January Journals #4

It is the fourth day of January.  Does it feel sometimes like you have lived ten days in two?  It does for me, even more the more I create.  I have some copper thread I found yesterday that I want to use in my sketchbook, and I am thinking it might be a good idea to find a magnifier loop to pull over my desk for doing small work like embroidery and tiny lines and dashes in fur and feathers.

It's the one in the middle

This is what I have in my cart to try out.   And I will give a review here when I get it how well it works.   It looks like it would be great to hold on to things and that would give me an extra hand, so to say, as well.  Even with my glasses on sometimes I find it really hard now to focus in exactly the right place close up to the project.

I am working much more in my sketchbook for the Brooklyn Art Project.  It is like these little Kraft Notebooks.  When I finish up with it I might even miss the size and need to order some more of them.

Remember you can still purchase my book 'Time in December', as well.  It is only 99 cents on Kindle, but the paper copy was larger than I thought and it turned out beautifully.  I have gotten two very nice reviews saying it 'reads so much like poetry', and that they wished to dream the poetry when they went to sleep.

 I am working a bit here and there on new short stories for 'House of Sunlight'.  I hope to have that ready to print or send out to an agent in March.  I haven't decided yet - and some of the illustrations need to come to me.  The first one came in the form of the yellow house, and I have others in mind.  The illustrations that are in Time in December did not come to me until a certain point, when I did them all in a few days.  Sometimes art is like that.

I made a ten minute sketch the other day and just really wanted to put it on this canvas.  However, I know my perspective is odd with one eye far sighted and one eye nearsighted.  I also HATE working over scratched pencil lines on my canvas.  So - last night the solution hit me.  I had done this in the past when making murals on the wall from photographs.

It is the mathematical reference to making a canvas.   All you need is a calculator (or your phone) and a ruler that measures to the eighth (1/8) of an inch.

This is the painting I am working on.  I used the mathematical technique last night to transfer bits from the original drawing.  I measured across at twelve points

in the picture from the drawing, did the mathematical ratio conversion and located them on the canvas.  Then using them as reference points, I drew the perspective in until it fit.

The drawing dimensions were 40 percent smaller than the canvas.  Because of this every measurement I made on the drawing became divided by .4 to locate where it would be on the canvas.  For example - if a point was 5.5 inches across from the left on the drawing it was located 13.75 inches from the left on the canvas and so forth.

Sometimes you have to wear your mood right out there on your chest. 

I have a shirt that says 'Be Amazing, but first Coffee' and it always gets comments. 

Hobby Horse

How to make a hobby horse:
materials :
A stick or dowel of decent strength and about 1/2 inch in diameter.
Fabric
thread
yarn of good strength
buttons for an older child or safety eyes for a younger one. You can also use fabric paint or a sharpie marker for a young child.
Glue - Tacky or stronger

Cut a 'sock head' shape, and also cut reversed - 2 pieces. Give the 'sock head' a good long neck - you will need this for the glue and yarn ties to hold it on.

Sew inside-out placing yarn into seams to form hairlines. To form the hair wrap the yarn around your hand or a short span between two dresser knobs over and over until it is a thick wad. Spread it out and place it centerline along the seam so half of the loops are inside and half of them are outside. Sew them into the seam and we will trim the outside loops later.

If making unicorn shape, sew and stuff a triangle of yellow or orange fabric for the horn and place that in the seam, otherwise just put yarn all the way up and down from forelock to about 4 inches above the neck bottom. If you are using safety eyes, mark and place them now.

Turn right-side out and stuff head with stuffing to within 4 inches of the bottom.
As you are stuffing it make sure to keep a hole in the center bottom of the stuffing - Coat the dowel end with glue and place it up into the hole. Keep stuffing and adding some glue right around the dowel until you are four inches from the bottom of the sock head. Set head carefully aside to allow some of that glue to set.

Take this time to cut and sew a pair of oblong ears. It is your choice how you attach them to the head. I sewed the horn down a little more onto the head once it was stuffed and then attached ears to either side of it folding the corners of the sewn ear pieces together to make 'folded' ears. I inserted a piece of plastic canvas into each ear to give it stability, but you can stuff them or put cardboard in them - this is not a washable toy. If you are using buttons, mark and sew them on now.

Get a needle and thread and sew a -.-.-.-.- pattern around the end of the stuffed area of the sock head and pull the thread like a drawstring to pull the head tightly to the bottom. Add more glue along the dowel between this sewing and the bottom of the sock head. Fold the bottom edge of the sock head under and start to wrap yarn around the glued fabric while the glue is still wet. Criss-cross and tie the yarn around each side each time as you wrap up and down, forming a full wrap from below the sock head fabric up as close to the bottom of the stitching as possible. Pull the yarn very tight as you do this and wipe away excess glue. Let dry for several hours to make sure the glue has set.

Make sure the head is well seated with a _slight_ tug, and then set aside to dry.

Expect this toy to get dirty, and don't expect to put it through the washing machine!

Weaving Tutorials

You might remember I ran a teaser about making a weaving tutorial last week. It is ready! Please visit: KnitOwl Patterns and Tutorials at SovereignIT website.

Mark took a lot of the pictures, and I spent some time trying to make the document clear and well organized. If there is something that is hard to understand, please send me a comment here.

I've moved the pink pocket owl howto and the designing your own toys article to the knitowl.com site as well.