I love art, especially photography and painting. My next addition is crafts or primarily needlecrafts. And as if that was not enough, I am a genealogist.
This is my first post. A little about me. I am a senior citizen and at 68 while my body may be aging, I still love to try new things and experience all that life has to offer. My loves in life are my family, photography, art, crafts, camping, music and any other mischief I can get into at my age and get away with it.
I am a nut for cloud formations. As an artist I try to make anything look good. Being artistic brings out something in me that nothing else does. This is just the beginning so I hope you will keep coming back to see what I am into.
Starting a new painting today from a photo. A little background on the photo. The original photo was a tin type owned by my paternal grandmother. Some years ago I photographed all of her tin types while she was still living. I scanned the images into my photo enhancing software and converted to black and white. A lot of times you can find vintage photos at flea markets and antique shops.
Today I sketched this image from one of those photographs. This is just the image and background. Normally I use water when I paint but to do the background today I used white vinegar. If you have never heard of this I guess you are shaking your head right now. If you spray it before you paint it just gives the paint a slight sheen. I’ll show you a second painting and what happens when you spray the vinegar on the paint!
Vinegar before painting.Vinegar after painting.
You will notice the paint separates and drips, creating a different effect. Don’t be afraid to try new things like sponges and other household products to create something different.
There are a lot of components to creating art. Lately, I have struggled to even be motivated to create art, but then I realize that is just the devil trying to derail me.
So, back in the saddle again, I make a few strokes to finish this piece that has been sitting on my easel for a few weeks.
Visionary
It’s not my best work, but there is a story behind it. I am not a person who dreams, so when I am awakened at night with a vision of an angel stabbing the earth, I took that as a sign I was supposed to do something with that. This is what developed from that vision.
I still may paint over it, but I feel like there is a real message in the image. As strong as my faith is, I am not an authority on visions or interpretation of dreams. I can only tell you what I feel it means. I don’t know his name, but his purpose is to warn us to turn our focus to Jesus or prepare for the final battle.
The book of Revelations is pretty clear. Those who turn from God will suffer his wrath. The painting reminds us we are in that last window of opportunity. This Angel may pull out his sword if the world unites.
Art is a great way to express faith and emotions. We all have a choice. Make sure you make the right one.
Well, this has been an eventful week, to say the least. The first half of the week, we were steaming in heat because our HVAC system died, but we were very humbled on Thursday when our vendor came and installed a new unit.
We don’t realize until until we have to do without how much we value such conveniences like air conditioning. I came along before there was air conditioning, but we also didn’t have 90-100 degree days either! It’s funny how spoiled we have become. I was raised in a middle-class family that valued the things God gave us, even if that meant a little hot weather. My father worked hard but didn’t believe in throwing money away on the next fashionable gadget.
We lead a pretty simple life, and my mom taught me things like crocheting, sewing, and embroidery. I have never thrown away the values and skills my parents taught me. I built on them the foundation of who I am!
The cross-stich embroidery my mother taught me as a child I have continued. You may have seen this pattern in an earlier post but it is of a girl knitting. I sketched out my designs by hand (no AI) and scanned them into my computer. From there, I import into a cross-stitch software program. After the design appears, I edit for any color changes. I am actually working on this pattern myself. Here is my progress so far.
Any variations you see are because I altered the colors in mine based on what thread I had available. You can easily make substitutions for any floss you don’t have by going to a site called “thread bare” where you can enter the dmc color your charts requires and it will bring up a list of the threads available that are closest to that.
Another of my crafting loves is lap quilting. I actually took a class at my local community college in the early 70’s. I didn’t learn paper piecing and such unnecessary techniques. There were no sewing machines even in the classroom. Our tools were just fabric, batting, scissors, a needle and thread.
We did everything by hand including sewing the blocks together. It may have been a slow process but a great learning experience. Here is one I am working on now, a bandana quilt.
While I do piece the blocks together on my sewing machine, the back is hand stitched. If you are concerned it won’t hold you can go b blind stitch over your stitching on your sewing machine.
The hand quilting is random with no pattern but you can use a template and fabric marker if you want something fancier.
I like lap quilting because it is easy and portable. For long waits at the airport or doctor’s office, it’s a great tool to fight boredom.
Don’t have any scraps to get started, just visit your local thrift stores. What to look for? You want predominantly cotton material. Sheets can be used for the bottom while you select random colorful pieces like pillow cases, men’s shirts, cotton dresses, etc. Part of the we fun is selecting fabric. If you are doing your first quilt I recommend the traditional nine patch and if you are purchasing new material you can purchase by the yard or fat quarters (quarter yard strips).
If you want to try the bandana quilt, you can purchase bandanas in bulk from Amazon. I purchased the white for the borders from Michael’s, but you can purchase white cotton from sources online.
Trade in your phone time for some constructive quilting time.
The first tool of writing is research. As a geneologist, I am an expert at research. The truth is if you look hard enough and in the right places, you can find just about anything.
I am taking this whole novel thing slowly and in steps so my readers will be able to see and feel what I am talking about.
I have decided on a general location but with a fictitious town. The story surrounds a pre-civil war home so I have already spent a lot of time looking at and photographing old homes before selecting a style of home I think fits the story line and collecting data right down to the blueprint.
My style of art is realism, and my style of writing mirrors that. The irony is I don’t like to read, and the two largest books I have read were the Bible and The Hidding Place, both of which have a high concentration on detail.
I am no strange to research, and in some ways, I find the research to be the most interesting part of the process. While I admire those authors who can just sit down and spit out a novel, I’ll just take my time and cruise! I have lots of ideas for more projects down the road.
