Art is found

After looking at numerous art books I have come to the conclusions that most How to Draw books are bogus. Why do these art books feel the need to show you actual drawings by actual artists. "Yes, you can draw" next to a cat that looks ready to curl up to you and purr...really, I can draw that just by following your steps? Hmmm, wonder why none have a money back guarantee. I went to the library to check some art books out, our library is excellent and had 2 full shelves of How to Draw books and everyone looked the same. All showed a few steps with a pencil and presto! instant masterpiece. Some would show a picture and give directions on drawing that picture, great step by step directions, but what if you want to draw what is not in their book? Needless to say these were all useless.

Maybe a How to Draw video course might work better. Started searching and found those to be similar to the books. Either follow the artist on screen to make a cute picture you will never want to draw again or follow the techniques shown and create a masterpiece only an experienced artist can create.

I was determined to find a How to Draw book so Daniel could learn to draw. We were not looking for him to be an artist just be able to draw more then Picasso-ish stick figures. I decided to ask The Hive (other wise known as the Well Trained Mind forum). Most recommended Artistic Pursuits.

I need to pause here and digress for a minute...Artistic Pursuits is one of those curriculums I have had in my possession one time or the other over the 20 years of homeschooling. Several of their books have been bought and sold because at the time the fit or my time or something just did not mesh. Apologia and Mystery of History are two other  curriculums that have had similar fates. Both are now being used by Daniel who has, not professed a love for them, but has mentioned he is learning from them and not being put to sleep....high praise from a teenager if you ask me. So, now I am to re-buy Artistic Pursuits. Good thing is I know I can resell it pretty easy if it does not work out.

I could not decide which book to get Daniel, the Jr. High or Sr. High, so I got both. After looking through the books we will go with the Jr. High book now, and if he is still interested after finishing the 2 volumes I will have the other on my shelf.

The nice thing about this curriculum is it does not tell you to draw like this or that but to look for specific things and draw it...line, color, shading, back ground. It teaches you to see what you are going to draw. Each unit is 4 lessons long and scheduled 2 lessons a week will give you a school years worth of art. Each of the 4 lessons are similar...Lesson one builds a visual vocabulary along with a drawing exercise to show what they mean. Lesson two is looking at an actual work of art (each book focuses on a specific collection, the book we are using focuses on World Art) It gives info on the picture and the culture of the artist plus a lesson on how the artist used a special art technique. It ends with a hands on activity for you to try the technique learned. Lesson 3 also discusses an art technique with an assignment. The 4th lesson ends with a project, putting all you learned from the unit into one picture. Best of all there are no pictures of the projects from skilled artists but from students who took the course. Some are great from a student with talent and some from a student who is not so talented but still accomplished the project. The second volume teaches the use of color.

If Daniel puts forth an honest effort and completes both books he will earn an art credit for his electives.

Hat complete

New, longer ties added and the hat has been blocked. It is sitting on my desk drying.

Soon as it is dried I am putting it in hubby's drawer and not mentioning it till the freezing temps hit. By then he will be out of luck on any changes he wants made because any knitting time I have will be towards the Christmas gifts I have planned.

This weekend I decided the den book case needed something more then tea pots and tea cups. I pulled out some of my yarn stash and with the help of Emma, who handed me the yarn, I added it to the bookcase along with my knitting books.

The glass hen in front of my yarn holds little yarn balls. This is left over yarn that is just not enough to really do anything with but make cute little balls. I will say this though, I have gone to those little yarn balls quite often for this and that. Turns out they are very useful. On the middle shelf to the left is a tiny gray mouse. I knitted him for my Grandmother (Granny) but think he is so cute I am going to make one for myself. Dan wants me to knit a cat to go with it...I just might. Saw this book  Knit your Own Cat and the cats in it are adorable.
After arranging everything on the shelves I noticed the metal book end just did not go, it kept drawing my eye and screaming BORING. So I grabbed some left over yarn from my stash and cast on. Figured a cute cozy for the book end would fit in perfectly with all the other knitting stuff.

