Category Archives: Crafting

Crafting, Mostly me

Studio

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I signed a 6-month lease for a studio at the Maker space. It’s a whole 48 square feet. I moved in my drawing table, a chair, and some smaller things. I have a cabinet which was left behind two tenants ago and what I think is a microwave stand. I stacked them to save floor space and form a half wall at the entrance.

There’s already a wall from a different studio on the side where I created the half wall and I’m going to bring in some wire cubes to form part of the opposite wall. The back wall is the block wall of the room the studios are in. I’m debating whether to bring in the bi-fold door that’s been in the basement since I moved in. It would make a good backdrop and I could use S-hooks to hang my shop light so I have light at night.

We had an inspection earlier this year and they had a few recommendations for electrical drops in areas instead of extension cords. We should have put them in when we were re-wiring the place prior to moving in. We’ll probably do it if we extend our lease for another two years and acquire Suite A to expand into.

If we do extend the lease, I’d like for electronics to move to a different area, so I can expand to put in a nice printmaking area. Every tour, someone asks about block printing. If I could enlarge my area, I would get a good press to accommodate a variety of sized prints.

In other news, I’ve managed to do a few more paintings. My schedule has been disrupted by pulling assorted muscles doing heavy work. I shouldn’t have to do it, but The Boy Wonder is notorious for his lack of assistance.

Next update will include pictures.

Crafting, My own damned opinion., Painting & Drawing, Watercolor painting

A bit behind.

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As usual.

I’ve been offered a small press for block printing for my area of the maker-space. I’ve been asked on tours if we have such a press. A member offered me a small one. I have a few people interested and I have money to purchase it.

I had been thinking about re-purposing my heat press into a printing press for my own use. I would merely use the pressure plate without applying heat. If the small press gets even moderate use, I will invest in a larger one for the area. When I give tours, I am occasionally asked if we have a printing press. It would be nice to say yes.

I finished a few more paintings. One of my maker-space friends and I sat painting and talking while I was waiting for members to show up for needed help. My office hours aren’t too busy, but I find that having the regular hours helps those who are interested in the craft area.

I included the (butt) pear painting under the improved painting.

I didn’t leave until almost 2 in the morning. I didn’t have to get up early since I don’t dog sit anymore. My taxes are finally done and sent. Whoopee! I did forget to file my sakes tax return so I got a bill for $600+. I’ll get it sorted. I didn’t do any sales last year which is why I forgot. I usually complete the form when I’m setting up my tax folder for tax season,

Here’s an interesting article I found online which contains clues about why our delightful congresspersons, the Muskrat, and Fearless Felon can’t conceive of the needs of normal people. It’s not primarily because of the wealth they’ve accrued, but because the power they gain from that wealth affects their brain and lessens their empathy.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/power-causes-brain-damage/528711/

I guess I should be glad I’m not wealthy. I would hate to become someone who cannot empathize with people.

Crafting

Well, I’m glad that’s over.

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I don’t have to see any more Brad Schimel ads. He lost. In spite of all the money Muskrat put in his pot. I’m glad. We really don’t need someone who hates women on the state Supreme Court. Of course, his apologists will say otherwise, but his record speaks for him — hundreds of untested rape kits, belief in an archaic abortion law, rapists let off. Bah!

Someone I used to work with ran for an Alder position on the West Side. She didn’t win, but yay for trying. She’s a very strong minded person, a good librarian, and someone I was friendly with at work. I think she’s younger than me but not by much. I’ve gone from one of the youngest on my block to the oldest. But I still have young attitudes.

There are three houses across the street that still have the residents who were here when I moved in. There are four on my side that haven’t sold yet. These are just on my block. Up the street, in the next block, about half the homes have changed hands since I moved here years ago. Most of the houses were built here to house families working in local manufactories that have since gone out of business.

My house was the original farm house back in the 1920’s when the neighborhood was farm land. Most of the houses that are around me were built in the post-WWII boom. According to a former neighbor who was the oldest on my block when I moved in, six boys were raised in this dollhouse. It’s actually smaller than I would have liked, being the craft supply hoarder that I am, but perfect for one old lady and her cat.

I mean, what’s an old lady without a cat? There used to be four here, plus a dog. I kind of still have them all — in a small plot in the back yard. Every now and again, I do check to make certain they haven’t crawled out to terrorize the neighborhood. You can blame Stephen King and my imagination for that.

Now for some more of my awful watercolors. I actually going to make one or more mini books from them when I finish the series.

Latest paintings.

Have fun. Remember, you’re going to look back on Covid-19 as one of the high points of your lifetime because this year is going suck worse.

Crafting, Mostly me, Stuff

Still stressed but good medical news

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My last blood test results were in normal ranges. In another couple of months if all stays improved, they’ll start weaning off my meds. Yay, Rah!

