Je suis un artist!

Oui oui!  Imagine me sitting in a Parisian cafe, laptop on a lovely wrote iron table, in a navy and white striped top, red bandanna tied around my neck and a beret perched jauntily on my head*.

Why yes, I am feeling quite French today mainly because of my recent adventures in painting.  My friend Sarah and I signed up for a Colors and Bottles night through Groupon.  Basically the premise is that you pay a fee and go and drink and be merry with 25 strangers and paint for 3 hours.  And that is just what we did.

We picked a date that worked and then realized that the painting we would make was on the calendar.

Calendar of Events

So on Wednesday, we went and painted poppies.  I do like poppies so it was a happy coincidence but none the less, poppies will putt them to sleep!  I had to include the Wizard of Oz scene in here somewhere when talking about poppies.

Anyway, the food was great, and I would definitely go back to the Modern Cafe in the future.  We sat down at easels and were given brushes and acrylic paint.  The teacher gave us some instruction but in general there were no real "rules".

When it comes to painting, I have some technique but I just don't have the vision to see something I want to paint and then make it happen.  Therefore some instruction was nice, I didn't have to stress over what to make just follow the general steps.

So we made a blue sky, and the poppies, and the ground.  There was someone who even made a whole mountain scene in the background.

But here is my painting,

Une Artiste!

So there you have the work of my own hands.  I am super proud of the shading I did and the sky is kind of awesome.  I think the bigger thing is that I am impressed at how awesome it was to paint with acrylic.  When I think of it I am reminded of banners we made in high school for band and football.  This however was really nice and dried fast so there were no messy wet painting to take home with us.

I think I will totally sign up to do this again.  It was a nice and relaxing evening and fun as you tried to recreate a pretty painting from scratch.

<3 Heather

* Reality is that I am not in Paris nor wearing any of those things.  :oP

WIP Wednesday - Fresh Start

Hello all, I have some unfortunate news.

I have briefly mentioned The Boy in previous posts and we had been dating for about 3-4 months. While he is a great person, the relationship wasn't going anywhere and I just didn't have enough of a spark with him to continue with the relationship.  So yesterday, I broke it off with him.  I think I kinda caught him off guard but in the long run it's for the best.   But know that I am okay but wanted to share what was going on.  Honestly, I was spending more time trying to dodge him than be with him.  Clearly that's a sign.

Anyway, I have gotten some progress on my projects and here is the update.

White Centered Granny Blanket

Since I finished the Gryffindor Scarf,  I have been working on a few things but got the bug to work on the White Centered Grannies again.  I really wanted to start putting it together and see the colors.  I initially started with a whip stitch join and realized that was going to take forever and I am pretty impatient.  So I tore out the tests and decided to do a slip stitch join because I am faster with a crochet hook than a tapestry needle.

After I got that straightened out I needed to figure out a way to get the blocks random while still being balanced.  So in all of my nerdiness, I went to excel for the answer.

Here is how I did it:

1. I knew my blocks were about 5.5" so I putzed with widths to figure out how big I wanted the blanket to be.  This will be about 4' by 5'. 
2. I used the formulas to create a random number between 1 and 8 (I have 8 colors) 
• Formula  =randbetween(1,8)
3. I then used conditional formatting for when a cell equals a number the appropriate color block is shown

Now isn't that geeky?  Anyway after refreshing the random formula I saved my favorite configuration by pasting over the formula and then tweaking it so the same colors were not next to each other.

Here is what I have done so far. I probably need to move to my table to continue to work on this.

I can't wait to get more squares done to add to the blanket!

Gryffindor Wristlets

As far as the Gryffindor adventure has gone, the wristlets are super easy and fast.  I made one earlier in the summer and put it aside to finish the scarf.  When I started the second wristlet, I realized I made the first one wrong.  I put the gusset in the wrong place so I am working on what is now the third one.

I hope to get this finished this week

Richmond Lace Scarf

I did rip back a bit to fix my counting error and now it looks a lot better. Now that I know how many stitches are in each row, it's easier to keep track of now.

I like the variation already!

Falling Water Scarf

I made some progress but until it's blocked it really just looks like a sparkly pink blob.

I keep losing stitch markers :(

So I feel as though my crafting bug has been renewed.  The weather is getting cooler and I have dreams of  just snuggleing up under wool yarn and knit/crochet my way through winter.  Are you making pulling out some old WIPs to get finished? 

For other WIPs check out Tami's Amis and Frontier Dreams   

<3 Heather

WIP Wednesday - Pinks and Purples

Hello all!  I am happy to announce that the Gryffindor scarf is done and you will all see a FO post soon.  I still need to finish the last wristlet but for all intents and purposes I am done.  I have ends to weave in and fringe to add but the bulk of the work is done.

Life is settling down though my class is still not straightened out.  I have a feeling I may have to take a half day of work and track down my professor.  Seriously, how hard is it to set up a weekly call?

I am super excited because I bought the fifth season of The Big Bang Theory!  Target also had a cool cup that had the Big Bang Theory Logo and Bazinga! so of course I have to have it. What is more awesome is that I named my Fantasy Football Team Bazinga!

How awesome is this cup!

Anyway, aside from getting the scarf done, I started a new project and restarted an old one this week. So here are the updates.

Falling Water Scarf

I finally picked this up again.  I kept looking at it forlornly as I worked on other things but it is back with prominence in my knitting bag.  I think doing other lacey things have made me realize how easy this pattern has become.  I have done 4 repeats of the pattern and it's amazing how fast you can whip through it when it's only about 35 stitches wide.

I just love the color!

Richmond Lace Infinity Scarf

I saw this pattern on Knit Picks this spring and fell in love with the color and the pattern.  The yarn is variegated from purple to coral pink.  I needed a bit of help getting started but the progress for an evening's work is shown below.  I did make a boo boo and have to rip back a bit but it's okay.  I would rather make this right than wing it.

Just purple right now!

Well there you have it.  I hope to get more work done on these this week and maybe start the foundation row of the Sweet Azalea Shawl I am working on as well.

So what colors are you kicking off fall with?  What are you starting or working on?

For other WIPs check out Tami's Amis and Frontier Dreams  

<3 Heather

WIP Wednesday - Holiday Week

Hello all, I don't have much for you because I am so close to being done with the scarf that I didn't want to take a picture of it again until it is done.  I am on the last repeat of the gold rows and about to stat the final section.  WOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!

So to show where the scarf has come from here is the first picture I took of my work:

This was the first little bit that I started in March 2012.

And here is last weeks:

Taken 8/29/2012

Six months of work and I am almost done!  Anyway working on that was the majority of my free time this past week.  I had such good intentions to get more pictures but the week flew but I hope to show you the finished scarf very soon.

So how was your week?  Did you craft a lot over the holiday?

For other WIPs check out Tami's Amis and Frontier Dreams 

<3 Heather

2012 - August Recap

Well hello again, I had the best of intentions to get this done on Friday but the holiday weekend swept me away and I didn't get anything bloggy accomplished.  I know you are all a forgiving sort so here is my recap post for August.

I am honestly amazed that this time has flown by.  I feel like it was just yesterday that I was writing the July Recap post.  So much has happened and at the same time nothing much at all.  The boy and I are still dating.  I don't want to put more titles on it than that but it is something special.  I had some family drama occur and school started.

In other news, the month was overall relaxing and I had awesome stuff happening on the weekend including becoming a human rainbow.

<3 Heather