Halloween sales!

Mid-August is when Halloween starts to seriously kick into gear, since the decorations are up for sale in stores, and people are getting ready to stock up on Halloween goodies before they get too distracted by back-to-school shenanigans. So I'm going to try to put more of my classic Halloween art in my Etsy shop, as I'm doing new versions of old favorites. Please visit my Facebook fan page and "like" it for a new coupon code!

Around Sept. 18 I won't have an ArtFire shop any more -- I had a pro account and went back to a basic account, but those no longer exist, so once my current month's subscription runs out I am not going to renew and will just focus on Etsy.

In the meantime I have a 10% off storewide sale on ArtFire, so check it out by clicking the owl painting above! I mostly have prints available there and a few paintings not available elsewhere. The sales prices will be live, no need for a coupon code. If there's enough interest I might be able to keep the shop around longer.

That's all for now, going to get back to working on some crisp, cool autumn art from a 107-degree day in Texas!

Ghosts and flowers

"Haunted by Flowers" by Sarada 2011 (on Etsy)

Other than knowing I wanted to paint a ghost flitting through a hallway I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with this painting, but when it was almost done I imagined flowers streaming by her and now I can't imagine it any other way. I am really very happy with this -- although I've been inspired by gothic and ghost story type literature of the 19th and 18th century recently, this doesn't point to any one particular story -- it's just a general ghostly image inspired by writers like J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Wilkie Collins, E.F. Benson, M.R. James and other wonderful writers.

Right now incidentally I am reading a book on my nook from the 18th century, which was one of my 600 or so public domain works I've downloaded from manybooks.net, archive.org or gutenberg.org, and this one is called The Haunted Priory by Stephen Cullen. It is also available as new, reprinted book from Zittaw Press. Despite the fact that the letter "s" is rendered as an "f" throughout the text, it is a very enjoyable read, and I will buy the reprint just as soon as I have some money, to add to my teetering pile of gothic novels.

Most of these books were originally published in 2, 3 or 4 volumes, so the versions that are made available through archives are usually incomplete. Only a few seem to be up in complete form for free -- The Mysterious Freebooter by Francis Lathom, The Haunted Palace by Mrs. Yorke, for instance -- though those are also available reprinted in shiny new wonderful copies from Zittaw and Valancourt Books.

Some other good places to find old horror by the way are Munseys and Horrormasters. I also like a lot of other pulp fiction from pre-1920s that they have on sites like Munseys and Manybooks.

I recently got a couple of books from Amazon thanks to the miracle of credit card reward point -- The Necromancer by George W.M. Reynolds, and Bungay Castle by Elizabeth Bonhote -- so my library mania continues, despite not having any money or space to put anything!

And finally, why does auto-save never work on Blogger? This is seriously beginning to make me crazy.

The Moonstone, and Dreams

"The Moonstone (I)" (2011) by Sarada

As usual my pledge to post more often falls by the wayside. I was posting recently about some sewing creations, and before that some of my lace knitting, and all of that is still sitting around waiting to be photographed or blogged about but in the meantime I was sitting outside last week reading "The Rose and the Key" by J. Sheridan le Fanu and I became possessed of the desire to paint some imagery from the novels that I love.

I read mostly 1790s-1920s, i.e. gothic novels, Victorian ghost stories, sci-fi and supernatural fiction, and just literature in general from that time period. Wilkie Collins is one of my favorites, and this summer I read "The Woman in White", as I read "The Moonstone" last year.

The above painting is the first Moonstone-inspired piece -- not any particular scene in the book really, just an impression in general I have of the idea of someone feeling like she is pursued for her mysterious amulet...

"The Spectrum of Dreams" (2011) by Sarada

I didn't think long and hard about a title for this one and I'm afraid it sounds a bit like a '90s Rush album as far as the title goes, but I wanted to express the idea of colors, and of a dreamlike atmosphere, so....now that I think about it, it reminds me more of the title of a 1960s or early speculative fiction book that I'd buy for the cover. At any rate, any excuse to unite dark horror and a bit of psychedelicness is fine by me!

Party dresses

Thanks for the comments on my last post about sewing -- since I'm on a roll, here is the latest item that I made, which was Vintage Vogue pattern #1172. It requires a lot of fabric -- 7 yards, mostly for the skirt -- so I had to go somewhere that I could get cheap fabric because I can't afford to spend $70 on a dress for myself! So this was about $4 or $5 a yard -- still adds up to a lot, by my standards, but it is a wonderful pattern. Great for dress twirling!!

