Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Have No Sleep Schedule...

So...

I don't sleep correctly. I try - believe me when I say I do my best to increase my sleep hygiene - but even the Military Method isn't reliable. Maybe it's the squirrelbrain thing I've got going on.

This means that I can't ever predict when I'm going to fall asleep or (more importantly) wake up.

Today I woke up at 10:57AM.

I have not felt awake at any point today, though I do otherwise feel pretty good.

This means that I have finished zero snowflakes today in my Snowmageddon 2022 endeavors. I haven't drawn, I haven't written, and I haven't even planned for anything. I just... flailed around doing self-maintenance (you know, eating and exercising and bathing, that kind of thing...)

It also means that my general cravings for caffeine have been off the charts.

I want coffee. It's 6:30PM. Coffee is a no-no. I will probably have coffee anyway and to hell with trying to sleep lol!

It was a lovely cold day today, too. Temperatures hovered between 30 to 40℉ (-1 to 4℃), the sun shone, the winds were still. It felt like a proper November day in the northeast!

So of course it's going to be anywhere from 40 to 50℉ (4 to 10℃) for the rest of the week with rains, heavy at times, and up to 65mph winds (105kph or so). Dandy.

At least Friday is supposed to be clear.

Speaking of the rest of the week, the plan is thus:

• Carry on with Snowmageddon by crocheting at least 1 snowflake/day until Monday!
• Art for Thursday. I have no plans but I have a new toy to play with so if you have suggestions for me to try out, feel free to buy me a coffee over on Ko-Fi (button in sidebar!) and leave a message with your donation telling me which category you'd like me to make art from. Categories are as follows:
• Animal
• Vegetable
• Mineral
• Dedbert
• Location
• Geometric
• Word
• Get pictures of all the snowflakes for Monday, possibly with some shots of them being blocked!
• Back again to blather on Tuesday :)

Hopefully I can rectify this sleep nonsense (Update: it's after 7 and I never got that coffee. I'm being kind to myself here), but until then, I hope you all...

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Snowmageddon 2022 Begins!

 

Snowmageddon is upon us once again!

Every year, I try to crochet a bunch of snowflakes, and this year is no different!

Today's batch of snowflakes were selected off of Ravelry and I spent a little under two hours hooking them up.

A Trio of Snowflakes!

The Tire Roll Snowflake

The Snowflake Wishes 2 Pattern

The Frozen Freeze Snowflake

These are reasonably easy snowflakes that mostly involve a lot of counting and/or yarning over extra times. I worked on them while watching YouTube videos, and once the tails are woven in and I block them, they'll look pretty dang good!

They already look pretty good!

And I think that designer Jessica Wifall's choice of 1.5mm hook was perfect for such structured shapes! Since they're so tightly-crocheted, most of the interior structures hold their shape perfectly even without starch!

My goal is to make one or two flakes per day until the week before Christmas, so let's see how that works!

I'm also still working on a few gifts for people. Some are... interesting, I'll say that. I think I'll record everything I make as gifts and then post them all the week after Christmas. How does that sound?

I think that'll do it from me today.

Tomorrow will be an absolutely gorgeous day, if chilly, and I may go for a walk before blogging. Tonight, however, I'm insanely cozy and very satisfied with my three little flakes. The Blizzard grows.

Snowmageddon cometh.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thanksgiving 2022

 

"Thankful Birb"; watercolor, micron, and white gel pen

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I'll be back hopefully on Monday!

Gobble til ya Wobble!

And Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which Time Is Still Quite Fluid

I woke up around 9AM today. It would stand to reason that I've done things, right? Not so. I have been mostly in bed today. It was a warmer day today, 40℉/4,44℃ and sunny, but inside was a bit chilly for my toes, so under the Red Blanket of Sleep I curled.

I have been dealing with a weird headache all day, too. It's been swimming in a circle around my head, though for now it's stalled out over my left eye. I'm sleepy, yes, but I'm also trying to figure out a couple of crochet projects I've been working on.

