too many things

Life Stuff

Too many things to do right now; some of the main new things:

1. Try get in-person quotes for air con installation
2. Mulch some of the last new plants that I've moved outside
3. Preserve the many courgettes/marrows I've grown
4. Always laundry

It's a Monday, so O is at nursery for 3 hours while I'm not working (back to 5 days a week in September though). The bulk of my free time is taken by household chores and things I feel I should do before I try to prioritise my creative hobbies.

The Creative Pursuits

I have been able to get to the clay studio about once per week, but this week it's closed on the days I can go due to the UK summer holidays starting. At home, I haven't had much headspace or good chunks of time available to get onto the pottery wheel yet; it'll happen at some point.

Part of my journey towards making a sports direct size mug.

Drawing-wise, lately it's been a bit busy so I have just been doing sketches here and there. I did crack out the watercolours for about 10 minutes while O was out before she exploded back into the house and then tried to use all of the watercolours, mixing all kinds of colours into the paint pans - those will need a clean soon. I do want to get back into it though, I also unearthed a lovely fluorescent pink acrylic paint pot that would be fun to include in paintings.

With textiles I've been slogging away when I can at my dad's cardigan, it's maybe over halfway through now. Just a load of body knitting in stockinette, flat, to get through. And then the button band. And then freedom.

My Kosekofte (mentioned previously), a colourwork Norwegian style coatigan, is underway, but not high on my list of priorities right now.

The Shop Forays

I'm also wanting to restart my shop but I'm having a real whale of a time dealing with Etsy and the fact that they won't allow me to change my payment bank account details; I'm having to delete my account and sign up again; except the account is just scheduled for deletion at some point with no indication of when this will occur. And Etsy won't expedite it. So we're in limbo for a while...

Currently Reading

The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time Series)

Finished The Stand (by Stephen King) recently, enjoyed it a lot, looking forward to getting back to The Dark Tower series - I'm up to Wolves of the Calla - but taking a little detour to continue on the Wheel of Time series. Otherwise, I'll forget the storyline if I leave too long a gap. I may also pick up a shorter book as well, once The Great Hunt is finished... I have a lot of unread books on my shelf that I should attend to before buying more 2nd hand books.

early July things

 

I started making mugs! I get closer to my goal of making a giant sports direct dupe mug. My next steps are just continuing to throw mugs, practicing throwing with bigger pieces of clay and learning to make a variety of handle styles, so I can reach the Giant Mug goal. I also eventually want to practice doing more underglazing (basically painting underneath a translucent/transparent glaze, like this black design shown on the mug image above) and on-glaze decorating techniques (painting on top of a glaze, not done it before).

Here's a less successful but still interesting pot. It's not so successful because the wax resist somehow got on the upper area of the pot (the light line near the rim). Also there's some glaze mess on the inside of the pot, because I messed up the glaze application initially and then roughly cleaned it before re applying a different glaze; there was still some residue of the first glaze and instead of combining, somehow the two glazes didn't get along so there's a big unglazed spot on the inside... 

However! I actually find the new glaze itself very interesting colour and texture wise, I'm not usually into blues but this one has a lot of variation within it, so I'll probably try do some more pots with this glaze. I'll see how the next result comes out, I wonder if some of the variation is coming from my haphazard prior glaze dipping and subsequent messy cleaning.

---

I have a few more pots that came out of the kiln, none are particularly noteworthy to be honest. I am getting better at throwing bigger, taller things, though. I have put 4 new mugs up for their first kiln firing, so I'm looking forward to see how they get on (fingers crossed the handles stay on).

---

In craft news

• I'm continuing to use and destash my yarn!
• I sold/traded a couple jumper weights of handspun yarn that I'd made because I didn't have solid plans on what to make with them, and I have enough works in progress/queued specific projects to get on with.
• I'm working on my dad's cardigan and making good progress. It looks like I'll still have a whole other jumper quantity of yarn even after finishing it though! So I might make myself a cardigan or sell/trade the remainder.
• I did buy a jumper quantity of pale coloured Sandnes Garn peer gynt yarn for a Kosekofte which has been a knitting goal for quite some time. For the colourwork contrast colours I will be using a bunch of handspun and leftover yarn, so it still sort of feels like a win in terms of stash.
• I suppose if there's leftover then I can use the rest for some mittens or other small accessories, or sell the peer gynt yarn.

