Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Am Way More Tired Than I Thought

So I haven't really done a lot of art this week. I'm disappointed in that. In fact, I've only made one thing. I'm proud of it, but it's just one thing, and I wanted seven.

That's 14.2% of my goal met.

That's 85.7% of my goal remaining.

Oof.

Math is unkind sometimes.

Regardless, I still made one thing. Mostly I've just been tired. I am still having trouble sleeping - staying up til 5AM, crashing til 11AM... it's not good. I need to be more consistent.

Which is, of course, why I haven't had as much caffeine today as usual.

I drank more water today than yesterday, I'll be taking my Vitamin D later so I can metabolize the calcium from my coffee (I take it with cocoa mix made with powdered milk and cool it with half and half, so there's calcium in it, I swear lol). I had breakfast, even!

Maybe I'll feel better tomorrow.

Maybe I'll draw. Maybe I'll write.

The writing, at least, is largely consistent! I'm proud of that! I've only missed one day so far, I think, and I've gotten so much done!

But my art is suffering, and that, I don't like. So I'll try again tomorrow, which is all anyone can do.

Tomorrow is for trying.

For now, though, there is a cat in a silly hat sitting in the snow.

"Snowcat" digital art; 2023 [ANIMAL]

Is it lumpy? Yes. Is it wonky? Also yes. Is it FREAKING ADORABLE?!?!?! Absolutely, and so I am very proud of my Snowcat. Look at those derpy eyes, the lil teefers... So cute.

I hope to do some more and different art soon, but for now, my little snow cat is good, and I love him.

If you want to have a say in my art, feel free to buy me a coffee over on Ko-Fi with a message attached telling me which category (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Location, Dedbert, Geometric, or Word) you'd like to see!

For now, I'm going to watch silly videos and plan out more pictures. Maybe add more words to my story.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Snowmageddon Week 2

 

The Weather Outside's Been Frightful
But all This Snow's Delightful!

The weather this past week has been unpleasant up here in the beachy north. Temperatures have unreliably fluctuated between 28 to 52℉ (-2 to 11℃), and it has rained, snowed, and blown a gale (up to 50mph/80kph), sometimes all at once. When it's been clear, it's been cold or windy. Needless to say, I've spent a lot of time holed up in the blanket fort, hooking up a small blizzard.

In total, I now have nearly a dozen snowflakes! I believe that on last Monday, I had only 4 or 5 completed. I have... more now.

I actually ended up taking pictures of all of the snowflakes I've completed up to now (including the ones from last week, sorry).

Snowmageddon Part 1

Snowmageddon Part 2

The snowflakes I've completed since last Monday are as follows:

Snowflake #1

Crochet Snowflake

Cake Head Snowflake

Lace Snowflake

Chocolate Chip Eater

Snowflake Corfu

That list above links directly to either the Ravelry page for that pattern or the pattern itself (if the pattern is on someone else's website/blog). And if I can crochet them by desk lamp light while the wind howls outside and my coffee cools on my desk, you can crochet them, too!

There is a lot of counting involved in some of these flakes, and it takes me an average of 45 minutes to make each one. In fact, it took me over 8 hours to crochet all of the snowflakes in the last two weeks that I've done. I only skipped one day, but I've hooked a few in one day, too.

On average, it takes about 45 minutes for me to crochet these using hooks between 1.5mm and 2mm on the white cotton crochet thread you can pick up at Wal-Mart. The longest I spent on a flake was an hour and a half (on the Chocolate Chip Eater), and the fastest flake I made was the "Crochet Snowflake", which took a little over 15 minutes to make. If you're going to make one single design of a flake, that might be the one to make en masse.

If you're going for fancy flakes, though, I'm really loving the humorously named flurry of patterns that Jessica Wifall is putting out this year on Ravelry, so if you're on there, those might be your idea of a good time, too. The Wifall patterns are taking me an hour or more per flake, but they're delightfully complex-looking while not being overly complicated, stitch-wise. In fact, it's mostly just a lot of yarning over for hilariously long stitches (really, I've never even seen a trtr stitch before this month, and they're so fun to make - yarn over 4x and start pulling through over and over!) and counting chains.

The crop of snowflakes available this year is magnificent, and if you're looking to make yourself a bunch of ornaments and learning some new patterns, this is definitely the year to do it.

Let's get flakey, y'all!

And Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which The Letdown Has Been Let Down

I'm sure at some point in your internet journeys, you've all come into contact with the term "Holiday Letdown", but in case you haven't bumped into it yet (a phenomenon I'm quite used to, since I get lost in the tubes quite easily and miss much more important info than this), it basically is a term to describe that feeling of being bummed out or sad or depressed after a holiday.

And it's hitting me like I'm the piñata and the post-Halloween Blues are a hyped-up toddler with a stick.

So today I didn't want to do much of anything. Instead, I just took a shower, crawled into my owl pajamas and my orange witch sweater, and went back to bed. I played with the cat a tiny bit, read random stuff on the internet, chatted with my boyfriend, and made some taquitos.