Cat sweaters are shockingly complicated, it turns out. You wouldn't expect a pair of rectangles and a weirdly sloped third rectangle to be so complex, and yet I'm on my 8th attempt at making the damn thing. this time I need to add an inch or so to the neckband so it's easier to slip over my cat's head.

I will also need to find a nice chunky button to use for the belly band on it. If I get that far.

Gotta admit, this is the most frustrating thing I've made in a long time. And I just used trash to help connect eyes to a project after misplacing my o-rings.

The life of a crafter with zero organizational skills.

Maybe the biggest issues I'm facing with the sweater are 1) I have that headache and thus less patience, 2) the green I'm using is way darker than you'd expect, and 3) my lighting isn't too great and I can't really see the stitches.

Regardless, my plans for this week are primarily Thanksgiving/Christmas related. I hope to do some art for Thursday, but I don't have a topic yet, so if you want to tell me which category to paint from (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Dedbert, Location, Geometric, Word) by donating a coffee on Ko-Fi with a message telling me which one!

Otherwise, I'll do my best just to do something.

Hate to admit it, but the post-Halloween letdown has been way harder this year than most. I just kind of want to hibernate. I might need to start eating more nuts & beets, apparently those can help boost your energy.

I want to say this, though - I'm not sad. Sure, I struggle with my usual ridiculous brain zaps and occasional bouts of despair (that's par for me, and I've taken to mocking the despairing voice in my mind mercilessly, which helps a lot), but mostly what I'm feeling is...

Sleepy.

I'm very sleepy lately.

And I can't help but feel like if I fluffed my blankets and wore thick enough socks and covered myself in softness and warmth, I could sleep forever.

But in a cozy, content, happy way.

Picture the fluffiest chipmunk you can imagine, dress it in the cuddliest pajamas you can find, and bury it in blankets next to a tall mug of cocoa.

That is how it be.

Instead, I have to be like the hilariously fluffy doe I saw yesterday under the bird feeders. I have to keep moving and doing and making. I have to nibble furiously at the millet of life and hare off into the thickets when the neighbors dogs bark.

That analogy kind of fell apart there.

Maybe I just wanted to talk about adorable over-fluffed animals?

Seriously, though, if you have never seen a white tailed deer's winter coat, look it up some time. They kind of look like those fluffy cows that went viral last year. All rounded and floofed up!

I just stood in front of the window, holding my cat so she could see. Evie was perfectly still in my arms, ears perked forward, tail swishing slowly and hypnotically. I was cooing at that deer the whole time she hoovered up the fallen seeds on the ground.

"You are so round! You look so sturdy! So chonky! So Thicc!" I kept giggling to myself.

Late fall/early winter is my favorite time of year because of this.

I may get cranky (who doesn't, when they crave coziness and instead have to do laundry?), but mostly I just muddle through days and cozy down into coffee and carbs and thick blankets. Do I sleep at night?

Absolutely not.

Nighttime is when I get to watch silly videos and slowly sink into sleep.

Daytime is for being sleepy lol.

Anyhow, how are all of you doing? I hope you're having a very comfortable November. I hope you're having a good time prepping for Thanksgiving (in the US) or just enjoying the week elsewhere.

And I hope you Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Experimented Again

Today's art is... odd.

And also I restarted it way more times than you'd expect from looking at it. This was as good as I could make this piece look before it drove me totally insane.

I wanted to experiment with ways to make a piece look like digital waves, and I think I kind of did that? But it also kind of just looks like television static.

Next time I work on something like this, I should try and make a background in neutral grayscale tones that looks like the static fuzz!

"Wave_01"; digital art; 2022

What's fun about this randomly-colored piece is that, as a png, it can be put over various backgrounds, which can reveal new colors that you might not be able to see on a solid white or black background!

I also used a much smaller canvas than I'm used to (a 500x500 pixel canvas, to be specific).

The more I look at it on the white space, the more I like it.

I'm actually much more satisfied with this little experiment now than when I went to write this!

I can think of about a dozen other experiments I can play around with based on this concept, too, so that's also really fun.