In game dev/art news

• Continuing to try learn to code and doing a bit of shader and in-engine (Unity) learning at work too. Hit a wall with one of my tutorials so I need to ask someone about that soon.
• Continuing slowly but surely with the dress up pixel artwork.
• Done some watercolour painting recently as well as some general sketchbook drawing which has been fun 😌

Late April / High Spring

Currently Reading: Vicious by V E Schwab
Currently Playing: Slay the Princess (Switch)

---

Art

Art and sketching has been happening! Do I have anything to show for it? Not really, all kinda scribbles and suchlike. But it's continuing so that's good enough for me. I need to make a plan, really and connect it with the next section which is:

---

Game Dev

I mentioned previously that I wanted to make a dollmaker/dress up game prototype as my first Thing. And I did get started on it! I then hit a point where I actually need to do code to continue. So realistically what I need to do is one or both of these things:

1. Do some coding tutorials
2. Find a very specific tutorial on how to make a dress up game in Unity or another engine of my choosing

We have finally sorted out my 'goals for the year' at work and I linked them up to this project so I hope I'll be able to set some time aside for working on this. Actually I'll make a point of requesting days tomorrow so the ball keeps rolling.

I'm often struggling lately with how to keep improving my skills with the somewhat limited time/energy levels available. I know I can push through and try to do more in the evenings when O is asleep, but it's not necessarily sustainable long term and I do want to also be able to enjoy reading books.

---

Textiles

I had pre-ordered 200g of some merino DK yarn recently as a treat and it finally arrived so I eagerly started work on a simple shawl (not using the Sophie Shawl pattern... but basically that pattern if you want to look), and it's been okay except for me needing to rip back and reknit about five times because I increased on the wrong side (obviously was counting incorrectly) and then couldn't get the i-cord edge to look right on subsequent attempts.

I'm still working on a jumper for C (almost done, but needed lengthening) and a cardigan for my dad (only just split for the sleeves and have to knit downwards for the body). 

I'm also gradually spinning through my sheep fleece stash, one little bit at a time. This fleece I'm working on is really spiky as the sheep seems to have spent time around some brambles... it's quite unpleasant to process but I'm not ready to give up yet. If I can spin it all up I'll maybe dye it and knit C another jumper.

---

That's all, just a quick check in from me!

quick art, knit and pot update

Edited to add: I think I accidentally published this really late after having written this!

I've done some drawings!

... I can't find all the photos on my phone but here are some...

... And my knitting, I've almost finished an autumnal jumper - just in time for it to no longer be autumn! I'm working on the bottom hem ribbing and then just have the neckline and weaving in ends to do.

Lastly, a quick pottery update. My little guy survived two trips to the kiln!

Secondly, I managed to sculpt on another bust and made a face I was happy with:

And promptly knocked the bust over and smashed in the nose and mouth! So I'll have to go back and redo the face 😭

That's my speedy update. For folks who celebrate during December and new year, have a lovely time (same to those who don't).

textile project audit

Just a little look into what's on the needles and wheel...

We are not here for beautifully staged photos

Charlie's Jumper

Superwash merino yarn because I wanted to have some nice BRIGHT variegated yarn to enjoy watching the colours change. I know that I can get non superwash yarn with lovely colour changes too but I didn't know a non-indie yarn that provides this (please share if you know!) - and the budget was a bit tight since Charlie's an adult man and requires larger sizing.

Pattern: Worsted Basic Drop Sleeve Sweater by James N Watts

Charlie's Socks

Non superwash 4 ply yarn from Telling Yarns, which is spun by John Arbon (another favourite), both UK companies using UK wool. I'm over halfway through but it takes aeons as Charlie's feet are a lot larger than mine. I expect to be mending these repeatedly as well as they are not only nylon free but nylon or not I'm finding that my mending pile just keeps growing.

Pattern: None, improvised

Small foot in the corner

Shawl in Marina Skua Yarn

Marina Skua dyed some lovely non superwash slightly variegated 4 ply yarn. Again another company who use UK wool and fibre (as far as I'm aware for all of the yarn bases). This used to be a kerchief designed by Aimee from La Bien Aimee (yarn company in France), but I found that I didn't really wear this triangular shape. So now I'm doing a bias shawl which is a bit of a longer shape - it's the free pattern, Linus shawl.

Sweater Spin

I bought a special merino fleece for myself a little while ago, admittedly it's from the USA (something I won't be doing in the near future, but I won't rule it out as there's some amazing shepherds in the USA breeding wonderful fibre flocks). I've carded batts with some sari silk for extra interest. I'm spinning it all up as a 2 ply yarn, quite bumpy and varied in thickness at times. I am fighting the urge to be precious with this special fleece, because otherwise it will simply not get done. And I need to work with what I have. I'm treating it as a 'sampler' spin, thinking in the vein of cross stitch samplers. A batt here which is dark, one that's variegated, one that's light, all with varying sari silk percentages. And then I will craft something that honours all the variety - at least that's the hope.