I think it came out just right but Emma asked why I had to use old lady colors. This is her new thing, flinging words like old fashioned and vintage about. She claimed I was old fashioned because I found this great trunk at a used store. Said I should buy more modern stuff, not everything needed to look so vintage (said with a tone and attitude). Also only old people use trunks to store their stuff...this is according to her. I think the trunk looks perfect and will store the yarn stash not on the bookcase plus room for more yarn. I added a lining since it is wood inside and did not want my yarn to get picked.

I have one more week of summer vacation before my time is not my own and I want to finish adding pockets to the vest I made Emma last year. It is a hooded vest with a rhinestone zipper, but it has no pockets so Emma did not wear it. I spent $20 for the zipper plus the price of the pattern and the yarn makes this a very expensive vest..she better wear it this year or else. My mittens and a shrug are also on my list. Bought a green yarn for the mittens and the shrug will be made with stash yarn I have had for over 5 years now...time to move that stuff out . I figure if I use some stash yarn then I won't be guilty bringing in new yarn and it is a good point to make when asking hubby if I can go yarn shopping. Need all the help I can get on that front.

Twitchy

I think I am spoiled. I want things NOW. I actually get grumpy at a drive through if I have to wait, my food should be ready and hanging out the window so I can swipe it up and go. Geesh, you would think from the time I place the order and pay then drive the 10+ feet to the pick up window that the food will be ready. FAST food should be fast. Of course fast is a relative term but who cares, it is my preception of fast that matters, right?
The new school year starts in 2 weeks and I have been planning it for months (more accurately years since I have a notebook I write the 14 yr plan, PreK-12th for each of my children in, updated as often as needed). The final books were ordered last week and now I need to wait. I hate waiting. Despise it. Christmas is torture and my husband use to be sweet and wait till a few days before Christmas to get my gifts. Now he is sadistic and gets them weeks in advance, wraps them, and points them out to me. Naturally the days to Christmas cease to advance and I am left in a state of nervous energy. But I digress....ordered the last school books and now I need to wait. Wait for the order to be processed. Wait for an email saying they mailed it, Then wait, wait, wait for the delivery man to show up. I spend countless hours checking email and delivery schedules on the computer. Fed EX is great for people like me, they even tell you when the next update is...mine is 7-22....WAIT!!!! It is the 23rd and no update. WHY? Is my package lost, will there be a delay? The other package has no info on the delivery of my books..only email I got was order confirmation. So did they send it out yet? Is it still processing? Will I get it any day now? No Idea. So I sit in my house listening for any sounds that might be a delivery. Footsteps on the porch...Mailman? YEP! But only sounds of mail in the box, no thud of a package on the porch. Ahhh, the UPS truck is coming, hold my breath, and....he passes by. Stupid man. Everyday the ears get more tuned to delivery sounds and each day ends with no package. I even have the kids looking and listening. They have better hearing then me but are not using it for the good of mankind. They think it is silly to stalk the delivery men. Silly children are clueless. Just let them wait for a package in the mail, then they will turn their antennas on I guarantee it. Selfish children. Daniel thinks it is great fun opening the front door and closing it...knowing mom will come running and ask breathlessly "Did a package come?" He gets great joy in saying no. He gets his sadistic nature from his dad obviously. 8:30 and time for the delivery men to start their day. I am now on high alert.

If you give a husband a hat...