How about all of y'all? How are your guys' art pieces coming? Did you write this week? Did you put down some lineart or sketches? Did you doodle a little potato man in the margins of your notes?

I hope today was kind to you!

And I hope you go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which Time Management Is Hard

So.

I've been up since 9AM.

You'd think, with about 10 hours spent awake and active, I'd have written this up already, right?

I... totally forgot it was Tuesday.

Several times.

My bad.

I will say this, though, I had a fairly busy day! Went for a walk and bought some treats for myself, then worked on more crochet projects, stripped my stack of blankets and sent them to the laundromat, worked on digital art!

I also contended with some shockingly seasonal temps! It was all of 36℉/2,22℃, there was ice on the ground, and I had to break out my big red blanket last night. That thing can easily keep me warm even when it's 10℉/-12,2℃ and the heat is faltering. Honestly, I'm stoked. It means I can break out my Star Wars or Buffalo Plaid Fuzzy Pants or my fox pajamas, wear thick socks, dig out my sweaters...

And shop for another winter coat because my plaid wool peacoat is maybe a bit threadbare these days.

We found a fairly affordable parka at the Mart of Walls, and honestly, it's the warmest thing I've ever owned. I put it on for a moment today and had to take it off because I immediately overheated.

Gonna have to wait for a 20 degree, cloudy, windy day to wear that sucker.

I do have one thing to say about this past week, though...

I may be developing arthritis. I say this because the other day, my left leg was in agony. It wasn't the same stabby pain I get when my sciatic nerve acts up, either, it was deep and stiff and it built with every pulse of my heart. I would have worried more that it was a DVT or something like that if it had been in my artery/vein areas. Instead, it was right at the ligaments, cartilage and bone. It felt like I'd wrenched my entire leg.

It was so terrible I had to take ibuprofen and lay perfectly still for 8 hours. The next day, Friday, had my leg fine, but since then, my hands and wrists have ached a bit.

It's mostly been my right thumb, right where it meets the palm. I'm right-handed.

Joy, joy.

I'll be okay. I just wanted to whine lol. 

Anywho, my plans for this week are to finish this digital art, post it on Thursday, and show what else I'm making for Christmas next Monday.

I'll be back to complain about the weather next Tuesday :)

If you'd like me to do something else in addition to the digital art (or in place of, depending on how much time I've got), feel free to buy me a Ko-Fi with a message telling me what category you'd like to see - Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Dedbert, Location, Geometric, Word.

I'm going to go run my dinner dishes downstairs and gently stretch my hands and legs and spine before changing into my coziest jammies and cuddling into my flannel sheets.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which I Am Not Built for Yo Yo Weather...

This has been the weirdest fall, weather-wise. Yesterday was in the 40s (4,4℃), the day before was in the 60s (15,5℃), and today? I think our high was 38℉/3,33℃. And it's windy! We're talking gusts up to 25mph (40kph)!

Here's the problem.

My skull is a very sensitive barometer and everything that is going on with the weather has been wreaking havoc on my poor lil sinuses.

I have been coughing and sneezing all day.

Needless to say, I did not get a whole lot done today, crochet-wise. I tried to, but uh... I'm not a human being right now.

I'm a very sneezy potato.

Anywho, after about six and a half hours of crocheting and sewing and stuffing, here's the tree from last week!

It's a little under a foot tall!

I think if I was selling these, I'd charge about 30 bucks.

I also started work on a cat sweater!

I don't know if I can finish this...

I'm trying to make my cat a cute little sweater but....

I'm already out of sparkly green yarn.

Should I add that red & green yarn? It's lighter weight, so it could be trouble...

I could also just start over with the green yarn I used on the tree, of which there is a lot left...

I think I'll do that.

Maybe I'll also include some of the white metallic yarn I used for the flocking, too...

Crochet is hard, man.

Right, I think that'll about do it for me - I have sinus meds to take, water to drink, and thick blankets to cuddle down into...

Go Enjoy Something!

FC