Normally I would be hugging my sofa on a day like this but after spending numerous days inside from the extreme heat hubby and I were ready to escape.
Today we were going to the Hope Plantation in Winsor. NC to photograph the old mansion. So here she is. Nothing fancy but still grand in her own right.
We didn’t go in the house as they wanted to charge us to do that. For more information on Hope Plantation see https://historichope.org/
We left Hope Plantation and traveled down hwy 13 and crossed Cashie River Bridge, turned on River Road, and stopped at the Wildlife access and boardwalk.
This is a very nice area to walk and goes quite a ways. Where you see the ramp goes to the left, it takes you to an enclosed camping platform. It was beginning to drizzle again, so we cut our walk short and ventured back home.
Never miss a chance to explore the world around you, even if only for a few hours.
As if I don’t already have enough to do, I’ve decided to get back into writing. For me it is not enough just to throw some words on paper, I have to feel and know the characters. After writing the first twenty pages, I decided to sketch out two of the characters which may appear on the cover at a later time.
As imperfect, as they are, a sketch helps them to seem more realistic. Now, I can put in characteristics and more details as I describe these characters. As tedious as this process may seem, I will try to do the same with future characters.
I make notes on index cards for each character as I go. For me, I have to be organized to make sure the structure of the book is correct. Writing short stories is easy, but structuring a novel is much harder.
I am not one of those people who can sit down and write a book in a night. That is not even my focus. Just getting it done and enjoying the process is important. Right now, I am in the research phase. To me, it is important to not just write with passion but also with knowledge. This book is about secrets of an old house, so I am researching pre civil war homes and period furniture of that era.
If you have suggestions or comments, your input is welcome.
Yes, I’m awake again. Insomnia is not only common at my age but almost routine. I have learned to live with it. So, to fill those hours that I’m awake. I’m trying to break the bad habit of getting on my phone and replacing it with a book or quiet embroidery.
Counted cross stitch embroidery is an art I have done every since the first time I heard of it some forty + years ago. As most of you know, I do more than one craft, so I tend to rotate them. Cross stitching, for the most part, I do primarily at night. It’s not hard, but a project can take a few hours or a year, depending on the size of the piece.
Starting is quite simple. You choose a pattern and fabric, and from the pattern, you purchase your thread from the list.
The pattern.
Working the cross stitch is extremely simple. There is a learning curve on reading most patterns. This particular pattern is one I designed. To start, I find the page that is the center. You can determine that when you find a page that has an arrow that points in between the blocks. The center page has one at the top of the page and one on the left side of the page, as shown here.
You can see if you walk your finger from the left arrow over to where the top arrow lines up that is the center of this project. You select your thread based on the symbol in the block closest to that point and match that symbol to the one on the color table to get your floss number. You can work left or right across making your cross stitches. I typically will do the one color working across and any other stitches of the same color by counting across any block that are not that color to the next block I need to stitch. Hence, the reason it is called counted cross stitch.
Usually, after I have worked about thirty minutes, I start to feel sleepy. It’s not just fun but a healthy, relaxing craft to calm those nighttime jitters.
While this type of embroidery has seen a decline in this country, it is very popular in Europe and other countries.
So the next time you find yourself tossing and turning, try making some of those little x’s.
Being “American” means something different to many people. Ultimately, if you were not born and raised here with a family history of at least 250 years, you cannot really call yourself a true American! That being said certainly there are many people who have gained citizenship that love this country and should be respected as long as they uphold the constitution.
No I am not going to lecture about immigration. I respect those who have taken the time to enter this country legally and take that next step to citizenship my ancestry hails predominantly from Scotland and they came in as early as 1662.
This is about what we are celebrating, and actually, we should not be celebrating until August 2 because that is when the Declaration of Independence was actually signed by all delegates during the Revolutionary War. Whenever you celebrate Independence Day, it is still important.
This Independence Day is just as important as the first one. With the extreme heat, take precautions if you are planning to be outside.
As for me, I will be safe inside but still remembering the events of that first Independence Day.
Be safe
Be respectful
Put God first as He is the real reason we have any form of Freedom.
My 14-year-old dashund must have really been up to no good during the night. When I heard he was awake outside of my door, I figured I might as well go ahead and get up. I noticed he was coughing and then going along the wall licking the floor, strange behavior even for him. I chased him around the room and put his leash on to go out. We went outside and he did his thing. After going back to the house, he started acting like he was choking, and he was still licking the floor. I grabbed him around the belly and tossed him on the couch. It was then I saw something bobbing out of his mouth. When it bobbed out again, I grabbed it and pulled it. He had swallowed one of my four inch plastic yarn needles along with about a foot of yarn. It was fortunate he had grabbed a plastic one because I have some that are metal. I sighed with relief when I thought the mystery was solved. Oh no, about 30 minutes later, the same thing occurred, and I thought he was chewing on paper, but no, it was a ball of yarn coming out of his mouth.
In order to calm him down and me too, I finally put the cone of shame on him so that he could try to recover. Hopefully, he didn’t swallow the whole yarn basket.
The goal now was to make sure he recovered without any complications. I know what you are thinking, and no, I did not rush him to the vet, I calmly handled the situation. He is right here beside me. I will watch him closely for the next few hours.
This is a first even for this rowdy guy. It’s been thirty minutes later, and he is no longer choking and is eating and drinking normally. Guess he just wanted to shake up my day. Moving my yarn supplies to see if he will stay out of it.
Well, here’s hoping the rest of my day will be less eventful.