Cute in story form, a mouse wanting a cookie which leads to him asking for more and more stuff only ending back where he started from for the sequence to start again, but in reality the mouse would have been happily given to the science department at the nearest university if I had my way. Husband is becoming that mouse only instead of a cookie, although he probably wants one, it is hats. The quest for the perfect hat to be put on the head of a man who thinks there really is a perfect hat and will find fault in anything and everything he puts on his head because the perfect hat does not exhist. This is a  man who never wanted a hat or wore one before now, but since we now live in Iowa, wants one. We tried buying one, sadly none met the criteria. Each one fell short in some way. So, I open my mouth and say..."I'll knit you one". Famous last words. I happily went looking for yarn and cast on. Knowing he wanted something to cover his ears but did not like the look of flap hats, I found a simple 4x2 rib hat that on the male model covered his ears. I could not wait to give it to hubby, and knitting faster then normal, finished in a day. Presented it to hubby who put it on and exclaimed his ear tips were still exposed and "was the tiny hole at the crown suppose to be there?". He did wear it all last winter as he looked at every hat in the stores we went to (none were up to snuff). Near the end of last winter he decided to try an ear flap hat and thought the ear flaps might be a good idea so the quest to find one without the silly ties was on. Target had one and he got it. After a day or two of using it he declared it not warm enough because it was acrylic and made his head sweat even though he was still cold. Maybe I could make an ear flap hat in wool, but no ties. Every pattern was nixed for some reason...pattern, cable, to pointy, too floppy, and on and on. I did find a cool hat that did not have ear flaps where the back went lower then the front, think centurion helmet style. This was approved and I cast on. Sadly I picked a not too soft yarn and there was a new technique in the pattern that did not tell me how...casting on in the middle of knitting. Nowhere could I find the info that said to use THIS cast on when in the middle so I figured it pretty much was a make one over and over and proceeded. 2 mistakes added together made the hat unwearable by hubby. Granted the yarn was itchy and the hat tight but good news...ears were covered and no hole at the top. Hubby decided the pattern was too unusual and he would feel like a geek wearing it. Back to the drawing board. Found it...simple ear flap hat and the ties were optional. knowing I made the last too tight I decided to make this one a little larger then gauge. Hat was loose, very loose, almost covered his eyes loose. Could I make it again only tighter and "Oh yeah, add the ties only short ones because it will keep the ear flaps close to my head on windy days". Sigh. Frogged the hat but found a different yarn I wanted to use (the frogged yarn is sitting on my shelf in a neat ball waiting to be used again). New yarn, a soft tweed, moss green. Made the hat, checked the size halfway through and did it all perfect. No hole at top. Ear flaps. Soft yarn. And ties...that when tied were sticking out...".hmmmm, maybe that is why the ties are long " says hubby, "could you make these longer?" I am back to getting the hat just right. The yarn for the ties came from the ball of blue tweed I had planned for some mittens but after stealing almost 20 yrds from it I doubt I will have enough for 2 hands. Good news is I get to buy some yarn for me. Bad news is he wants me to make him socks next. Socks. He is already extremely picky about the socks he buys and I am suppose to make some he will not find fault with....too bad my project list is long. His socks are being moved to the end of the line, again and again. Ties, he wants long ties on an ear flap hat he said he did not want many moons ago....wait, he said he hates pompoms on hats too, just you wait, I can hear..."Hmmmm, know what might look good on this hat...

Blogging frustrations

Crazy blog site keeps telling me I am not comatable with their system. Therefore whatever I write is met with aggrivation. Either it won't let me correct or delete or even go back in the piece I am working on. Several times it has deleted the entire piece  am working on. I had a cute story about how we staged the tea cozy picture and a musing on how if I could sell a knitted project then I can consider all my knitting work related and go on cruises or weekend knitting getaways all for the job. Guess it is limbo somewhere. With my luck it will turn up in the middle of another post I make and I will not be able to get rid of it. Makes me grumpy.

Finished

The completed cozy.

This is from Debbie Bliss' Knits to Give.

Lunch Date

Met with hubby for lunch today, our monthly get together to try out one of the many restaurants of Iowa City. It was the Motley Cow today. The reason for picking this place was the location, just a few doors down from the Haunted Book Store which happens to be right next door to a cute little fabric/yarn store. After lunch, which turned out not so great (company was wonderful, food was bleck), I wandered over to the store called HOME. Sigh...it was perfect. A charming little store with material in the front, yarn in the middle and a sitting place in the back. The material was the kind I used to make all those smocked dress with, the kind that cost $8-$10 a yard but lasted so long. I think it is time to have another girl just so I can keep this company in business. The yarns were delectable.  Most were out of my price range going for $22 a hank, but there were enough in my price range that kept me circling the tables like a shark. One hank I think I drooled on...it was luxuriously soft, I know I was feeling it in ways I probably could have gotten arrested for. Mega bucks for the hank but I was furiously trying to rearrange my budget for but the numbers were not in my favor. I did purchase a soft hank of Cascade Baby Alpaca Chunky in a butter yellow. Not sure what I will use it for, maybe fingerless gloves, but it doesn't matter. It will look yummy sitting on top of my stash. And besides, it will always remind me of my hubby whom I do love so much.

