On Tap This Week

While I've been pondering exactly how to block out "Rhapsody", I've turned this week to alternate activities.

1. The kitchen walls now have two coats of primer on them, and are ready to paint.

View of the west wall...

2. I put the third piano-key border on the king-sized quilt under construction as a commission from my daughter (yes, she found more gold batik fabric!)

Just one corner...

3. I spent most of Saturday working through exercises in felting for my Whisper Felting class with Lily Kerns at the Academy of Quilting (4 lessons, able to take my time).  It focuses on needle felting, and as I've been meaning to get back to this -- with my embellisher as well as by hand -- when it cropped up, I was compelled!

There was a bit of playing at wet felting in miniature -- starting with layers of bubble wrap and roving in a small bowl of very warm, slightly soapy water:

And ending up with a wee round of pre-felt:

Then there were various exercises in needle felting.  I don't own a Clover (R) hand-felting tool, just used single felting needles and a block of foam that came in a beginner felting kit I bought a few years ago.  I used this sort of thing in the MAIWA class I took last fall, too, so these exercises were more of a refresher.

For example, I needle felted some roving in light layers, and added some ribbon yarn:

I compared light layers on two different backgrounds - high and low contrast:

Merino roving and synthetic fibres on (L) batting
and (R) acrylic felt backgrounds

And I created felted shapes on a wool felt background, using merino roving:

My favourite exercise though was a bit of practice on the embellisher (needle felting machine), which I finally did without breaking any of the needles!

Experimental landscape - machine needle felted
Materials: wool felt backing, wool roving, synthetic yarn

And a detail:

This gets to the heart of what I really want to do when I master this process: add needle-felting, whether by hand or machine, to my landscapes and/or create a needle-felted substrate into which I can work embroidery and/or quilting.

4. And despite the heat, there's been some knitting.  I've enjoyed knitting the July Socks-from-Stash challenge -- using a favourite purchased pattern.  Sock #1 was finished in a quiet moment at The Shop yesterday:

Here it is on the hoof:

Pattern: Hummingbird by Sandi Rosner
from Clara Parkes' The Knitter's Book of Socks
Yarn: Celestial Merino (discontinued) from
Lucy Neatby

Today?  Linking up to WIP Wednesday on The Needle and Thread Network...and focusing on "Rhythm" and "Rhapsody".

A bientot!

Prep, Prep, Prep -- and Knitting, Too

In life and art, there is always preparation...

To whit:  in July 2014 I painted my kitchen cabinet doors.  In July 2015, I'm painting the walls on which those cabinets are mounted.

In between the cabinets and the windows, those walls were covered with wall paper -- typical of mobile homes built in the '70's.  In the case of my kitchen, there are two layers of wall paper.  The plan was to wash with TSP, sand lightly, and prime the heck out of 'em before applying the paint -- likely two coats, too.

Prep #1 - wash, sand, wash
-- and try not to peel wall paper off

My Handy Neighbour, John, and Dave, the fellow who installed my new kitchen counters last fall, both recommended that I not try to peel the wall paper off.  Just wash, sand, prime and paint.

Well, I didn't try.  I didn't have to.  The effect of the TSP wash, the sanding, and the wash-the-dust-off-after-sanding was such that the newest wall paper (likely a good 20 years old) began to lift off by itself, often in swaths.

What to do?  Peel it off, of course, and sand again to be sure what was left was smooth.

My "other" mouse

Did I mention last year how much I loved my mouse?  The sander, that is?  I do.  It's a great gizmo and perfect for both small hands and small spaces!

Prep #2 - painters' tape!

Once the washing-sanding-washing was finished, I taped up what I could with my role of wide painters' tape.  Next up?  Priming...but that's for another day.

Time to get in to the sewdio.

Prep #3 - Materials for MOB II

Some of you who follow my other blog, Mark on the Body, know that I've developed a second part to my initial project -- one in which people can participate.  I've posted about it twice on that blog, and on Facebook and in the SAQA Yahoo Group.  To date I have a baker's dozen volunteers...and I'm hoping the numbers will increase.  Meanwhile, I'm going ahead with this group.  Today I prepped the materials for the project.  All that's left is to assemble the parts into tiny quilt sandwiches, cut lengths of thread, cut out the labels, and package the lot so I can get them in the mail to the volunteers.

I'm very thankful for the people who've agreed to help thus far.  If you're interested, you can find out more information on the MOB blog HERE (first post) and HERE (second post).

On the knitting front, June was a case of "so near, and yet so far" with respect to the Socks From Stash Challenge over on Ravelry.  I made it only to the heel flap of the second sock -- and only half-way through that -- by the end of the day yesterday (June 30).  Still plan on finishing though, as these socks are a gift for a friend.  She's a physics and calculus prof at the junior college level, so I'm hoping that this pattern -- "Angular Velocity" by Rich Ensor from the Spring-Summer 2015 edition of Knitty -- will tickle her fancy.  Here's what the right sock looks like:

Yarn: Arequipa Solids Collection
(discontinued) in colour #228

As today is July 1, it was time to cast on for the July challenge -- using a purchased stash pattern.  I've chosen "Hummingbird" by Sandi Rosner from Clara Parkes' The Knitter's Book of Socks, and stashed yarn I bought eons ago at a Lucy Neatby workshop in Calgary:

Cast-on photo - July 1, 2015
Yarn: Celestial Merino! (discontinued)
from Lucy Neatby - in "Fiesta" colour way

It's so pretty that I worked up the ribbing and first 24 rows while enjoying the early evening in the Outdoor Studio.

And so...to bed!  Before I go, I'm linking this with WIP Wednesday over at The Needle and Thread Network.

All for now!