Warm Colors

 It's a bright and sunny day here in spite of the bitter cold outdoors and as always I consider myself lucky to have a roof over my head in this weather.

I continue to crochet hats for the homeless,I thought I'd put a pretty edge on this one to cheer people up as I consider ways that I can use this painting to help fund them if I ever get it finished.

Meanwhile I reach into the warm end of the paintbox and take the colors for another wild ride.

New Pencils

I'm happy to say I was given a new set of pencils and figured that while I was breaking them in I'd try one more version of my sister's happy birthday design.

This will get my pencils sharpened and try them out while giving me another design for my stores.

It won't take much to get the worktable cleaned off after this and I haven't quite decided what project I'll use it for next.

In the meantime I'm crocheting another hat to donate to charity and reorganizing my craft supplies.

I even made a 1.15 royalty on a product in one of my stores today. Who knows? maybe things will start looking up for me.

Cold Weather Projects

In between putting the garden down for the winter I've been crocheting and donating more of these hats. I got 2 out of the purple yarn I had and I'm working the last of the skein into stripes with some of the other bits of yarn I had on hand.

With all of the other projects we're doing don't forget that it's always cold somewhere in the world and take some time to make something warm to share. Some organizations will even provide you with patterns or yarn to make the things you'll be donating.

I think I actually like the striped one better-how about you?

Projects like this make me feel that the time was well spent in spite of the way that most people react. For some reason when they see a fat woman crocheting they seem to assume that you've got the approximate I.Q. of a piece of furniture. Somehow it doesn't dawn on them that anyone who can take a hook and a piece of yarn and turn it into anything they want is probably smarter than they are.

Granny Square Afghan

This is an old picture. By the time I finished it today I didn't have time to take a picture. I had put a wide white border around the edge after the blue rows. This one is on it's way to the Veteran's Home.
We make them all different sizes depending on the size and condition of the people we're making them for. (smaller one's for the amputees etc.)

Encouraging news

I spent most of today crocheting an  granny square afghan for the veterans home and was thinking about all of the things I give away, the state of my finances and what I "ought" to be doing with my time when an e-mail popped in to let me know I sold some sheets of postage stamps with my daisy drawings on them. Finally, a bit of money coming in so I took a couple of hours to design some more and went back to my crocheting.
What is it about most creative people that makes the simple act of making some money to pay bills so difficult? Are our brains really wired all that differently from "normal" people with jobs? It's a question I'm giving a lot of thought these days. How about you?

Sales, marketing and life in the studio

I doing a lot of cleaning and re-arranging in the studio to make enough room to work on some larger canvases. The projects I'd been working on to sell don't pay enough to help much so I'm going to grab my paints and slide away into something fun until I feel up to tackling the sales and marketing problems again.
While resting up between the other work I'm still crocheting that scarf for the homeless. There's enough of that yarn left to make one more after I finish the one I'm working on so soon that stuff will be out of my way here too.
There isn't room in the house for the big easel so it's either out in the garage or frozen to the ground somewhere out in the garden from the last painting. I'll hunt that down later...or wait until spring. It will depend on what sort of a mood I'm in.

The first thing that caught my eye

I thought I 'd combine my favorite hat pattern with these novelty yarns and see how that turns out. I'm only on row 4 right now so I'll have to get back to you and let you know how it works out.

I'm making progress and should be finished soon.

Just a few more rows and this will be ready to donate to that community program that gives winter wear to school children that need it.

49 degrees

Well, I don't know about you but I don't liked working outdoors when it's too cold or windy (it's also supposed to rain) so it looks like I'll be staying in to deal with my messy house and a number of art and craft projects.
Yesterday I rehabbed silk plants for friends and crochet 1/2 a hat for charity (a local program that works with the schools to provide winter wear for children in need)
I could finish that hat but there are a lot of other things I should do as well so we'll see about that.
I'm not really sure what I'm doing until I've had my coffee-how about you?

