Movie Knitting

I'm making progress on my Snowshoe scarf. The picture to the right is the scarf. The color is ALL WRONG because the image was taken in a dark movie theater. The scarf, Steve and I were at Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2.

Do you knit in the movies? I love to do that. The pattern has to be simple (this one is 2x2 ribbing). Of course, it's dark in there, so I can't follow a pattern. Yarn that is at least worsted is better that smaller yarn. I've tried socks, but it's harder for me. Circular needles are good because I can't loose them. Knitting markers are OK - they are great if I need to track a pattern - but they do pop off, and get lost in the dark.

For me, the best movie knitting is a simple scarf. I've made scarves almost entirely in movies - so much so that I didn't see how they looked until I was almost finished with them.

Movie knitting is great.

Distress Oxide Surprise

I'm highlighting this card today because it was made with an ink I've never tried before - distress oxide ink.

When the distress oxide ink first came out, I thought, "Oh, no - I don't want another kind of ink. I have way TOO many ink pads, and I really don't want to start with another set. I'm sure I don't need it."

Then, this past month, a distress oxide ink pad was included in the Simon Says Stamp card kit for the month. (I'm sure they do this on purpose!). And, truth be told (is this confession time?), I was interested in trying it out. I'd been looking for the ink pads at my local craft stores, and missing them. And THEN, SSS had a Ranger sale - 20% off. So you know the rest. Many of the colors arrived at my house.

But - I like them! I played a little to make this background. I placed some of several colors of ink on my ranger craft mat, added water, and picked up the ink with a piece of ranger watercolor paper. The result was awful. The yellow took over and turned everything to mud.  

So, the next time, I just put green, blue and yellow on the mat. Wet that. Picked it up. Dried it with a heat gun.  Then, I put pink, purple and blue on the mat. Picked that up. Amazing. It layered instead of mixing, and I loved the result. 

So much so that I'm going to stop typing now and go make another card.

(The penguin in is from the SSS card kit from April - Wild Cuddly Critters.

Five Items

I was thinking yesterday that if I had to list what I consider to be the best cardmaking purchases I have made, what that list would be. I decided to eliminate the obvious and necessary purchases, such as paper, ink and coloring supplies. Beside those, what would be the 5 most useful or enjoyable cardmaking purchase I have made?

1. My raskog cart. In fact, this is the item that started me compiling this list in my head. I love the convenience of this cart. It is used every time I make a card. Because items are organized well, and right at hand, it saves me time. And I love it.
2. Two background stamps that I use all the time - The My Favorite Things Sheet Music Background stamp and the My Favorite Things Romantic Script Background stamp. I use both of these all the time - they just complete so many cards and make them look finished. Love them.
3. My Misti and my Misti.  Yes, I have two of them. I have one of the original size and one mini. I hesitated to by the mini - after all, I had the original size, what did I need with a smaller one. My husband bought it for me (lovely man). I use them both, sometimes at the same time. 
4. My paper trimmer. It's this one, the smaller one. I have two other larger ones, and I use them, too, but this one is small enough to fit on my desk (the others are too big for that). I love that I can see exactly where it is going to cut and that I can see the measurements to the right of the cutting blade. I use it on every card I make (I can't cut a straight line without it.).
5. My scoring board. It is this mini one from Martha Stewart. I realize that I could use the "gutter" in the trimmer for scoring, but I don't like it. I like this. It sits on my raskog cart, right next to my Misti, and I use it on every card. I can't fold at all - not straight, anyway, and this does it for me.

There are others, but these are the first three that came to mind. I could also wax poetic about my Ranger craft mat, my Wagner heat gun, my Sizzix die cut machine, the mason jars I use for watercoloring, but five was my pre-set limit.

As a bonus, I love these pieces of pottery that are on my desk.  They catch trash when I need them to, hold the backers off of tape, and sequins (the flat one does that). I could have bought less expensive and less pretty dishes for those purposes, but these make me happy when I craft.

Birds

This month, I've been posting an image each day of birds on my Facebook and Instagram feed. I thought I would share some of them with you.  These were all taken with our Nikon 5100 and the Nikon DX 55-300mm lens.

Card for a Bishop

About a week ago, a friend, who is also the spouse of the Director of Connectional Ministries for the West Virginia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, facebook messaged me. They needed a thank you card for the Bishop who was preaching for the annual conference - would I make one? I said yes, and asked her what it should look like. The answer was mountain scene or birds.

This is what I did:

The card is water colored on Arches Coldpress paper. I took inspiration from an image of the view from Snowshow Mountain that I found on the internet.

It was nerve wracking to do. A card I make for a friend or family member is one thing - but a card for a bishop? Done at someone's request? Quite another thing.

But in the end, what is done is done, and out it went.

West Virginia Mountains

We went to the northeastern mountains of West Virgiina over Memorial Day Weekend.  These images were taken using all three of my cameras (listed here).

Blackwater Falls from far away

Blackwater Falls from stairs

Ferns

Hawks Nest View - High water

Hawks Nest View

Hawks Nest View

View from Snowshoe lift

Oodles of Doodles - May

I've mentioned before that The Petit Planner on Instagram publishes a monthly doodling challenge.   In  May, the challenge was a list of foods.  It's fun to do - and fun to think of creative ways to interpret the words.

Some of my favorites this month were cookie (I drew the Cookie Monster) and hamburger (Hamburgler).

Snowshoe Scarf

Often, when we travel, I'll buy yarn. I like my yarn souveniors - when I knit with the yarn and then use the knitted article (usually a scarf), I am reminded of our trip.

Last weekend we went to the mountains of West Virginia. I knew I wouldn't find a yarn store there, and I wanted to knit in the car while we traveled, so I ordered yarn to take with me.

I am drawn to blues and greens, so much so that many of my scarves are shades of those colors. I do buy a few other colors, but not beige. I like color.

I ordered this yarn because the name of the color is snowshoe - we went to Snowshoe mountain for the weekend. I couldn't reisist it! And it will match my coats (which are black with taupe trim).

I'm knitting a 2x2 rib with Knit Picks City Tweed, Aran weight. The yarn is soft - 55% merino wool, 25% superfine alpaca, and 20% donegal tweed. It's a heavy worsted weight yarn, so I'm using US size 9 needles.

On the trip, I knit one skein - 164 yards. I purchased three of them.

The top image is the scarf sittig on a rail of the deck at the hotel. The second one is the scarf sitting on the dashboard as we aproached Seneca Rocks.