I also ate some leftover candy because we had zero trick-or-treaters last night.

I feel frustrated with myself because I haven't been as creative as I want to be. Yes, even after 31 drawings in 31 days, I still feel... uncreative.

Honestly a large part of this is probably that my room is a disaster area again, and I haven't been able to clean it up. Motivation is lacking.

I'll get around to it.

So since I'm kind of stuck in my own mopes and grumps, I'm going to try to pull myself out by making plans for the next 2 months - the last two in 2022, if you can believe it.

This month, I hope to make some crochet projects, finish the stupid mushroom bag, and teach myself to sew something by hand that doesn't look like a child made it.

I also want two make a finished digital artwork that looks good. Not just adequate, but I want to get one image to a point where I'm really very happy with it. I'm not picky about which program that happens in, Krita or Paint.net, but I'd like to get it done.

Finally, this November, I'd like to play more Stardew Valley. I haven't played in months, and I've missed that world. Also I've never unlocked everything. That'll be my goal.

My goals for December are more utilitarian.

I have people to make things for. I have ideas. I just have to actually 1) commit, 2) create, and 3) complete. That's only three steps. If I think of it that way, then I think I can actually get my work done. I will be working on some of the things I'm planning this month as well, just because 24 days is not enough time to get everything in order.

I am hoping to try a few more watercolor paintings in December, especially.

And of course, the annual Snowstorm for Fiber Mondays...

Maybe.... Hm...

I might do something silly.

And try to do 1 snowflake every day from December 1st to Christmas Eve.

It sounds hard, right? But the trick is... most snowflakes take maybe 2 hours total.

I can do that before bed or during my morning coffee.

As for this week, I don't know what the plan actually is beyond this:

If you'd like to influence what I draw, paint, digitally attempt, etc, I have a button for my Ko-Fi account where you can send me a little money along with a message telling me which category you'd like me to work from. Those categories are:

• Animal - I'll make something with an animal of some sort in it. Animals include humans and monsters, too, so you really never know what you'll get!
• Vegetable - I'll make something plant or fungus-related. Will it be a broccoli? Will it be a stand of oak trees? An artist's bracket fungus?
• Mineral - Listen, I like rocks. I like crystals. I like pebbles and dirt. This category means I'll make art with something rock/dirt/crystal related in it!
• Dedbert - My lil green owl buddy is a muse of mine, so if you pick this category, he'll appear in what I make!
• Location - Landscapes, cityscapes, seascapes... basically this category means I'm making art with a real sense of place!
• Geometric - I love abstract geometric art, like Mondrian. I also sometimes like to make bubble art. And stained glass is fun to play with, too! This category has a lot of potential.
• Word - You pick the word, I make the art!

Every time I've received Ko-Fis with art prompts, I've had a lot of fun, so please don't ever feel like you'd be bothering me if you want to try this!

I might also make a blog post of various things that I think artists/crafters might like, if anyone would be interested in that?

If there's anything y'all would like to see from me in the next two months, please let me know in the comments!

That'll about do it for me.

Go enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday: FINALLY

 

In Which I Have Finally Finished the Stocking
(Kind Of)

Despite all of my procrastination, seasonal depression, unrelated stress and anxiety, and just plain not knowing what I was doing 90% of the time, I have finally finished the stocking! Kind of.

The stocking is done! I have the whole body made up, just have an end or two to weave in, but I haven't even begun to think about where to put the name or just how I'll do it. Do I do a 5x5 stitch cross-stitch? 3x5? Serif or sans serif? Lots to think about.

But that's Tomorrow Me's problem because Today's Me is proud of what I've accomplished!

LOOK AT IT!

I'm so pleased with how the antlers came out, and I can't wait to add the name. It was suggested that I put it on the foot, and I may go with that :) Regardless, it's done and it's huge and I know there's nothing there for scale, but I measured it at about 32 inches (81cm) top to toe!

I'm thankful to you all for bearing with me, to my sibling and nibling for their patience, and to my joints, which have gamely stood up to several months of use for this project. I only have a handful of that original skein of blue yarn left now, though both the brown and white are much more plentiful.

I feel like I've earned a few days away from the hook lol

What do you guys think of this project? Is it too big? Should I have made it bigger? Should I have put less space between the borders and the snowflakes? Should I put the name on the foot or do I monogram it around each snowflake in a V formation (one initial to the upper left of the snowflake, another to the upper right, and one at the bottom center)? Whaddaya think? :P

For me? I'm just gonna....

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday: Cyberstruggles

 

In Which Today Was Very Difficult

This morning, I woke up before 10AM (around 8:30 I believe) and found that I'd unplugged my laptop in my sleep. I've developed something of a (not very healthy) habit of falling asleep watching YouTube videos with my laptop on my lap in bed. My poor laptop was quite old and had already had one battery fail completely. I replaced that battery with one at 76% of its life expectancy and... well...

Something went terribly wrong.

