subject.

This is not the kind of blog that hyperfixates on the state of the world regarding COVID or ongoing wars. I'm just trying to make art and sometimes banana bread.

I hope that's alright.

Anyways!

So I'll be continuing to work on Squares, versioning it up until it's 100% done, and then I'll post the finished piece!

It's been snowing a lot here, so the plows have been going by a lot, and between the noise of the plows & the wind, and the yo-yo temperatures, I'm constantly wiped. I'll be back on schedule soon, though, I think! Can't wait to tell you all the stories of my cat, the ducks, the crows, the deer, and just general blatheriness!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I have HAD A DAY....

I have been painting all. freaking. day.

And I failed.

I failed so hard.

What I was trying to do was a wet-on-wet splotch background using all of the paints I currently have.

What I ended up with was a mess because my dumb butt forgot to turn off all my fans, so the "wet" part just... dried up. And puddled.

It was bad. Don't believe me?

An Attempt Was Made

I tried, guys. I really tried. And it almost looks cool, but the hope was to use that as a background, and it's waaaaaaaaaaay too saturated for that.

So I tried again! This time I wanted to paint lines, so I did that... but...

Cue Sad Trombone...

I think the worst part is that it almost looks interesting.

But almost doesn't make the grade, my peeps. It simply does not.

I have been cranky and grumpy and really, really disappointed all day because of this nonsense, and my poor boyfriend has had to hear it allllllllllllll. I probably whined for 40 minutes about how it just wouldn't cooperate.

But as you might have noticed from the doodle up top, not all is lost, because Sharpie and some random fineliners I snagged at one of our local bookstores had my back and I whipped out these lil Dedbert drawings in five minutes flat!

"Fine."; marker on printer paper; 2021

And thus ends the saga of the no-good, very bad, awful crappy art day.

Lol I just noticed that you can see the greeting card I was using to protect my notebook from marker bleedthrough...

Anywho, yeah, sometimes you can work very hard and still not have your project work out. And sometimes walking away and coming back later doesn't help. Sometimes even starting over doesn't work. Sometimes you just need to do something else lol!

So I hope y'all are having an easier time than me, creatively!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Am Very Sleepy

What is going on lately? It seems like no one can sleep in the last couple weeks, and weird, unforeseeable events keep cropping up! I have only managed about 5-6 hours a night lately, and my brain feels like soup. Also, my cat has taken to sleeping most of the day in my (sadly underfilled) finished-project box in my room, which is weird since she usually ignores me.

First things first - what weird stuff has been happening?

My grandma wants my mom & I to pick up an organ about 2.5-3 hours away from here with her and her psychotic dog. I love my grandma and normally I'd be happy to help but that dog, that distance, and that instrument are all Much Too Much, tbh. Thankfully this one may have resolved itself - if she can get the organist's family to load the organ for her (they're already helping him move it from the basement, after all...), she won't need us Friday. The original plan was to head out today in the bright-and-early, but thankfully that didn't happen.

My mom decided yesterday was the day to take back bottles despite Mondays always being a zoo at the redemption centers, of which only one of the two dedicated locations in town was open... in theory. In practice, it was closed the first time we tried - understandable (it's a mom & pop place with few employees in an alcoholic area, of course they need a lunch break!!!) - but they were also closed when we came back and we checked the other joint but they were closed on Mondays. It's still Tuesday as I type this, btw lol. Eventually we swung back to the first place and yay they were back open! But they were also chockablock filled with patrons. Luckily they had their best folks on it and everyone went through quickly.

My younger sibling moved into a new apartment and I and my partner inherited some really nice, really sturdy handmade night stands. The one I've got is being used to house my art supplies!
There are some health issues with my parents, but they're already under control thankfully!
Other Family Health Issues are also cropping up, but again, they're being handled, so it's just me being stubbornly anxious lol

The cat got into a slap fight with her supposed boyfriend (my partner and I think I interrupted them establishing dominance and/or flirting, since my cat ended up on her back with her paws up but her claws sheathed, so uh... that was a stressful walk that ended abruptly. When I brought her back in, though, the neighbor's big gray cat followed us and sat on the deck calling out to her with charming little meows (that's not sarcastic, he sounded totally adorable) and she'd chirp back through the window. All night. And then he came back in the morning!!!

Norm MacDonald died today and that sucks a lot. He was insanely funny.

I finally got that sepia fineliner! It arrived in a large padded envelope, which I appreciate from a safety point of view but dudes, it's literally one Pigma Micron, the Standard Shipping Envelope was a bit much. The mail person handed it straight to my mom while we were trying to take back the bottles lol.

Oh, and today I took two walks! For the first one I walked down to a side street where I know a really cool person is running a business where she sells bouquets of her own home-grown flowers off of an adorable little cart! I love the bouquet I bought from her for my mother!

A Lovely Bouquet Indeed!!!

I also walked down to grab snacks at my local Family Dollar, but due to the supply chain essentially shattering into a million pieces, they're not getting the shipments they need, so a lot of the shelves were, if not bare, getting there. It really sucks for everyone who works there - they're not paid enough to cope with the clientele and their complaints about everything and anything, especially since the employees can't do anything about it. They can't magically un-kill everyone who was working on the supply chain who died of COVID. They can't make more Reese's Pumpkins suddenly appear on the shelf, or alchemically summon more Coke products into the coolers. All these folks can do is try to keep the till running until the worst is over. They're just there to stock what they have and sell what they can.

