TAST 10: Running Stitch (and other tidbits)

Trilobite speeding through clear, still water:



I decided I had no actual desire to experiment with making running stitch decorative; I wanted to draw with it. I much prefer the samples that are pictures, especially when they are so fast - this is another one-day wonder! It would have been just as fast and a bit more satisfactory if I'd drawn the trilobite outline. (This seems to be a theme.)

Take a Stitch Tuesday has, as always, marvelous examples. I've tried the pattern darning before; maybe I'll do a threaded running stitch another time. I think that to be more inspired to do decorative seam things, I'd actually need some seams to decorate - it might work to pre-make a pieced item, and decorate it. (Not this TAST, however!)

The camera decided on the murky brown all by itself; actually, the fabric is a nice chocolate color. I love the camera, but I need to figure out some way to photograph my stuff how *I* want. NOT how the camera decides. It has to learn to like photographing art and projects as much as it likes photographing nature.

So, a recap of the first nine; with lots of colors, the camera is forced to acknowledge that what it sees is really what is there.



The delightful tulip tree (liriodendron tulipifera) outside my third-floor studio window:



I highly recommend this tree if you have room for it. Just don't plant it near where you park your car - it produces prodigious amounts of sticky sap and flings it everywhere.

And one more random tidbit: a tuber duck!



(If there are barnacle geese, there can certainly be tuber ducks.)

Musical Boxes

This is another "post move" update.

Last night's idea was "move boxes." (Oil painting from Sunday was not dry enough to finish.) So I moved boxes. Things have been stagnant for a while, and it's been getting to me. All the easier/more obvious things have been dealt with, and the last bit is taking forever because I'm trying to not just put stuff away to get it out of sight, since out of sight = out of mind, and I really, truly wish to sort things out and have them accessible in order to (gasp) USE them.

I poked through several small cardboard boxes, dislodged a hammer and several nails, and hung two more things on the wall (for a total of three). The box containing my camera software is now more accessible, so when I feel up to it I will be able to mess around with trying to get it to work again on my computer.

I moved boxes, shifting a bin of camping things into the coat closet, which entailed first emptying the floor of said closet, which was not as bad as it sounds since said closet is not very big.

I need to find a place for the vacuum cleaner. In my last apartment, the camping stuff lived in the bedroom closet and the vacuum cleaner lived in the coat closet. My current bedroom closet doesn't seem to have room for it. (Much smaller closet.) The closet in the studio also does not have room for the camping stuff. Since I'm naturally using the somewhat larger master bedroom for the studio, that bedroom closet is somewhat larger than the other one, but it's full of Cool Stuff and, behind that, flattened boxes for the next time I move. And the water heater is in there, too. So the coat closet had to be the place for the camping stuff, and there is no room in the coat closet for the vacuum cleaner.

I should be able to put the vacuum cleaner in the linen closet. The shelves are only half the depth of the closet, so there is a lot of vertical air. In that case, I have to find somewhere else to put my clothes drying racks, which I currently keep in the linen closet, because there wouldn't be enough room for them if the vacuum cleaner was in there. They might fit in the bedroom closet if I didn't have the suitcases there. But that's kind of the only place for the suitcases.

Due to the layout of my apartment, the main bathroom has a lot of wasted space, mainly in the corner behind the door. I'll probably end up putting the boxes from the outdoor/balcony closet there. (The outdoor closet is smaller, too, and this balcony is not shaped like an outdoor room, so once again I have to come up with a new system.) Once I get the boxes out of the outdoor closet, I can install a hook to hang up my bicycle, which otherwise won't fit. But in the meantime, before I move the boxes, perhaps I can put the clothes drying racks behind the door in the bathroom, so I can put the vacuum cleaner in the linen closet instead of leaving it in the living room where it has been since late August.

Then, once I rearrange the boxes in the living room, I can move the fabric storage dresser out of the studio, where it is completely blocking the other fabric storage dresser, to the living room, where it will stay until I decide what to do with it.

Soothing picture of trees. It's impossible--for an amateur like me, at least--to take a really satisfactory photo of giant redwoods:

On Weather, Reading and Painting

I am always writing blog posts in my head--it's a hazard of the lack of internet access at a time when I'm thinking of writing, or a lack of inclination and time when I'm online (which is at work). There is odd weather again today which disagrees with my sinuses--like yesterday, today is intermittently sunny, rainy, and snowy; yesterday included hail, and today had something that was somewhere between sleet and hail but more the consistency of miniature snowballs.

Wait! I have remembered. The other morning I found Princess picking out what she wants to read next. She must have finished all the books on the floor.


I myself am reading The Coptic Tapestry Album by Nancy Arthur Hoskins and, intermittently, Speiser's Manual of Braiding and also numerous novels. (Connie Willis: To Say Nothing of the Dog--go read it!)

On to the pictures. I have been thinking a lot about oil painting lately; it is a distinct pleasure to work on something that provides basically instant gratification! I'm not sure why oil paint has such a reputation of difficulty, because it is delightful to work with. Yesterday was the last class, and I missed it because I was completely unaware of the time change. I painted at home, though, so that's all right.