Crafty

[altivo]

No, not like fox. Guild meeting this morning, time to show off projects for the "Use the color you hate most" challenge. My piece was well-received. Photo of finished item tomorrow maybe when I'm more awake. This is the "Purple Onions Make Me Cry" table runner. I posted photos of it partly completed months ago.

Next year's challenge? "Weave a Green Bag" by which they mean either a shopping carry-all to avoid using paper or plastic disposables or else a bag of any sort made from recycled materials. Should be easier than either of the last two. There's a year before that has to be completed, so no worries now.

Committed to do that day-long historic spinning demo again, the one I did last June where people didn't know what spinning was for or how cloth was made or that cotton came from a plant. And no, I didn't kill the sheep to get its wool.

Library door count 965 for today. Way above normal for W-day. Attributed to the fact that school ended for the summer this afternoon and the library is right next to a playground. (They come into the library to use the restrooms and water fountains, not to read.

And that's the news for today. Good night.

Comments

[hgryphon.livejournal.com]

You don't like the purple?

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Colour preference seems to be quite a personal thing. I have always loved green, and purple as well in fact. Yet my housemate prefers blue. I think it's due to childhood memories. My first towel that I can remember was green, and i used to enjoy chewing on it. Also my favourite chocolate (Buttons) used to come in a purple and green package.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I tend to name blue as my favorite color, and actually my least favorite is probably some shade of pink since black and white are not really colors. In my preschool years, I think purple was probably my favorite crayon.

Heavily influenced by art education, color wheels, and color theory now, I am hard pressed to justify color opinions except to say that I find color "fads" or "fashion" to be pretty silly. Purple is a "fad" among women of a certain age, who happen also to dominate the fiber arts environment here in the US. Hence my criticism. ;p

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Let me guess..late 50s/early 60s.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Good guess. "Purplemania" seems to set in somewhere around age 50 and may in fact be a chronic condition until death. I don't know of a cure.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_rinse :D

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

http://labyrinth_3.tripod.com/page59.html :D

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes. I've never been sure whether that poem was responsible for Purplemania and the Red Hat Club or the other way around.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Purple is OK. I like every color of the rainbow, though I'm not generally fond of black. However, purple is very much overused, and especially so in the context of older women who engage in fiber arts. You can go to any exhibit or show of their work and see that.

It grows tiresome and is a cliché. I've been complaining about the overuse of purple for years now, and confronted with this particular challenge, I couldn't possibly have selected a color other than purple to use as a target. The results are quite pleasing, actually, and I will use the finished piece. It is not, however, something I would wear.

[silver-kiden.livejournal.com]

i can has vote on project? i has idea. is good idea! mash up old newspapers, do the whole make your own paper thing, to make really thick paper, and fold and glue it into a bag. you can then paper mache around it to make it stronger and reinforce the corners and joins.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Interesting and certainly possible, but I'm not sure that would be durable in a practical sense. This particular challenge requires weaving, though. A durable bag could be made from heavy felt too. That would be wool, but not woven, so disqualified.

Paper making is interesting. I've dabbled in it when I was in library school and got to the history of printing part.

Saw this on the NPR web site

[animist.livejournal.com]

Texas Horse Could Be World's Largest
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104894717

Re: Saw this on the NPR web site

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Interesting. That's 20 hands. Normal for a Clyde is 18 to 19, so Remington is indeed tall. However, I'm sure I've read that Clydesdales have made it to 21 hands or more in height on occasion. I suppose there may not be a living example at the moment.

It's amazing how sweet and gentle they usually are. Probably a good thing, though. Next to an elephant, I can't think of many animals that large that I'd want to be around.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

Crafty like a wolf!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

But not a purple wolf.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

More of a white one.

[herefox.livejournal.com]

What do you mean, not craft like a fox? I spent all evening last night knitting! Well, ripping out and then knitting. Then ripping out again because that pattern was weird and knitting again. It was not a very productive evening ;-)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Crafty. You know, as in sly, sharp-witted, devious? ;p

I promise the runner photo yet today. And yes, there were spots where I had to "unweave" in order to correct an error. Fortunately never more than a few picks, though.

[herefox.livejournal.com]

Well it was supposed to be crafty not craft *grin* I knew what you meant but I figured I'd tug your tail a bit.

I managed to drop a couple of stitches in a lace project and not notice until they were unravelled half way down the scarf. I looked at fixing it and decided I didn't really feel like picking up that many stitches so I ripped it out. Then I tried another pattern and got about 12 rows into it and the instructions weren't terribly clear. So I tried what I thought they meant and that didn't work so I ripped it out to try for another day and started yet another lace pattern which seems to be going along swimmingly.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Swimming in lace? Isn't that likely to be a bit risqué?

[herefox.livejournal.com]

Depends on how much I'm wearing while I do so, I think ;-)