80 degrees in April?

Busy times lately. I have been knitting some socks (got past the heel- a regular heel flap & turn) and the purple shawl but not a whole lot else. 

Yesterday got inspired while cleaning the craft room. I have been thinking a lot about earring holders. I have made 2 attempts of holders in the past. One of them i used window screen. This one has larger holes which helps solve the problem becasuse i use earring backs on my earrings. They can easy slip in and out without having to take the backs off. Yay!

Another thing I need to work on is postcards for the bruhn album. Bruhn.bandcamp.com They did a preorder thing online and one of the extra options was to get aome bruhn postcards. We have 2 bear ideas from the past and i am designing two more. 

This guy is spposed to be a chainsaw carved bear. Hopefully that will come through by the time i am finished with the design. I may embroider it? Not sure yet. 

Other things: hosting my first craft party (first at our new house) this weekend! Yay. I have a great longing to craft with people as i think about crafts almost 24/7 when not thinking about other stuff like work etc. I have been doing a little research trying to see if i should take a sewing class or join a knitting group. There are some things by our house but a lot are when i am at work or when i would be commuting home. So. I'll just start with a craft party and i do have craftsy classes i could work on or finish a skirt i have already cut and just need to sew. 

While cleaning the craft room I found so many clothes I want to alter. Dresses to cut into skirts, etc. A goal I have had for a long time is to make more of my own clothes. Fast fashion is just a bad idea. I'd like to make more of my own clothes and/or buy vintage or used clothes again. I used to be much more deliberate about that. So I am hoping to reevaluate my wardrobe and also see what I can alter that I already have. I have never been a part of Me Made May or Self Stitched September but I think it is a cool challenge to try to see what you've made and what else you could make before the next time you participate. I recently tried on some dresses that I made in collage to see what still fits.  I may need to alter some of those too. I really haven't sewn many clothes for about two years since I didn't have space but it is my hope and goal to start thinking about that more. That's all for now!

PS: having fun doing the little bit of gardening i have done. Pulling weeds. Mowed the lawn! (Mike has done several times already) planted Sweet Pea seeds, planted a Heather plant. Trying to see if my succulants i seperated will take root and grow! 

Christmas Print 2015!

Every year for the last several (8?) years I have made a Christmas print. They often contain cats or snowy scenes. Generally they have the year as part of the print, and red, black, light blue are common colors I use.  Hopefully when we unpack I can find copies of the previous prints, and next year find a good way to display them at Christmas time, with room to add on.

They are generally block prints, but some years have been screen printed. Here is last years which was a screen print. (I hand painted the stencil).

2007 & 2008 block prints...

This year with my screen printing stuff packed up, I decided to go with block printing. I sketched many rough designs, trying to come up with a good idea. Three Little Kittens? A Loon? Owl? Elephant? A print with multiple ornaments? I had originally thought of a simple fireplace print. Then when we had more house drama and I thought we may never close on the house I gave up on the idea and then started trying to come up with others. Now that we officially got the house, I decided to stick with the fireplace. To add the usual Upsidedown Cat charm, I added a bear in a winter sweater and some Christmas decor on the mantle (Stay tuned for a later post.,,!)

Anyway. In the midst of deep cleaning the house, I knew I had to get this print done because we give it to family and friends as our Christmas card. So.. I started carving, and today with a free afternoon, I printed the red. This block was a little bigger than some cards I have made. It was a little bendy and my brayer is smaller than the block so I had to be more careful about inking the block to make it even.

Color two, the black layer, was hard to line up... I was feeling really frustrated with the first several prints (Hint: use your more messed up first layer prints as practice prints with the 2nd layer!). I traced around my block on a piece of white paper, cut out the rectangle and carefully used the paper frame as a pretty close guide of where to place my block, trying to match two corners as best I could before letting the block touch the paper. It worked well and I'm pleased that most of the prints turned out well. In printmaking you generally lose some prints with each new color/layer you have, and plan accordingly so hopefully you will end up with the amount you want. I did not count them yet, but I think I printed about 50.

Here is the final result:

Perhaps some day if I have free time (haha, so many quilts on my list), I may get inspired to make some cards to sell. Could be a cool Upsidedown Cat merch item and something I could maybe sell online. We'll see... It would be good if I did something related to printmaking, since I took a lot of classes, and it can be used in so many ways.