I knew it!

Knit. Unknit. Knit. Unknit. Knit. Why am I messing up on this pattern AGAIN! Well, I took the time to read the entire blog post from She did it right and BINGO! there were errors in the pattern.
I knit it correctly....want this on record. I followed the pattern as published. It was NOT me.
So the ripping was needed, but now I know if I follow the patter and corrections I will produce a very stylish tea cosy and not a twisted heap of yarn.
It was not me...whew.

Frog it

I frogged the cosy. The twist just screamed at me and I would never be happy. Also reading this blog
Tea cosy done right I knew I needed to redo it. Her's came out so cute and perfect. I would glare at mine every time I looked at it if I did not change it. So we begin again...again.

The cozy from hell.

  While waiting on the yarn I ordered for the hats I am going to make, I decided to knit a cute teapot cozy. It is a design by Debbie Bliss and is the first cozy I have found that did not look like it was created by Tim Burton. Why do knit designers feel the need to dress children and teapots in things only seen in a deranged dream? Anyway...this cozy is cute but not cutesy, it s charming and tasteful. It wraps the teapot and fastens with 2 small buttons. Along each side are 3 cables with a little pizazz added. I have done cables before and intermediate patters before so this looked doable. It is a teapot cozy...how hard can it be?
  Two days and mega hours spent and I am only on row 16. I ripped it once back to where the cables began and fixed some problems there. I guess I got too relaxed thinking I had the problem solved until the cables realigned (there is a leg on the cable that juts out then joins back) . Now it looks like a twist tie after its been used.

  I will continue though. The prospect of ripping and repeating just makes me shudder. I figure there are 2 sides to this teapot cozy. This side will be the one facing the wall. Another thought...if I repeat this mistake in all the cables then I have made a creative change to the pattern. Good news is no one in my house knows what a cable is or are observant enough to notice the "design" element on the tea cozy IF they decide to look. To them I covered the teapot with a yarn thing-a-ma-jig in a pretty color. Hubby already questioned why I wanted to spend time doing this and questioned the functionality of it..."isn't tea going to drip in it? Doesn't tea stain?"
  I think I am having a problem concentrating on the pattern. Listening to Harry Potter usually makes knitting fun but I usually do not knit complicated patterns. (Apparently this is a complicated pattern). I did notice when I was not listening to HP the cable was doing great...turned on HP and I started messing up. My brain cannot compartmentalize as well as it use to...listening, reading, doing...too much I guess.
  I could change the patter into a simple cable but then I will be admitting defeat. No way will I do that. I can knit anything as long as I focus. Just a matter of yarn and 2 sticks and when I knit or purl. It is not rocket science. I will conquer and be victorious...just might take a while.

Reboot, hopefully.

  I am giving the blogging thing another try. Chances are I will post a few times then get lazy and the blog will die. My goal though is to keep a record of the events in my life as a stay at home mom, By most standards I live a boring life. But I am happy in my sedate lifestyle and take pleasure in the simple things...my children, nature, yarn, books, and of course my husband. God plays a big part of my life but I would not list him under simple things, more like the core of it all. Normally my day is filled with school and house duties but we are on summer break and time is more my own. Too hot to explore the vast hiking trails around here which is a normal weekly activity for us, instead we are stuck inside being lazy. Dan is determined to play a perfect match on Call of Duty. Emma's goal is to read all the story books the library has. And my goal is to knit hats for everyone.
  I am also working on next school years curriculum. I have it all but Daniel's art. Still haven't found the right book or video course. Either it is too babyish or too advanced. Anything written for the high schooler tends to be of the mind they know the basics and anything that covers the basics tends to present it at a pre-school level. I will post what I find when I find it...if I find it.
  One thing I want to make sure with this blog is to keep it balanced. Homemaker, homeschooling mom, being a mom to a teen boy and young girl ,and my hobbies are what I want to write about. I would include being a wife but hubby frowns on being a topic so this part will be minimal although it a part of me and I am sure it will be slipped in here and there.
  I am writing this intro but am thinking... what am I getting myself into? Hopefully not another dead blog.