Dusting off the iron

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been sorting things out and cleaning things up around here in between other projects. Today it occurred to be that I'd better get that basket of ironing done before I'm forced to either re-wash everything or just toss it into a charity bag and let them deal with it.
This time I came to a compromise. I laundered the pillowcases on to of the basket and decided to iron the rest. The first step of course was to FIND the iron, clean it off and make sure it still worked. Clearly I can't remember the last time I used it for anything...

Think Pink

Think Pink. As  well as being the name of cute musical number in the Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire movie Funny Face it's the general theme around here today. As I continue to crochet those pink scarves I'm thinking, about Barbie, peptobismol, an breast cancer awareness...not to mention the number of Pink Panther cartoons running through my mind.
And as these things ran through my mind we were fortunate to see groceries running through the house. Just as I'd been doing all of this crocheting for charity someone who knew about our financial situation brought us lots of groceries and paper products.
Life is just amazing, isn't it? And so are the people in mine. Thanks so much to Cheryl and Fred for today's miracle and to Jerry and Laura for yesterday's stamps and stationery.

It's looking like a Happy New Year after all

Crochet for Minnesota Action Council for Veterans

 You almost can't see the brown hat at the back of the table.

 People often forget that some women are veterans too.

I crocheted and donated these and one of the other gals in my group did 2 nice scarves and donated those too.

Something for everyone

 My sister painted this for me and I'm SO excited!!! She says I can use it to make stuff on Zazzle with. It's going to be fun to see what I can do with it.

 I finished these two scarves and took them into crochet group today. These will be donated to an organization for the families of veterans. I also finished a hat and sent it along with them.

 These are both made the long way with half double crochet stitches.

Progress Report

Knit and Crochet: "They say charity begins at home". I say "been there, done that". I just gave 2 scarves, one hat and 4 pair of slippers to my family and made 1 pair of slippers each for my husband and myself.

Zazzle: Sales are improving and we're still designing lots of things with my artwork on them and just discovered that we can do ceramic tile there that can be put on everything from a trivet or gift box to a bathroom or kitchen. I got SO excited that I designed dozens of them.

My Studio: I'm still working on the dining room table because we couldn't afford to finish the old garage we were converting to studio space but I'm not letting that stop me from planning a series of workshops on color mixing and problem solving for watercolor and acrylic artists. Even if I can't do them here I can do all of the planning so that I'll be ready to go when things get back on track.

Organizing, Recycling and Downsizing: 3 bags of "stuff" went out to charity last week, some bins were emptied and others reorganized. My go to system for things these days is tote bags for each activity or place I need to go to so that everything is always sorted and ready. people say "you're so organized" but they'd be horrified to see what a mess my house is in. Somehow I can always find something more important or interesting than housework...I'm sure that won't surprise you.

A busy morning's work

I started the purple hat for an elderly friend, finished 2 hats I donated to a program for women Veterans and their families and then I went back to work on potholders.

All of that before noon today. Who knows what's next? There's still a lot of the day left.

Work, Hobbies and Everything in between

Life gets interesting when you're not sure what's work and what's play. The crochet items will go to various charities. I meet with two different groups of gals for great conversation as we knit and crochet whatever folks seem to be needing these days.
The painted images here take a bit more explanation.The center one is a detail of that large painting with the flying toast & stuff. The lower image is a detail of the painted finish I did on my bathroom walls.
What made this interesting (and a bit confusing from the work or play aspect) was that I made neckties and a bunch of other products from these images and had a lo of fun trying to see how they'd wrap around different surfaces.
I enjoyed it a lot but who know whether or not the products will sell. I guess that's how I'll know if people liked them or not.

Sunny Sunday

Crocheting another afghan for charity in between listing more of my paintings for sale. Hoping people realize that the items they buy allow me to afford to give these items to the people that need them. It's a pleasant enough life until I decide what to do for a living.