You might have noticed that I haven’t written here for a very long time. So it might not surprise you that I will stop this blog.
But I’ve started a new one. Its name is explorationsandexperiments, maybe you want to have a look over there………….
Last year I have been busy crocheting a big blanket.
It started with realising it was a bit cold in my livingroom. So, having a nice blanket would be a good thing. And because I was also looking for a new crocheting-project, I decided to make one myself out of granny squares.
I looked around on the internet and found this easy pattern. And started making them…….
And after some time – a pretty long time – I had enough to put them together.
And this is the finished blanket. I really like it, but it is also quite heavy because of the tons of yarn I had to use 😉
End of last year I bought myself a little watercolour sketchbook. Before I thought it wasn’t really practical, because you can’t close it before the colours have dried…… So I don’t know how people do this if they use it, when they’re on the road.
But as I only paint at home, I’ve finally decided that it would be a lot nicer to have the paintings in a small book, then having a lot of papers all over the place.
Here are some of the paintings I’ve made…….
But before you start laughing……I’ve tried to just start painting without first drawing it with a pencil. I thought that might be a nice thing to practise.
I don’t really like the ducks on this one, but I do like the swans….
Some of the paintings are inspired by pictures from this really nice blog: backyardbirdnerd.
Some days before Christmas a friend said to me, a little crocheted robin would be such a nice thing to have (she might have said it a little bit differently, but this is the message my brain heard). Soooooooo……….. I thought it couldn’t be too difficult. I looked for a picture of a real one on the web and started to crochet a kind of ball.
Then I just added the colours as I thought would be right.
And made some feet as I had done earlier when I made a little wren-like bird. And the wings and tail. At the end I added the beak and eyes.
And here it is.
It is a bit too big – but someone to told me to put it a bit further away and then maybe nobody would notice 
And someone else who knows a lot about birds said it didn’t really have its colours right. But who cares. I think it looks quite nice sitting next to the wren 🙂
I hope you had a nice Christmas!
The days and weeks before Christmas were a little stressful, but I ‘ve read here on WordPress that I was not the only one having that experience. And to add a bit to all the things to do, I got the idea to sew some little bags for some of the presents.
I had some fabric left after I shortened a curtain and with that I sewed two little bags. After that I tried to make them look a bit christmassy (if that is a word………. ).
I sewed this Christmas tree and the stars that I cut out of some old fabric upon it. And on the other one I used some easy embroidery.
Here it is, with some golden stars.
And here they are with the presents inside them 🙂
…..
Awhile ago I bought a small drawing pad with sheets which are postcards. I thought it might be a nice idea to do something kind of useful with my paintings.
So I painted this warbler in watercolour (it’s from a picture I found in the internet, but I don’t remember where I found it.)
The following two paintings are with acrylic paint. I find it a lot easier than painting with watercolour!
This could be a reed warbler. I saw that one during a walk some weeks ago.
And this is a little owl. I found a picture of it in the post of wildlifekate.
The poor thing seems to miss one eye in my painting 😉 – but he looks alright on the real picture 🙂
Some time ago my boyfriend asked if I could sew him an insulating bag for his lunch. “Well sure”, I said, and that’s when the trouble began 🙂 (that’s not true, but it wasn’t that simple…..)
After getting some ideas from him, about what I would need to make a bag insulating, I did some research online……..and then just bought some stuff and started.
And this is the material I used: some oilcloth, bubble wrap, silver thermal foil (it’s from a rescue blanket in an old first aid kit ), hook and loop fastener and some fabric.
When I tried to sew it together I noticed that my sewing machine transported none of the materials – they just sticked to it and didn’t move. So I had to use some ribbon.
I must confess that I just had some not so concrete ideas about how everything would work out. So after I sewed these things together I noticed that it wouldn’t work like this, because I couldn’t sew the separate parts together so they would form a bag…..
That’s why I had to pull everything apart and start again. This time I put some fabric in between the layers, so later I just could sew the fabric together (can you still follow? 😉 )
So this is the order in which I finally put it (after the sewing I turned it so the oilcloth is on the outside – as you might have guessed 🙂 )……….
After that I sewed the parts together by hand……….
And it became a bag.
I shortened the flaps.
And in the end I sewed the hook and loops fastener in and a ribbon around the top.
(As you might notice I put the fastener in a way so you can close the bag in two different ways as you will see later.)
And that’s it: you can close it like this………
or like this…………
After some sewing posts I think it might be nice to post some more paintings.
Most of the paintings of birds I made in the past were just birds in profile. Now I thought it would be more difficult – but also more interesting – to draw them in different positions.
So I took another look at the posts of “Backyard Bird Nerd” for bird models and gave it a try.
Here there are some drawings with pencil.
These are with watercolour. I know you can’t really see that, because I didn’t quiet use the possibilities of watercolour. But I like the one on the right.
Lately I also tried to paint on paper that can be used as a postcard. These are some bluebells.
And two weeks ago I found myself buying some acrylic paint in a supermarket. First I kept telling myself that it’s a stupid idea, because painting with acrylic paint is so different from painting with watercolours. But I couldn’t resist – they were really cheap.
And I was right, it is really different!! This is my second attempt: a seagull……
What is your experience with trying a lot of different ways of painting?
Some time ago my old bag fell apart, so I decided I would sew a new one myself. And this is how I made it.
I thought it would be good if it had an outer part and an inner part with pockets.
So after cutting out all the pieces I placed the pockets on the inner material and sewed it together.
These are the parts for the outside………
I had made similar parts for the inside. And these are the inner and the outer part of the bag.
And this is how it looked after I finished it.
And here could and should be the happy end of the story, but after a few weeks of using it, I discovered that the seams were tearing apart. So I just had to sew them over again – so this is how it looks now. I hope it will last longer this time……… 🙂
Lately I had some inspiration to try to sew a new little bird.
Some time ago I made a wren. So I used the same pattern but used different colors and tried another kind of wings and tail. I was inspired by the birds Ann Woods makes (even if I think I will never get to that level………….)
And this is how it looks 🙂
Next time I’ll have to do something about the big belly 😉
discovering diy 