I’m a little behind on my paintings. I have two in progress but I’m not satisfied. The size limitation is what gets me. I have a chance to start watercolor classes again, but I’m leery of spending money for a non-essential while the Social Security issue is in crisis.

The Melon Felon is going all out for Fascism. I’m surprised he hasn’t had a sparkly gold uniform made. Probably, there’s one in his closet with bogus medals hanging on the jacket and he’ll start parading around in it next month. Enough said.

It was Craft Night again. This time I took a new cat coloring book and some markers. I need to make a list of unfinished projects and work on them. But not too fast. I can’t die until I’m done with all of them. Given the number of items in progress, if I never start a new project but just work on existing ones, I’ll be close to 200 years old when I die.

Crafting, My own damned opinion.

More paintings and stress.

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Sorry. I’ve been stressed about my Social Security check. This month’s will be deposited. Next month, who knows. I used to accept that Republicans had a differing world view from mine. While I’m sort of a registered Democrat for election purposes, I’m more of a free-thinker.

What I want from my government is provide a stable framework of laws and regulations to ensure that every citizen has an equal chance to live a good life. But the current gang of grifters, sycophants, and haters has no moral compass, no loyalty to the principles of the Constitution, no conscience, no care, even for their constituents.

I doubt I will live long enough to see this country return to a nation based on Constitutional principles and laws. Right now, laws don’t matter. The orange buffoon sits at a desk and scribbles his signature on whatever is placed in front of him. I seriously doubt that he even knows what his proclamations really say, or even cares if he does.

Okay. Rant over. New topic.

These are all the tiny watercolor paintings I’ve done so far. It’s a year-long challenge. There are a couple based on Van Gogh, a couple of interesting objects from the neighborhood like the pizza oven and the hydrant, Devil’s Tower from a road trip, and some from other sources. 7 done and 93 more to do. I’ve spaced then out to very three days because I tried certain other timed projects that were daily and never completed them.

My first 7 watercolor paintings. They’re supposed to be this small as a way of not being overwhelming.

The first challenge I participated in was to knit 52 pairs of sock in a year. I did manage to complete 39 pairs in varying sizes from Barbie doll sized to ornament-sized, to baby and toddler-sized to the 15 pairs of socks I actually still wear. The last two 100-day challenges were never completed. I would find myself skipping days or not completing even a single project within the time frame. This current challenge is spaced out to 100 tiny paintings in a year. So far, so good. One painting every three days is working so far.

Crafting, Watercolor painting

Started a new project.

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I was on YouTube looking for something better than politics and came across a channel by an artist, Leslie Stroz, 100 Tiny Paintings in a Year. So I thought, why not try. A painter I know from the maker space has been encouraging me to get back into painting. The paintings for this project will be 2 inches high and 3 inches tall or 3 inches tall and 2 inches wide. The blank papers fit in an Altoids tin.

I have a couple of small watercolor sets – one has 24 colors and the other has 12. I have various types of brushes in small sizes and two small jars for water. I can stash some baby wipes in a sandwich bag into another Altoids tin. The entire kit can fit in a plastic shoe box.

Yes, I know. I already have a lot of projects I’m working on. There are towels on the loom that need to be finished. There are still unfinished Christmas gifts waiting to be completed. I have book donations to catalog at the maker space. I have to work up a course on reading sewing patterns that I promised to work on.

I need to wash the kitchen walls and re-paint them and hang shelving so things don’t have to be shuffled around when I need to find a space to use the cutting boards. And so on, and so on. I don’t get side-tracked, I get derailed.

Anyway, I did my interpretation of a Van Gogh landscape from an old calendar which is below. In a couple of days, I will do one of an old outdoor oven that’s in the yard of what used to be a fireplace store.

I think the original painting dates to Van Gogh’s time in Arles.

I have a lot of inspiration pictures from my watercolor classes. I’ll have to scale them down. I guess we’ll see how many I actually will have completed by this time next year. One every three days should be doable, especially as the project is more portable than most of mine. I hope my attention span lasts long enough or if this will be another unfinished thing.

Stay tuned.

Bookbinding, Crafting, My own damned opinion.

I never thought I’d be living in a real life American Horror Story.

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This will not end well. It’s been three weeks and the entire world is aflame, metaphorically speaking. Or maybe it’s hyperbole. At any rate, I have to stop doom-scrolling. I’m making myself sick.

So to change the subject…

I’ve done the final print of the book I’m working on. I have a cover design. The next step is to sew the signatures. After that, comes pressing the signatures and preparing the text block for casing in, trimming the edges, and creating the covers and spine. And then the final assembly. After all that, I will apply silver foil to the cover design. A final couple of hours in the press and the book will be done.

I’m also working on some simple notebooks in case the Maker Space decides to participate in any sort of artsy sale this year. Whenever we have have one of these events, I do well. Well in a relative sense. I sell handmade junk journals, blank books, zines, and book related items such as book cloth, bookmarks, and repurposed books.

