Last year I was introduced to a group of pinhole photographers who were very lively, enthusiastic, and inviting. They have a meet-up group that gets together roughly once a month, they pick a location, meet for brunch, and then explore the area as a group. A sort of "photo crawl". I joined their group last year, however their group meetings were perpetually scheduled on days where I ended up being out of town (either for planned vacations or sudden family emergencies) Today was to be the first time I could actually attend a meet-up, but alas I woke to sloppy snow/rain mix. I'm not usually one to cancel due to weather, but my camera is an antique, and I'm reluctant to bring it out in weather that is this cold and sloppy. My fingers are crossed for next month... perhaps they'll schedule a day for the tulip festival in April? (I'll head up there myself, in any case, but it would be fun to do it as a group)
I've done very little with photography over the last week. I did manage to narrow down my preferred way of converting color to black and white. I realized that I started using digital copies and converting in Lightroom so that I could have a non-destructive conversion, and also so that I wouldn't take up space with more full-size copies of images. The great irony is that once I had that all settled, I received my latest copy of Lightroom Magazine, which has a convenient article about converting to black and white. *sigh* The article has additional tips beyond my own workflow, which is useful, but I feel like I lost a couple hours watching unhelpful videos only to have the answer delivered to my inbox a couple weeks later.
A friend of mine is undergoing surgery this week, so I poked around Pinterest for card ideas and then pulled out my card making supplies. I started out with a stamped image which I left sit on my work table for 2 days to dry. Then I used the embossing gun to speed up the drying. Once I thought it was dry, I began to add color with pencils, but the ink still smudged. That's when I noticed it was labeled "slow drying" - I suppose that ink should only be used for embossing. So I tossed the whole stamped idea, and went for paper punching instead (highlighted with fast-drying ink)
In the end, the art room was covered with supplies spread out all over the place... now I understand why my mom always punched about 50 things whenever she brought her punches out - why mess up the room to this degree to make just one thing?
I had forgotten how much I do enjoy paper punching, and this makes me eager to get my room back to a scrapbooking setup.
I took the first real steps in my new "big" project - the king sized hand embroidered state bird quilt. Last weekend I did the math on the design and cut the squares that I'll need to embroider the birds onto. They will eventually be 8.5 inches (8 after sewing the blocks) but I cut them 9.5 inches to give me some embroidery wiggle room. Once they are embroidered, I'll cut them down to the proper size. I'll be doing my "block by block" method of quilting, which means each square will be surrounded by sashing. The original pattern was for a queen sized quilt with sashing about half the size of the rectangles. I have changed this to be squares framed by 3 inch sashing, which should give it a more balanced look than the pattern's presentation. It also makes it easier for me to construct the quilt once the individual squares are done.
The squares are cut, and I tested the iron on pattern to make sure it would transfer, but I stopped short of ironing the images onto squares. I'm finishing an embroidered towel that my mom had started, and I want to get that done first so that I can use her thread organizer for this project. This is a nice, mobile project that I can work on while I'm out and about and find myself waiting for other people.
I did get my sea turtle quilt hung up as well. I'm very happy with how this one turned out.
While I'm disappointed that my pinhole day has been snowed out, I find myself with a full Sunday of open time in which to apply to projects. If I finish my towel, I can iron the birds onto the squares. Then I can pack up the embroidery into my tote, clear my art room tables of fabric, and lay out my scrapbooking supplies. I have travel plans for August which are sure to include ephemera for scrapbooking, and I'm now extremely anxious to make good progress on my companion albums.
This morning I saw a meme online: The only problem with being a multi-crafter is deciding which craft to spend time on".
Indeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment