Sew I See!

Overdue for an update!   First up, I finished a diamond painting!  It was my first one with square drills.  I can see the positives of using DPs with square drills.  There are more of them per square inch, so you can get a crisper image in a smaller size canvas, compared to the round drills... BUT they do take more precision in placement, and they take longer to complete.  I was in no hurry, but it was still good to have it finished.  My technique isn't perfect, but I'm still happy with how this one turned out.  The next one's all laid out and ready to go-- round drills, this time-- but I haven't started it, yet.  - - - - - - - I'm still crocheting "Oculus of Stars" and will be for quite some time to come.  I'm working on round 32, with no idea of how many rounds there are, total.  It's a very large doily, and I'm just crocheting as the mood hits me, so sometimes there will be days or weeks with no progress.  I'm in no hurry....

Most of my "hobby time" lately has been devoted to listening to Victorian/Edwardian ghostly/mysterious short stories on YouTube (I recommend Bitesized Audio Classics !) while working on a diamond painting.  The diamond painting is on an autumnal theme, so it's a perfect match. 😁 Actually, though-- as I may have mentioned here a few dozen times before-- it is always autumn in my heart, so I may just carry on doing October things until the months flip by and the calendar agrees with me.  I'll take a brief break for Thanksgiving, Christmas, maybe New Year's Eve (though I'm not big on NYE, to be honest)... Then it's back to Always-Autumn Fantasy Land for me! 😎 My current quilt project is also autumnal.  Bonnie Hunter's "Appalachian Autumn".   It was in time-out for a while because I was dreading making the sashing and cornerstones, but now those are underway.  The leaves are also joined up into foursomes, and the next step is to fully assemble ...

I have an update on the yarn I'll use for the 2018 Advent Scarf project, but that'll wait for another blog post.  This time, I'm here to share a couple of progress photos of a couple of WIPs (and to complain a little about something). First, there's the "Sitka Spruce" hat.  As expected, it looked a little shallow/short for a beret, so I've followed the example of many other knitters before me and added in an extra half of a repeat (so it has 1.5 repeats, total).  I'm just a few rounds short of finishing that, then it'll be time for the decrease, and hats usually fly off the needles, at that point. Hats don't usually take this long, but I've taken my time on this one.  I'm not a speedy knitter at the best of times, and these twisted stitches have slowed me even further-- plus I've been working on another project or two, so there have been some long breaks. Incidentally, I noticed when skimming my project notes for the 2015 Adve...

This is a fairly off-topic post from the usual fare, but I suppose photography is a "craft", too, so it fits well enough.  In any case, it's something that interests me, as an amateur photographer. Maybe it's not readily obvious in my recent photos-- because I tend to take fairly blah WIP and FO photos, lately-- but I do  enjoy photography.  Particularly nature photography and macros.  Part of the hobby is editing the photos.  Post-processing.  Polishing them to show them at their best. Some years ago, Donald introduced me to shooting in RAW (instead of "just" JPG), and now that's my preference.  (Actually most of the time, we shoot in RAW + JPG, but if a RAW version is available, that's the one I'll choose.)  RAW allows you much more control and flexibility in post-processing than JPG does.  There are times when a JPG is simply not usable, but if you have a RAW version of the same photo, you can correct the exposure and tone (warmth, col...