It's my partner's birthday today, by the way, so if you see them around the internet or you read their blog Attack The Stack, then please offer your congratulations! I'm dating an awesome person, so I decided to post on their Facebook wall just how I feel and offer my best wishes etc, and halfway through my deeply heartfelt message...

Everything stopped working. My laptop 100% froze - no hard drive activity, no fans, no amount of ctrl+alt+del or tapping the power button worked. I had to unplug the laptop once more and pull the battery, which if you do any IT work, you know that's a BIG NO NO. But desperate times called for desperate... what? Measures? WHO SAID THAT?!?!?! (inside joke, don't worry about it).

I pressed power again and... nothing. The internet and power lights were on, but the screen stayed black, the fans spun once and stopped, no hard drive activity.

I am not ashamed to say that I absolutely panicked. It wouldn't even be the first laptop I bricked, but it's Pandemic Times and I spend roughly 75-85% of my days on my computer, whether it's listening to music or reading or playing games or checking patterns. I freaked out. Luckily, MLK Day is a holiday for hospital IT guys (I know, it doesn't really make sense, but I'm grateful for it today) so my dad, who is the Computer God in this family, was home. Unfortunately, he was also on the phone and my family has this condition called "I'm Talking And I Can't Shut Up", so he was going to be in that conversation for... quite a while.

I tried everything I could think of while I was downstairs.

Except for the thing he suggested when he walked in and saw me struggling.

"Did you try taking the battery out, plugging it in, and trying to turn it on?"

Guys. It worked.

But! That dear old laptop has a very wobbly AC port and I knew that I couldn't function with it like that, so it was now time for an upgrade.

Which is a longwinded way of letting you know I'm typing this from a very nice not-that-new laptop. Like most things I own that I like, it's second-hand, refurbished, and my dad and I rebuilt it over the course of the afternoon. As you may have guessed, this left almost no time for crochet, so there's no progress from today to share, but I can still give you a picture of how far I've gotten since last week in general on the stocking!

Roku Remote for Scale

So there you have it - a massive, truly HUGE stocking! I have one last design band to put on and I am planning to put my nibling's name on in cross stitch. I don't put info about minors on my blog, though, so I'll show you the finished stocking sans name :)

It's gonna be so freaking huge...

The whole length of the Red Heart Super Saver skein is actually sitting in the foot right now.

Alright. I'm pretty pooped, so I'm gonna finish my last cup of tea for the day (more Meyer Lemon - I'll try to do a review some Sunday of all the teas I got for Christmas!) and get ready for my partner's birthday bash online :)

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

It Might Snow, I Dunno

It's been a heck of a week, and I've been super busy, but I did manage to whip up a couple of simple pixel drawings to share with you guys!

"SM01"

"Egg of Layers 01"

With the Snowman, I'm thinking of going back into the image and giving his arms an outline, then basically cutting them out and putting them on their own layer, same with his hat and the front of his scarf. Then I want to practice making a sprite sheet for him so I can maybe animate it!

As for the egg, I just wanted to experiment with different fill qualities, shading, etc. I'm gonna keep experimenting with shapes and lighting!

I think I'm gonna go play with more pixels and crochet a bunch of stuff lol.

I'll post some more stuff next week, but this week was busy as heck, which is why I'm so far behind!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday - Blizzard Watch 2020

 

The Leaves Have Fallen, Time To Think Chilly!

Somebody is typing this sleepily from their bed.

It me.

I meant to write this blog earlier today, but I've been busy with book stuff, brewing two separate pots of tea (more on that tomorrow lol), making Yakisoba, and crocheting up a storm. Almost literally.

See, as soon as the last leaf falls, I start to ease out of Autumn Mode and tumble slowly towards the Winter. Since it's the last week of November, that's fine.

Basically, what happens is this: I start crocheting my Christmas gifts for everyone right before Thanksgiving, they're finished (hopefully) by Christmas itself, and then I keep going past New Years with winter-themed items which usually find a home in one of my mom's decoration totes in the cellar until the next year.

This year, I've resolved to make snowflakes. A lot of snowflakes. As many as I have white thread for.

Since I realized last week that I'd utterly botched at least three early rows of that spiderweb doily, I'm going to frog it and cannibalize that thread for more snow. Here's what I've got so far (sans two, which had fallen out of the pile as I transferred it onto my coziest blanket for the photo op!):

This year's blizzard is coming along nicely!

Snowflakes are especially fun to work on when it's pouring rain outside (I'm being a tad sarcastic there), but it's a fairly mindless process once you have the first section of each round done. They tend to be the same pattern six to twelve times in a round. Thankfully, they're also one of the most common types of pattern on the internet and you can find dozens of varieties for free!

Next year, probably starting January 1, I plan to make at least 100 snowflakes throughout the year, and I hope to sell them come next November, so... keep your eyes peeled!

For now, though, this batch needs to be woven in, pressed, blocked, and starched. Then I can worry about the next batch :)

Wow, my eyes are really heavy right now - it's nearly midnight lol.

Go Enjoy Something, folks!

FC