Knitting – Ink, Yarn & Beer

What Lies Ahead for 2024?

This past year I have focused a lot on painting and various media for art work. Watercolors, acrylics, portraiture in pencil, oil pastels, gouache, and probably a few others. I started my “Not Taken Vacation” series, which still needs to be completed, with pen and ink. Rewarding as this has been, and the gains I know I have made, I have also missed adventures in other areas. In 2024, I want to continue working on art work, as it is my first love, but other areas for creativity and exploration, have fallen to the wayside, and I miss them.

If I were to just list some of the things I missed doing and want to continue to do, I think I would begin to feel overwhelmed . . . but let’s see what a list will produce.

Sewing?

Knitting?

Gardening?

Photography?

Hiking?

Travel?

Reading?

Cooking and baking?

Exploring?

If I look at what I have been playing with to date, I am knitting, taking a few photos, and sewing. Most of my “reading” is really using an audiobook and listening to it while I knit. I have a number of sewing projects on hold because I have been lacking in time to focus, but that is really silly as I have everything in place and ready to go at the sewing table. I have a tabletop ironing board I can put on a countertop, so why not?

Being a Libra, indecisiveness is the norm. This? That? (Yes, laugh if you like at astrology, but sometimes it is too true!) Experience shows me that just starting something is usually all I need to get out of my slump, whatever form it may be taking and just

The Unfinished Sock

I bought a travel camera awhile ago – a Canon G7X Mark II – and am playing with it. I am trying out the different modes. This is one of the earlier photos after I just got it, and then I reduced the picture to black and white, not aware that there is a B&W mode in the camera. I want to get comfortable with the camera to get it to do what I want it to do when out and about in strange and exotic places.

I have some really good cameras – but I don’t want to have to change lenses or stay limited to one lens on a range finder. The G7X Mark II was the one I chose after looking at a bazillion digital point and shoots as I can actually set priorities (ie aperture, speed) or go totally automatic or totally manual.

And, it fits in my pocket.

Vagaries in the Real World

In my perfect world, I would paint every day. In my real world, I have limited time just because I have so many interests. Little things can become big things, not necessarily bad, but in the sense of taking more time than planned. Also, life can produce some interesting lessons.

For example, I have recently found that 3M 101+ tape is the best tape for watercolor paper borders. Lightweight, seemingly impervious to unsticking with a lot of water from a wash, easily removable without tearing paper even when not using a blow dryer to warm it as you pull it off . . .

We bought a motion-activated infrared trail cam to determine what critter was destroying our plants in the side garden. Mouses! Traps caught one with cheese – ours seem to dislike peanut butter. I think they have learned their lesson. The leaves are returning to the plants they ate. They also figured out not to go into the traps otherwise chompy chompy. Fortunately, I don’t deal with the traps or dead things.

The 818S is going along nicely. Brakes are the first big addition to it. Josh has been riveting and blogging away at 805-818.com if you want to see.

I am sewing masks again, this time on my Singer 403A. Threads need cutting, something that a computerized machine automates along with back stitching. Technologies have changed since the 1950s for sure!

The ham will be used to iron out the masks I am currently sewing up. Thanks to AVWalters for that suggestion! I don’t tend to iron them, but why not as it is waiting to be used, looking very ham-like and hamsome.

I have also decided on the pattern to use and material for my 1920s dress. Now, after the masks are done, I will dig out the pattern and determine if I have enough material in my stash for it. If not, what?

Also, decided to do more medium format photography with my Big Beast cameras – the ones that have modular parts or interchangeable lenses. They weigh in at 500 lbs. easily, so a neck strap and a tripod or monopod make photography life easier.

With the sewing project and photography project, as well as oodles of appointments – 3 this week, 2 next – painting and drawing of course have gone to the wayside. I don’t see this as a bad thing, but something to return to refreshed by not being there. I see it as a vacation. Go away. Come back. Refreshed by the differences. Eager to begin again.

Oh, and I have a sweater to dye with indigo, another one to start work on, some spinning to do, and some shibori to plan when I do the indigo dye day.

And a bike to ride.

Ciao for niao!

Wooleryness

My box of knitting – a sweater in the round, to be steeked into a cardigan. The whole process of steeking entails sewing down a bead on either side of where you CUT THE SWEATER. From there, well, let’s wait until then! Too scary to contemplate for a first-time activity.

Oh, how Covid-19 makes you bored and brave (or foolish) at the same time!

Fish Hat: Dead or Alive (Revisited)

Years ago I made a fish hat for my husband. It’s in the shape of a real fish, complete with eyes, fins, and a tail. That was some 10 years ago, and over time, I have probably made another half dozen. The fish hat is clever and a fun way to use up your stash of left over yarn. The pattern was published in the online knitting magazine, Knitty, and you can find it here: Fish Hat: Dead or Alive? Because the dead fish hat was so popular, the designer even opened up a special website for more information about her ingenious pattern. The beauty of this last link is that you can find the fish hat in crochet, for charity, using a knitting machine, in different languages. If you don’t want to knit, find the crochet version at that site.

I even created knitted, rather than felt cloth, eyes for the dead fish. The pattern is below:

Fish Hat [Dead or Alive?] Eyes

Cast on 4 stitches. Knit front and back of each stitch – 8 stitches. Transfer to double point needles, place marker at round beginning.

Rnd 1: Knit

Rnd 2: Knit front and back each stitch – 16 stitches.

Rnd 3: Knit

Rnd 4: *Knit front and back, knit 1,* repeat to end – 24 stitches

Rnd 5: Knit

Rnd 6: *Knit front and back, knit 2,* repeat to end – 32 stitches

Rnd 7: Knit

Rnd 8: *Knit front and back, knit 3,* repeat to end – 40 stitches

Rnd 9 and 10: Knit

Bind off.

Here is the first fish hat I made. I made it around 2008 for my husband. It has the knitted eyes, which look pretty good, I think.

The most recent fish hat is all stripes and has crocheted eyes. The eyes were all done with single crochet. For these eyes, follow the same ideas as the knitted eyes, but crochet. It works.

I like the knitted eyes better.

With limited amounts of yarn for the most recent fish hat, I had to be pretty careful about what I used. For instance, the tail is in two colors, not one. The pectoral fins are smaller, too, because I was running out of black yarn.

I spent the last week knitting up this most recent fish hat – good way to listen to an audio book or watch some TV and do something productive and satisfying while riding out a head cold.

If you need something to do with your stash and have worsted-weight yarn, make a fish hat! I’ve made a Nemo (clown fish) and others, and everyone has liked them. The yarn is worsted weight, and my preferred yarn is acrylic, specifically Vanna’s Choice, which I find to be a very nice yarn altogether. The original fish hat is about 10 years old, and has been washed multiple times.

This one is for my SIL who, at Christmas, said, “I’d like a fish hat, too!” So, here it is, ready for her birthday next month.

Below, a rogue’s gallery of the fish hat in action!