Per Linda: Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “photograph.” Use it as a noun or a verb or both. Have fun!
Photograph. This brings songs and groups to mind that remind me of the times in the car with my teens in the late 90s. They were late to the Beatles and to Depeche Mode and the Cure. But we had fun with the 80s music mixed with my 60s fun.
Ah, but I have a photograph for you.
The last two of the suncatchers are finished and hanging. It is a cloudy day, so this is the best I could share today.
The picture looks easy. Even when I found it on Amazon. Looks easy. And the diamond painting part was. But this little kit wasn’t easy for my eyes or fingers when it came to the chains and the rings and connectors. Maybe if you are into jewelry making or trying it out, this might be a good start. But I don’t think so. As I scanned through YouTubes, I couldn’t find those bendie things anywhere. And they seem to need lots of pressure to close them tightly around the last ball of the chain. Maybe stronger fingers? It could just be me. You may have much better luck and talent with these. For me? I’ll stay with coasters or keychains for smaller diamond painting fun.
Speaking of which, here’s the photo of today’s turtle progress.
I’m ready to move on to the next section. I love this picture (and the photograph!)
Oops. I am floundering in how to bring up floundering. But I think today’s evidence is the suncatchers. Sometimes, when we flounder, we find what we can’t do.
Here’s that holey bendy bits and the rings bits. How do they fits?
Bendies at the top and bottom of the three chains. Ringies hook the top of the chains to the heart and another hooks the big gem at the bottom. Squeeze the hole parts onto the chain with pliers. Make sure they are on tight or you will be flustered and floundering and possibly throwing all the bits. Two suncatchers more to go. Enough frustration for this day!
Progress, mostly halfway finished
Real flounders entice sea turtles down to floor. The flounders are having a feast!
Another pair of slipper socks. I’m incorporating that nice stretchy arch I learned with the no-show socks.
I’m getting a little better with chording on the ukulele. I almost don’t have to look when changing from C to F to G7 and back to C all the while singing. Almost time for a new lesson. It’s supposed to be a 30 day course, but my soft, achy fingers needed more time. I’m still learning day 9 a couple weeks later.
The recorder comes and goes. Teaching myself and my fingers soprano, alto, and tenor. I can finally reach all notes on soprano and alto, though not consistently. I can barely get the top three holes of the tenor.
And. AND I CLEANED THE PIANO WELL SO IT WELCOMES ME! Maybe tomorrow I’ll actually play!!!!
A quick note. Door push-ups, floor to ceiling stretches, then more than 30 minutes or more than 5 miles on the stationary bike. All still happening. So some things are growing into habits. Others are still work. But a lot of flounder still happens. Ah, well, it’s February!
This was a hard day. So tired I barely got anything done. But a tiny bit of progress happened. After a bit of floundering and getting nothing else done, I took a nap.
A pair of short slipper socks. They need more ankle then ribbing. I am incorporating the arch of the foot ribbing from the no-show sock pattern. I like how it feels on my foot so I hope the recipient will like it, too.
I mentioned the tray set I use for pictures with confetti of colors. I put a little label in each one if I feel I might get mixed up.
This little tool is great for straightening the diamonds as I go.
When there are large amounts of color I have these larger trays with lids making shaking the drills a bit neater. And you can save for later that way.
See the top line? That’s what I got done today. Reaching up that long did hurt after a bit. So that’s all I could finish.
I’m having trouble with the sun catchers. I’m not sure how to make the strings of sparkles to chain on them. I’m too tired to work with it this evening. I’m watching YouTubes to see if others know how to do the jewelry parts.
How is it already Sunday, almost Monday? The weekends seem to affect me now as much as they did when I was working. Back then, the time that was my own was filled with all the things to get ready for the work week and take care of the house. Now it’s just a rhythm change. Chris and I watch sci-fi, fantasy, or disaster movies. Just kind of like our date time. Today we watched Daybreak on, um, I think it was Hulu. It was pretty good to be so old.
Before we found a good show to settle on, we were watching vet shows and Sunday Morning and UU, where they celebrated Mardi Gras.
I got a bit more of the Sea Turtle done. (Just the back leg and tail).
The backlighting seems to show all the wavering lines. Guess I need to hit it with the straight edge to straighten it out. What’s funny is that that little tail bit took longer than the sea parts. I think I am not used to the confetti coloring and need to get more efficient with my trays. I’ll share that later. I think this is going to be pretty when finished with all the colors.
Time to do the recorder. Then scales on the keyboard. I do think all this floundering is making progress. But it is slow, for sure. By the way, I took a few moments while the computer wi-fi loaded that sea turtle picture, to practice chord changes and You Are My Sunshine on the uke.
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “heavy/light/dark.” Use “light” and/or its opposites. Bonus points if you use all three. Enjoy!
It’s a good thing this prompt came up today. After floundering about the last step of diamond painting, I decided it was time.
You are supposed to apply the sealant, in this case, Mod Podge, in a light coat.
I did that yesterday. It turned out nice. But I got in a hurry today and put it on too heavy. Do you see the clunks of white and the clear cellophane stuff on the edges? Okay, they are sitting on little cellophane packets. But, there are little bits I’ll have to peel off tomorrow before putting on the chains.
This is the first side up and the sealant pooled underneath. So I’ll let it dry and hopefully it will be alright.
Darkness falls over me while I flounder. Impatient attitudes and crankiness show up. If I know what I’m doing and my day is mapped out I’m fine but trying to get myself sorted out and things don’t appear to be hopeful well, see what happens?
Yeah, it’s not pretty.