So uh, basically, what I'm trying to say is...

Don't be a dink to anyone who's trying to work in a shop right now. Whatever problem you're about to lash out at them about? They know. They know and they can't do anything about it.

Sometimes stuff just kinda sucks.

And sometimes your cat pokes her head out of your Finished Project Box and squints at you, bleary-eyed from her 8 hour nap, and sleekly vaults herself to the floor. She'll slink out the door without so much as a backwards glance, and you'll smile.

Because it ain't all bad, folks.

Today's weather was amazing. Yes, Wednesday is gonna be all mud puddles and thunder showers, but today (well, Tuesday, at any rate) was a gorgeous 72℉ (22.2℃) with mild humidity and warm but not hot sun with a gentle yet chilling sea breeze. My walks were beautiful things and I enjoyed them both immensely.

I hope that, whatever else happens this week, whether I'm Truck-Bound with the Crazy Dog off to grab a retired church organ from some guy's basement on Friday or not, I can maintain some of this chill demeanor. If it's cool enough to wear this flannel shirt I'm currently in, I have faith that some of the day will be salvaged lol.

I also hope that you all have a much chiller week than I have!

That'll do it from my rambling self.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which I Experiment

Anyone remember way back in 2019 when I made a bean-stitch pumpkin for my mom? Well, because I am a masochist, had some leftover orange yarn, and learned a new stitch, I decided to make another lil pumpkin!

This one will be made using something called a "waistcoat stitch", which I learned via this video on YouTube (strongly recommend you watch it - it's so cool!!!)

I had so many false starts it's not even funny. Did you know that it's almost impossible to find the V's of your single crochets using a medium weight wool and an F/5 3.75mm hook? It is! And an H/8 5.0mm hook is too big, leaving unsightly gaps and feeling too loose!

So I compromised with a 4.0mm hook!

I tried a few different approaches to begin with - stitching a flat 60 stitch wide piece (too hard), chaining 2 sts and then putting 6sc into the first chain (looked like a butthole, tbh), and a single loop magic ring (kept falling out) - but I ended up with my usual 6sc into a double-magic-ring (plenty of places to look this one up, and it's so stable!!!)

Not gonna lie - the first couple rounds of waistcoat stitch are almost nightmarishly hard for me. I almost gave up and just single crocheted the first few rounds! But I persisted and now...

It's really cool looking!

It's harder to see in photos than in real life, but it looks... it looks knit! I know it'll look more and more knit the more I go along, but the V's of the stitches are all so nicely interlocked! I do have to wonder if a straight increase would have looked better than the staggered ones I do, though.

STRAIGHT INCREASE:

1. 6sc in magic ring or double loop magic ring (6 sc)
2. 2sc in each sc (12 sc)
3. *2sc in first sc, sc in next, repeat from * around (18 sc)
4. *2sc in first sc, sc in next 2 sc, repeat from * around (24 sc)
5. *2sc in first sc, sc in next 3 sc, repeat from * around (30 sc)
6. *2sc in first sc, sc in next 4 sc, repeat from * around (36 sc)
7. *2sc in first sc, sc in next 5 sc, repeat from * around (42 sc)
8. *2sc in first sc, sc in next 6 sc, repeat from * around (48 sc)
9. *2sc in first sc, sc in next 7 sc, repeat from * around (54 sc)
10. *2sc in first sc, sc in next 8 sc, repeat from * around (60 sc)

STAGGERED INCREASE

1. 6sc in magic ring or double loop magic ring (6 sc)
2. 2sc in each sc (12sc)
3. *2sc in first sc, sc in next sc, repeat from * around (18 sc)
4. *sc in next sc, 2sc in next sc, sc in next sc, repeat from * around (24 sc)
5. *2sc in first sc, sc in next 3 sc, repeat from * around (30 sc)
6. *sc in next 2 sc, 2sc in next sc, sc in next 2 sc, repeat from * around (36 sc)
7. *2sc in first sc, sc in next 5 sc, repeat from * around (42 sc)
8. *sc in next 3 sc, 2sc in next sc, sc in next 3 sc, repeat from * around (48 sc)
9. *2sc in first sc, sc in next 7 sc, repeat from * around (54 sc)
10. *sc in next 4 sc, 2sc in next sc, sc in next 4 sc, repeat from * around (60 sc)

Regardless of how you increase, you should end up with a 60 stitch-around disc. In my case, instead of single crochets I'm using waistcoat stitches (which are just single crochets that go through the v of the stitch instead of the top!). You can really make a circle with any kind of stitch using this pattern of increases, and by adding rounds of one-new-stitch-per-stitch-below (60 sc rounds), you can build this into anything from a basket to a sphere to a bolster or anything round or cylindrical, depending on where you begin your decrease rounds.

The decrease rounds will, of course, be the reverse of increase rounds, so you'll be single-crocheting in two spaces to form one stitch (or waistcoating in two stitches to form one waistcoat stitch). I'll cover that next week, I think, since it took me forever to a) get up and b) get to work today lol.

It's a rough transition to the ol' Spring Ahead, what with my state observing Daylight Savings Time and all...

And it was freezing today - we were at 50℉(10℃) not long ago, and today stayed around 14℉(-10℃)!!! WTH?!?!?!

Lemme cry ya a river, right? lol.

Anyway, I hope that you enjoyed today's lil peek into my deranged attempts at crochet :P

Go Enjoy Something!

FC