As a side note I miss The Rag Shop. Their tables of $2 and $4/yard fabric were essential for me for the things I made for myself. I feel as though sewing used to be something that us poor people did because we couldn't afford to buy clothes, but now it seems to be more a boutique craft that people do because they want to create beautiful heirloom quilts or special occasion dresses. Which are wonderful things, to be sure, but sometimes I just need to whip up some $2/yard dresses to get me through the summer when I realize that I no longer fit into all the dresses that I bought last year. :/ Since I usually buy clothing at thrift stores or on sale, I can't imagine spending $50 on fabric for just one item of clothing -- but I keep an eye out for sales and I have a large hoard of fabric I got over the years that I am still chipping away at.

Anyway, complaining aside, I tend to favor patterns that use just a couple yards of fabric so I can stretch my fabric stash out a bit. Usually when I see a pattern that I like, I buy two yards of it, without even knowing what I'm going to do with it...just so I have it around.

What I really want right now is this book The Party Dress Book, since I love the idea of dressing up, and my own little innocent idea of what a party should be. (No alcohol, lots of confetti, sweets and home-baked goods, and some fun games, maybe a bit of croquet on the lawn). So, whenever I upgrade to a better sewing machine, that is what I shall do.

Where does the time go?

The plan to update here regularly is not going as smoothly as I had hoped since I seem to have a tremendous time remembering to log in, getting photos uploaded and -- well, sitting in front of a computer is not something I like to do these days.

The procession of shawls continues but I also wanted to take a little time to make some clothing this past week, because I have realized what is flattering for me and I am determined to replace all of the things that make me look ridiculous, with things that look nice. Just because I like a dress on a hanger doesn't mean that I should wear it. At any rate, when I buy patterns, I can at least keep adjusting them until they fit, which is what I've been doing, to make sure they are nice and long, but cool for the summer without being tight. I am mostly making things like this, where you have a strappy bodice and a skirt that kind of swoops out and is roomy. (Below, Simplicity 2175)



I realize though that I don't really sew properly. My late grandmother was something of a seamstress (she excelled in pretty much every art and craft, and was always doing at least one of them) and I learned from her, but it wasn't necessarily the way they teach you in pattern directions. We just cut out the pieces, glance at the directions to see what order they go together in, and get to it.

For instance, here is a list of steps or terms that I have not always followed or understood in printed patterns.

* Pre-wash fabric. Not when I'm sewing for myself. Since I either handwash, or cold wash/cool dry my clothing, I don't worry about things shrinking too much and I've never had a problem with it after making hundreds of outfits. I like fresh-from-the-store fabric and like to just get to work on it right away. Also, I have never had a washing machine on the premises before, so it was very impractical. If I am sewing for someone else I pre-wash it though.

* Nap. After a lifetime of sewing, my attitude toward the word "nap" was to take one, at that point in the directions. I finally looked up what it meant. Ohhhhh, THAT nap. Like pile. Like what velvet and velour do. And apparently it also refers to one-way designs. Okay, now I know what nap is and I can deal with that. For years I just kind of breezed over that term thinking "Oh yeah, sure, I'm...sure my fabric probably doesn't have nap because those layouts require more fabric..."

* Interfacing. Can't stand it. Maybe it's because I generally use fabrics that are fine without it, or that I'm not interested in making things for myself that have cuffs or collars or buttons. I have made things with it and honestly haven't noticed a difference. But most of what I want to wear wouldn't call for it anyway, so I will continue to keep my distance from interfacing.

* Transfer markings and symbols to fabric. Nope. Not since seventh grade Home Ec class have i ever done that. When I tried, it left permanent stains on the fabric, and I can pretty much eyeball those anyway, or put in pins where it is relevant.

* Hems - I fold and press, then fold and press, then stitch. Most pattern directions have these crazy instructions for steaming and hand-stitching and they have never made a bit of sense to me. Especially since I like things where the bottom hem is going to be like 200 inches around., and hand sewing that is a bit daunting.

So those are a few of the things in printed patterns that I don't necessarily follow by the book. The other thing I would like to be able to do, but can't, is to have an overlock stitch to finish seams but I will have to get another machine some day for that. As it is I usually zigzag the edges. If I get back to making things to sell it will be when I have the overlock option most likely.

One more thing I made recently --

Simplicity 2609, above.

