the emotional life of sølje

Reference: “Color and Composition for the Creative Quilter” by Katie Pasquini Masopust and Brett Barker

Well, it was an interesting exercise for sure. What I have learned, is that when I have complete access to view what I am drawing, my brain says “this sucks”. I found that result of the second exercise was the better of the three in my opinion.

Blind Contour Drawing: Only viewing the still life, covering the drawing and not being able to reference where I am

Modified Blind Contour Drawing: Being able to view, but the pencil stops when I view the drawing.

Contour Drawing: Full access to the drawing, no restrictions.

Strike that description for the Contour Drawing #3, the restriction for this one was purely self imposed. I am not quite free yet, but I believe I am getting there. I will practice again tomorrow, doing a little bit each day to make it more intuitive and not so questioning in my mind.

Tags: Art, Quilting by Solje
3 Comments »

I have been working on my second pair of socks since last week. These are taking me longer than my first pair, but I must say that I do like how these are coming along much more.

So I was wondering, in the knitting world, would the “Sock It To Me Puzzle” yarn (through elann.com) be the “cheater clothe” from the quilting world? The yarn creates a mini Fair Isle design without the fuss and muss of needing more than one yarn.

I bought another color of this yarn, but the stripes are going to be yellows and oranges if I remember correctly I am sure Kevin would love a pair of those! Actually, I did buy some plain-jane Dale superwash for socks for him and Daniel. Kevin isn’t too crazy about funky socks. Not sure what’s wrong with him, I’m sure if they were Mariners colors he might wear them! I’ll start with the blue Dale of Norway, see what he thinks after that.

I have to say, that some knitters have written about having too many projects going on at once, my thought on this is, as long as you have empty needles, so what? I have found that I like having several projects in several stages since I can work on what I feel like at that moment, i.e. if I am feeling like mindless knitting, I can do my socks :-); if I feel like working patterns, I can do Kevin’s Dale sweater; if I want to finish a project, I find the project that is near the end stage.

So if you have a lot of projects in the holding pattern stop feeling guilty and work on them when you get the desire.

Now, my quilting UFO containers… those will continue to marinade for a while. I am thinking that cutting and reworking them into different shapes may be an option I need to weed the weeds somehow!

Tags: Knitting by Solje
1 Comment »

Daniel, Dad, and I made our first gingerbread house tonight. Messy and fun! I manned the icing, Daniel directed where he wanted it, and Dad helped in making sure the walls were up before decorating began. A family affair.

In the meantime, the tablecloth is back in the washer, and tomorrow I need to do some major cleaning. We are still not decorated for Christmas, and I really want to do it this weekend. We need to get boxes out of storage, so I have time to get my cleaning done before then. Unlike last year, I am looking forward to Christmas this year. I become very sentimental this time of year, and that of course means that I mourn my parents (died in May 2002 and Oct. 2003). My mom loved this time of year, so she of course went all out when it came to decorating. Mom and Dad would host a big family dinner, and after dinner, was singing. No one ever claimed to enjoy it, but it was a nice part of the evening.

Of course, making lefse and fatigman, the tons of Christmas cookies was always a big event she had me and my sister partake in. Norwegians must have at least five different types of Christmas cookies, dontcha know? Rosettes. I hated making Rosettes. And of course, Mom betrothed that darned Rosette iron to me. Lucky me. ugh. Maybe I will make them this year just for memories of how much I hated making them. I will always cherish those memories.

Tags: A Family Affair by Solje
2 Comments »