Yet at the end of this day I’m seeing progress and the sealant is drying nicely, even with my heavy application.
I finished these ages ago but never did the sealing or chaining them to the hooks and beads. So tonight I sealed side one. I think by Sunday I’ll have them ready to hang up.
I was able to last longer this time finishing the strip on the left side. This has a lot of color in it. Even the water is varied in its blues and greens.
I finally have a I, IV, and a V. Okay, I needed to do a quick note to myself as to how to do the G7 (V). But as I sing as I strum, I’m teaching myself to work with chords instead of each individual note (how I was taught all my life).Here is the next batch of chords I’m working on. Yes, I cheated by adding my own I and IV chords.On the recorder I’m playing with the G major scale and arpeggio, and that minuet. On piano both are easy but trying to be smooth with breath and fingers is the challenge.This song has memories. I was learning it in voice class when my grandmother was dying. I hadn’t memorized the lyrics but by her hospital bed as she was nearing the end, my cousin asked me to sing a song. Here I floundered, all I could hear was The Ash Grove. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know the words. It’s quite beautiful and fitting for the situation. So I sang nothing. I did get to sing In The Garden at her funeral. My work on this is to get smooth enough to record them to sing to.I can play all the melody songs on my soprano recorder. But now I want to learn the harmonies and all the alto recorder parts. Again I hope to record and do duets with myself.I found this pair of socks I’d started and somehow forgot. So I’m farther along in my family gift than I thought.I’ve made a little progress here probably 3 more inches then start the heel.One more inch and the arch gets made. I’m really enjoying these sneaker no-show socks. I nearly have the pattern memorized.
We started out with pretty snow, but now it is all atrocious mud and rain. Yuck!
Your prompt for JusJoJan, January 26th, 2024, is “atrocious.” Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!
Jemima of Jemima’s blog provided us with the prompt of the day. Thank you, Linda and Jemima!
My achievements for this Friday are meager, but I feel good about them. My greatest accomplishment is over a year in getting it done. Now, I need to find a way to send it to its new home.
Sealed and an acrylic paint border. I had tried different types of tape including a pretty duct tape. But none stuck very well. But I think the black looks better anyway. I’m just so sloppy with paints I got it on everything. It cleaned up okay. But I’m ready to do some new diamond paintings.
The socks I was knitting ended up being tinked back to the arch area. I had them all the way to being close to done, but I held them in my hand and wondered about the size. They are supposed to fit a size 1 child, but when I looked that up, that would have been at least 7 inches long. These were only 5. So most of the week I have been undoing the work. The good part is I am getting better acquainted with the shadow wrapping needed for the heel and above. So when I finally get there again I’ll know what I’m doing. By the way, in the picture, you will see that each sock has its own needles. When I reach the heel of these no-show socks I find I do better with them separated.
The sock on the right is the one I’m working on until I reach the heel. The ball is all that I had to tink off the sock. For the sock on the left, I just wound the yarn around the sock so I wouldn’t get them mixed up.
When I want to just relax I am working on this pair of slipper socks.
I’m going to have to decide who gets these soon so I know how large to make them. I already have a pair I made for me but I love them enough to want another pair. They are comfortable.
I’m still only on day 8 of the lessons as I haven’t mastered the few chords taught so far. My fingers are getting tougher, but they still aren’t coordinated enough to not mute other strings. But, hey, I can now get through Row, Row, Row, and Mary Had A Little Lamb. Yay! I’m thinking I need to make a strap for my uke to carry it around and take the pressure off my hands. There are several patterns on YouTube.
I wish I had learned recorder as a kid like these guys. But I’m glad I do understand music so that I can read and play the notes I know how to play. I finally got out my alto and found I remembered how to play it. My lapse of learning happened when I realized I had been using the wrong fingering for the type of recorder I had. Baroque versus German. All of my recorders and I inherited a lot of them from the school I worked in, plus my alto and my tenor that I bought are the Baroque.
Now that I know that I have retaught my fingers the F. I stopped playing before because it sounded wrong, and I couldn’t figure out why. Now I know, and I have to re-train my brain for it.
Speaking of the musical instruments, this is the time I usually play around with them. So, have a great Friday night and week-end!
I love being retired. After a lifetime of crafts that I never had the time to dive in whole, even though I had a lot more money, there was no energy at the end of the day, nor the time. Being able to deep dive until the muse is used up on a topic or drive.
Diamond Painting is calling me back, and now that the bigger knitting project is finished, the Dragon from last year needs the sealant so I can send it off.
Oh, that’s the thing about these crafts; it is delightful to indulge deeply, but it is so much better to have someone to gift the finished products to. I know some actually sell their works. But I just can’t get to that point. I don’t like a timeline, and I get too perfectionistic the minute I think someone else will see it or pay for it. The minute ‘time is money,’ it is called a job. I can’t. I just can’t.
But yummy yarn, loom knitting, crocheting, Tunisian crochet, diamond painting, drawing, Zentangles, playing with my wig or my own hair (a throwback to my first career of being a cosmetologist), all my musical instruments recorders, ukelele, piano, singing, coloring, rainbow looming, writing, reading. There are many I’m afraid I’m leaving out, and I feel like a bad parent for neglecting them to the point of forgetting their names! And are they all considered crafts? Then there’s macaroni. Oh, yeah, that’s spelled with a ‘K’!
Working on my series: Haven.
Doodler (zendoodle.com)
Music major: voice and piano
Mom of four great adults
Reiki II practitioner
I have been on disability/retired for 10 years now from depression, anxiety and fibromyalgia.
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