This required an extraordinary amount of fabric, but I used some that came in a clearance package of quilting fabric from AC Moore and fleshed it out with (the darker bands) some from my stash, including two yards of Halloween fabric in the second tier from bottom. Gathering the 280 inch ruffle on the bottom and fitting it to the one above (which was only slightly less wide) was very time consuming, but worth it!

All of my sewing shortcuts are not things I would do if I was sewing for someone else, or for sale -- these are just little confessions about what I do when it's just for me. Because I am not picky. I guess I am also curious if anyone else feels the way I do about some of the things you're supposed to do in sewing that don't seem to make a big difference in wearability.

another shortcut to more mushrooms

Nothing quite compares to the summer two years ago, but it's been raining so much in the Mushroom Woods (which is what I call a particular county park, because I see so many varieties there) that I knew they had to be popping up this year, maybe even a little ahead of schedule.

My posts back in 2009, like the original Shortcut to Mushrooms post, show an interesting array of groovy fungus that grew up in the damp earth that year. I even took a variety of photos of them that I offer prints of, like this one.

This year they haven't gone completely wild yet but I will take a break from shawls for a moment to show a few things that I saw today on a rainy woods walk.

I love these red-capped fellows. This one is just peeking up, looking around to see if anyone is there.

These wee yellow ones were much brighter in person but I do what I can when the light is dim to try to capture it.

Just some regular ol' brown mushrooms but still cute enough for a hobbit!

Oh and as a side note, I love tulip trees but they are so tall that you can almost never actually see the "tulips" until they fall to the ground and are squashed. So I was happy to find a low-hanging branch with some of the flowers intact on it. So strange and waxy and almost tropical looking!

How I came to love lace

Looking back over the last few months of spotty blog posts I've done here I see that I haven't chronicled a lot of my progress as I went from just knowing the knit and purl stitches, to being an obsessive lace knitter, so I thought I'd play catch up a little.

Along the way I learned entrelac, sock knitting, and cable knitting and learned basic shawl construction. I've seen on Ravelry that a lot of people are doing 11 shawls for 2011 and many did 10 shawls for 2010 so I was surprised when I counted and realized I think I've already done nine shawls this year! O_O Many of them are quite small though. One of the first that I did was the famous Citron. I used Noro Sekku, and although it was a bit of a headache (cobweb weight yarn with 500+ stitches on the needles at the end) it was gorgeous and is one of my joys.

See those stitches? They are tiny. I think being snowed in way the only way I did the whole thing in a week!

I also made a Multnomah shawl, but I didn't take a good photo of it at the time so I will wait till I can get that one in direct sunlight. I used Crazy Zauberball in "Tropical Fish," a crazy rainbow colorway, for that one.

Around that time, in February or March, I began to realize that what I really love are lace patterns. I get this tingly feeling in my brain when I look at them. I love intricate, complicated patterns especially. I made a sweater (I still have to stitch the pieces together but the knitting is done) with an elaborate lace pattern and realized: All you have to do, is follow the directions. It's like a computer program or a recipe. The information goes into your eyes and out your hands, and then you have something beautiful. The process of blocking items -- soaking them and pinning them out to dry -- makes the design set in a beautiful way. I adore lace. Utterly. Especially in heavier-than-lace yarns. I am pretty much expecting this will form most of my projects in the future, because it's what excites me the most.

A simple pattern that was easy to memorize was the Morning Frost wrap, which I did in Stitch Nation's Bamboo Ewe, the Beach Glass colorway. I really love it for reasons I can't completely explain, it just scratches the "blue" part of my brain just right.

And another I did in that brand of yarn, the Mercury colorway, was the Summer Flies shawl. This is such a wonderful pattern! It only took about 4 days, and I remember knitting it while I was anxious about the horrible situation in Japan this March, unable to concentrate on anything else. As for the shawl, though, it only takes a couple of skeins of this yarn and it changes pattern every couple dozen rows so it is always interesting.



Embarrassingly, I still have a lot more to post, but I will leave these for here now and upload more tomorrow. I do want to have shawls in every color I would wear, so I can have something to put over summer sundresses when freezing cold air conditioning does battle with the heat.

I still have a lot to learn, in lace. I haven't done "nupps" or attached beads and I haven't tackled Estonian lace. I prefer fingering, sport and even worsted weight yarns, though I like laceweight and cobweb well enough. This is where the whole "art" part of knitting takes hold of me and where I realize that it has a lot more potential for me than being able to make hats and scarves for the winter.

