crochet-pattern – No More Mondays

Tried Mary Berry’s Very Best Fudge Cake…

The fudge ganache is freshly poured in the pic so still looks shiny but it dried down to a gorgeous matt colour. It’s very rich but every bite is full of flavour. Am giving it five stars (or the 5 arse inches rating in every slice).

Made two small Christmas cakes and have poked them with a knitting needle and started the weekly brandy feed. Got a few months before they need marzipanning so they’ll be good and rich by then.

What else have I been up to? Went to see Sarah Millican at the Gaiety theatre. Third time but still makes me laugh.

Joined a crochet gang about 2 months ago and enjoy the weekly hooks ups. Pun intentional. Currently crocheting loads of little crochet granny flower squares. I drew up the symbol pattern for it (just visible in the pic) in Affinity Designer so chuffed with myself on many fronts there:

I need 99 squares. Still about 30 to go and the sheer tedium of pattern repeat has me totally demojoed. Then there’s the thought of sewing or crocheting the squares together… and crocheting a border … all very daunting.

Have two other baby blankets on the go so have other projects to pick up and alternate. My intention is to have all three done by Christmas and maybe on Etsy.

Onto yet more fresh stimuli. Have always loved art nouveau and the resurgence of Art Nouveau designs and graphics have got me going. It’s brilliant to feel passion igniting my creativity but am kind of concerned that burn out will follow. Totally self-induced. So the reference books are out on the table full of bloody gorgeous designs and an online Liz Kohler Brown ‘Make sellable graphics’ course has fired me into taking action by presenting a new challenge… can I come up with a compilation of Art Nouveau-inspired spot graphics, borders, repeat patterns, etc, etc, etc? Yes I can. With Affinity Designer, that I’m still learning. On a Mac and an iPad. The interfaces are not exactly alike, not least is not having a keyboard just ‘there’ for the shortcuts.

Let’s not leave things there. Let’s up the ante. Cross stitch patterns. Recently got a book of vintage cross stitch alphabets. Have cleaned them up digitally and created a clean grid and replicated the pattern. The grid is now a template and the design below is to fit a frame specifically for it. The available space to surround the initial with corners, borders and fillers clearly delineated so it will have some breathing space in the frame:

As you can see, there’s a lot of dead space around so have started bringing in some little graphics like the flower. So far have only got one petal converted into cross stitches… it will be a big job.

Of course, I have cross stitch books to look at for inspiration for borders and doodahs. Therein lies yet another avernus. They’ve inspired me to do another two cross stitch pictures. A sampler… to be designed first (why keep things simple?!) and a gorgeous design from an Emma Congdon book.

On top of all this is the 30 day Glyphs trial. Make your own fonts with Glyphs. Am keen. It’s right up my street and Skill Share have a course on making fonts with Glyphs. I’m on it.

Let’s not forget the sketchbook club… or a big bit of serious academic work… year 2. Did finish a one-years remote art therapy diploma so have that under my belt. Doesn’t mean the list of to-dos gets any shorter.

My plate is overflowing and I need at least two new sets of teeth for the biting off more than I can bite, let alone, chew. The feeling of what is set out for me to do is overwhelming yet I WANT to do them all.

Some minor setbacks along the way are to be expected. Remember that pic of the crochet squares above? Charlie thinks it’s a very good box for a chap to grab some shut eye in. He’s having a groom and getting his pyjamas on as I type.

Groan 🙂

Been using Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign for over 20 years. Admittedly, I did get cracked copies and was very much a pirate in the early days until I became proficient and loved them. Then I bought the programmes. But, my love affair with the suite finally came to an end and I kissed goodbye to the ever-flakier and capricious software just last week. The Adobe suite licence came up for renewal and I cancelled all but After Effects. Adobe had p*ssed me off once too often a few months ago and that’s when I bought the Affinity suite. Is Affinity awesome? Nearly. It needs a lasso tool and the curve layers… so, so many get generated. Gah.

I’ve been working on a collection of art nouveau spot graphics and other elements using Procreate on an iPad. Trouble is, the graphics need to be vectorised. Inkscape trace works well enough. There’s Adobe Capture (free) but is also a bit of a PITA. Then they need to be taken into Affinity Designer. AD then presents a list of Curve layers a mile long. Grouping elements together takes forever. There has to be a better way. So, awesome? Nah. Is Illustrator? Nah with knobs on. Caught somewhat in the devil’s bargain, but there you go.

I’ve also got myself onto a Blender course and given myself a year to see if I can live without AE as well. Love After Effects. Dear God. It’s like crack cocaine.

So, depending on how it goes, I might go back to Adobe or I might not. A year will give me time to decide.

Meanwhile, scammers are just everywhere. Like herpes! I posted something on Done Deal and within minutes had two messages saying they were interested in the ‘item’ I’d posted and could they talk to me on WA. Apparently, this is a known scam strategy… get you off the DD private messaging… then what they do if they’re successful I have no clue. Both got refused and blocked.

Then listed some crocheted baby things on Moffymakes

Within 5 minutes got a message to say my account had been blocked, please contact the Etsy security team… but , amazingly *ahem* was able to carry on happily listing a few other things…

followed by another message asking me to contact the Etsy support team… apparently, a potential buyer tried to make a payment but their payment couldn’t get through… please contact Etsy to verify my banking information …

Both reported and blocked. Very annoying.

They give me a sore head.

Go stick the boot in, Ted!

Found a fabulous vintage collection of cross stitch alphabets on the Gutenberg site. Pretty crappy state but cleaned them up and can use them fairly easily:

The set above still need cleaning up but have two sets done already and tried out a pattern:

Also very excited to have a book of Art Nouveau cross stitch on its way from a private seller on Amazon so not new, but seeing as the book is out of print, I don’t care. Just loving the potential.

Lots to be busy with. Sketch book group, crochet group (several crochet projects on the go… ), academic work, digital artwork, motion graphics and planning on some Tilda sewing before Christmas as well.

Oh, also trying out Glyphs – font making software. Free trial for 30 days (I think) then decision time. It’s 300 euro so not cheap but have a course on Skill Share on font making with Glyphs so worth taking a deep dive before parting with a substantial chunk of change. Bottom line is no chance of getting bored.

Posted the Call the Midwife blanket (above) on Moffymakes. Not sure if I want to part with it… we’ll see if it or anything gets bought. The traffic on Etsy is immense. Listings are only something like 36c a month (though you have to pay 17 euro to register) so costs are fairly minimal. It’s the online equivalent of stack ’em high, sell ’em cheap. My site will probably never get noticed.

Sounds like I’m full of gloom and despondency but am pretty sanguine. Once it’s listed, it’s put away and forgotten. I’d like to get enough to be able to donate a nice lump to the KWSPCA so fingers crossed.

Tag: crochet-pattern

Five Stars

After all these years…