I make way more money than I put into the items with regard to cost of materials. I really don’t factor in my time because I make things to use up the myriad supplies and equipment I have purchased over the years and to keep myself from just lying around on the couch scrolling through Pinterest and Youtube or re-watching Supernatural, Buffy, or Star Trek/Wars for the umpty-hundreth time.

Not that I actually watch any of those. Yes, one or another is playing in the background to provide voices so I don’t have to listen to the noise in my head. I discovered that there is an actual name for the music I hear in my head – Musical Ear Syndrome. So instead of just the incessant buzzes, mumbly sounds, and dings of tinnitus, hearing what sounds like the 1930’s and 1940’s style big band music and carnival calliopes is a real thing.

Chalk it up to my black and white youth. I watched old movies from that time period. And most of the television shows were black and white or if they weren’t, I watched them in black and white. My family didn’t get a color television until just after I started college in the late ‘60s. I watched the first season of original Star Trek in black and white. I didn’t know there were red shirts until I finally saw it in color. It was just that certain people seemed to be targets. I thought that maybe the aliens thought those guys were important and they were going for the leaders.

Silly me.

Bookbinding, Crafting

So what’s next?

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I’m ready to complete the book I’ve been working on. We met today and I turned over the final draft for a read-through before I print and bind it. As I’ve said before, this is a one-off commemorative volume. We’ve settled on the binding and the decoration for the cover. I have a nice batik print as the background for a silver foil starry sky and fireflies to be added.

I’ll do the final printing next week and finish the assembly and binding the week after. I’m not charging for this. If I am offered something, I might accept it, but I can’t price pain. Bookbinding and making are things I like to do. I charge a nominal sum for book repairs when I do those.

Most of the books I make are junk journals. That’s a fairly new type of book making – new as in the last ten years or so. It’s become a hobby or a business for lots of crafters. The difference between the forms of bookbinding is that junk journals are easier to make and the supplies for junk journals are found in your daily mail, your sewing box, your scrapbooking supplies, and around the house.

No special equipment is needed except a box cutter or scissors, a metal ruler, a cutting mat, assorted papers, and fabric scraps, glue, tape, a needle, and heavy thread or embroidery floss. For decorations, old greeting cards, magazine pages, and scraps of paper will suffice. Crayons, paints, colored pencils, ink pads and stamps are nice, but you don’t need to go overboard.

Most supplies can be gotten in the crafts section at the dollar store. For instance, Dollar Tree sells pokey tools, rulers, cutting mats, glue, inks, stencils, and other art supplies for $1.25 each. I was able to outfit my beginning bookbinding students with tools for a bit over $10 each. The costs came from their fees.

For junk journals, I use any old cardboard and the book cloth is made with iron-on interfacing. The stitching of the signatures is done directly on the spine and rarely covered up. Embellishments and pockets are added to hold snippets of papers and journaling cards. They are books to be written and drawn in. If something rips, a colorful tape will bind it together and become part of the decorations.

The type of binding I doing on this slim book involves more complicated assembly. I have the last of my archival quality book board to use. I will use the last of my acid-free tissue to line the fabric that will cover the boards. My industrial paper cutter will be used to assure clean edges. Acid free glue will hold cloth and boards together. Linen thread will bind the signatures. This will be a volume to be handed down to generations.

Once it is done, I will post a picture. Or maybe I should post pictures that show each step of the process.

Crafting, My own damned opinion.

All is not well

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Rumors abound about raids last evening. Homes and manufacturing places invaded; restaurants and bars visited. I haven’t found anything on the news, just purported eye-witness accounts. Is this the new reality? That we are not safe in our homes and no one reports that we are missing? Oh sure, most people don’t have to worry. Except law enforcement frequently makes mistakes.

Are we going back to children in cages who are never returned to their parents? Who die of callous neglect in flimsy shelters, cold and hungry, and forgotten? Cruelty and callousness are not a good look for “The Greatest Nation On Earth.” As it is, we as a country no longer have too many friends left and the new regime has been in charge less that a week.

I used to read a lot of classic dystopian fiction when I was younger. I never expected any of it to become reality. They were just exercises in what could be if certain theories were played out in real time. It seems like Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, and 1984 were not the images of the worst we could be. We will soon have the Hunger Games, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Lord of the Flies in real time.

We barely missed The Andromeda Strain and The Stand with the pandemic. But give us more time. There are too many undereducated people out there who will follow the latest tabloid exposé on health and well-being, and will continue to refuse inoculations for preventable diseases.

“My ignorance is just as valid as your knowledge,” seems to be the trend. And how did I wander away from what is supposed to be about making things to a political diatribe? Just fate I guess, and a lack of any crafting content. Which tells me I need to get off my hiney, take my meds, and get crafting.

Later, folks.