Mystery yarn and lots of rain

It has rained nonstop for a week in New Jersey, where I have been during that time, after not seeing rain for quite awhile. Here on the tree stumps in her back yard, mushrooms are going crazy. Alongside this broken stone bird head it looks like we planned it, to look rustic. But we didn't, we just haven't been keeping up with the yard. I was hoping to get some outdoor work done up here, cleaning out the shed and organizing my possessions that are stored therein.

After a mostly dry season last year I am starved for mushrooms to photograph! The strangest thing in the back yard though was the fact that all of my boxes in her wooden shed seemed to be full of Rose of Sharon seeds. The things grow like weeds in the yard, but there weren't any IN the shed. There weren't any ABOVE the shed. How on earth did the seed pods manage to worm their way into my shoes, boxes and any sort of containment device, in the shed? It is a mystery to me. More on mysteries in a moment.

Now, on to blue things. Isn't it interesting when you can see the moon during the daytime?

Last week I got some mill-end yarn at AC Moore, a bag of five skeins of this stuff. Here's where the mystery is...I can usually identify any mill-end yarn because I spend an irrational amount of time in yarn stores and I know what brands usually wind up in the mill-end bin. I even recognized that they had Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn! there, which was surprising since they don't even have Hobby Lobby around here. Which is a store that I love, because how can you not?

So here is the mystery yarn. Help identifying it would be greatly appreciated! Each skein is pretty hefty, and I've test knitting enough to know it's probably fingering weight. Using #4 needles I got about nine rows to the inch, and 29 stitches on the needle made it 4 inches wide. So that is 29 sts x 36 rows = a 4-inch square. But that was unblocked, stretched slightly.

The mill-end bags say it could contain anything from acrylic to nylon to wool, and I think that judging by the way it feels and knits up -- and sticks to itself I'm untangling it -- it must be at least part wool. I couldn't get it to "spit join" when I tried to felt it by rubbing the ends together wet, but to be fair I've never been able to get 100% wool to do that either.


Oh pretty skeins, what are you? How much of you is there? If this is fingering weight, then these are about the size of a ball of Noro sock yarn, which would mean there could be 300 or even 400 or more yards per ball.

So to test it out I am knitting the Out of My Head Shawlette -- or at least starting it, we'll see how it goes -- which uses less than 400 yards. So it won't take long and will be a good test of how the colors stripe out and if it blocks. If I can wet block it successfully to make the lace pattern set neatly, then I will be pretty sure it has wool content and I can make a larger, more complicated piece out of the rest. And I will know if I have 2000 yards of the stuff!

For the sake of posting...

Just when I was thinking that it has been awhile since I posted here, because I am trying to stay away from computers these days, I sat down to try to post something and the computer froze up, kind of making my own point for me.

My little internet art shops are still active -- I am just in a non-horn-tooting mood and have been so for awhile. I am mainly interested in reading, and making things for friends/charity/myself, and being outdoors since spring started (which was in late February for me this year!).

Oh and that photo up at the top? It's from a pattern book I got called Ocean Breezes, which are all -- well, ocean themed scarves and shawls. I really love how it looks, and the ribbon kind of makes it. While I wait for some tie-dyed silk ribbon to arrive I used some cheap stuff from the craft store which actually...might look better than the expensive stuff, now that I think about it.

And I even dusted off the sewing machine (literally -- it was very dusty) to try to make a couple of dresses while at my mom's recently. I cut out this space dress on the right a long time ago and finally made it. Then I found some amazing jellyfish fabric and made the same dress with that. My love of jellyfish is also represented in things like this painting here.

Anyway, here are the dresses.



And here I am at an arboretum outside Houston.

My love of palm trees is well documented, but I still never stop being thrilled by them. If it doesn't grow in New Jersey, it is exciting to me.

A yellow-crested night heron. Pretty groovy!

Some kinda lizard!
Aren't my captions just incredibly informative and helpful?


And, um, that's a butterfly.

So there, consider yourselves up to date -- I'm making baby hats for a hospital all week so I will get back to that now, and whenever the computer lets me post something again I'll be back!

Happy spring!

It's been awhile since I posted -- lots of new knitting crafts to share but on the business end of things, I have spring sales at my Etsy and Artfire shops.

On Etsy, I have a new free shipping coupon code. The code is MEOWMEOW and you can enter that at checkout.

On Artfire, I have a 10% off sale going on.

Art will be flowing again soon, with the spring thaw -- I spent the entire winter knitting/crocheting since it seemed to be the only way to keep warm!

I'll be back on the blog wagon soon too so thanks for everyone who is still looking for following. :)