A very short post about today’s observations in nature:
I tried to focus on something simple at the park (where a lot was going on, and I don’t start about what is going on around the world…) – something down to earth. The ground just in front of me became my observation area and I picked a pinecone as main subject. Not pictured are ants, tiny spiders, aphids, various grasses, and a green caterpillar that fell from the birch tree above me. It was likely an orange underwing. I took it back on the birch and looked at it climbing the trunk in its characteristic looping gait. Just as I arrived there, a small treecreeper was hopping up the birch tree and chirping very quietly.
I baked bread #119 with the fresh yeast that I mixed with flour and put in the freezer, and I was worried it didn’t survive. When I took it out of the freezer, I added some warm water and a spoon of sugar, and that helped a lot. The dough leavened very nicely and the bread came out fluffy and tasty.
The sesame-crust bread in the third picture is actually bread #118, a softer bread with yogurt, that disappeared in a few days 🙂
Last but not least, the socks are my first project with 2mm double-pointed needles. This set is 20cm long so the needles stick out a lot when knitting such a small item, and I noticed they were more manageable when I divided the stitches on 4 needles. I have similar-weight sock yarn, so I’ll be knitting more socks with 2mm needles, and maybe will get a shorter needle set. Suggestions welcome!
Not easy to find a short title for the post, so let me jump straight to the pictures:
Watercolor at the park
This watercolor sketch is from the sunny morning at the park near my house. I found it difficult to choose what to paint, because many views were pleasing but also challenging, so I went for my usual shaded spot and turned around until I found a view with enough depth but not too much to paint. The combination of grass, trees and dark background was just right for my taste and so I started painting. I’m sort of happy on how it turned out, I was able to mix paint so that it came close to the actual scene and sort of controlled the dilution of colors, but I guess there is much to improve about the trees in the background and in general about the technique. Practice makes perfect 🙂
Knitting also progresses nicely. I finished the first of the blue-stripey socks and almost finished the body of the linen sweater:
Knitting progress
And finally, bread #116 and #117. I had to bake the second one after less than a week from baking the first, because it sort of vanished (innocent looks…):
Bread #116
Bread #117
The weather is not going to be luring me outside next week, so I forecast more knitting updates… stay tuned, and stay safe 🙂
Hello all, here are some more pictures of my hobbies’ progress these last two weeks. I mostly knitted and drew:
Knitting progress
I started this sock toe-up, so that I can stop anytime on the leg (actually I want to use the whole skein, so I will stop after I used 1/4 of it; for some reason most of the knitting instructions for socks estimate 100g per pair, but I will have pretty long socks using half of it). Toe-up sounded challenging at first, and the 2mm needles are both thinner than usual and a bit too long, but it’s progressing nicely and very regularly. As the weather is still cold I plan to use them before next cold season.
The yellow sweater is made of linen and it follows the Audierne pattern by Regina Moessmer. I am fascinated by how it drapes and am very curious to see how it will look after the first wash. The picture shows the back of the sweater, with the cables-and-ladder pattern. One cable runs below each arm as well.
Regarding drawing, I finally took the courage to start using the waterbrush I bought almost a year ago (the water-filled pen on top of the picture), and followed the waterbrush introduction by John Muir Laws. This is my first experiment with it:
I was very surprised by how easy it was to paint uniform shades of colour. There is very definitely space for improvement but I had way worse results with a simple brush. The palette is an ordinary kindergarten set so the colours have no special merit in the result, nor the water 🙂 I will definitely keep using this tool, and keep you posted with useful tips and links I happen to find.
I wish you all to stay healthy and safe, and maybe even sane, until the lockdown measures will be progressively lifted. I wish you find great ways to stay in contact with your loved ones and to not have to worry for work or housing. Hugs to everyone!
aghisla draws 