My craft a day blog.

• Achoo to You Too

  Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I'm fighting off a miserable head cold. Right before it got the better of me I did manage to cut out a new purse and a stuffed elephant out of some cool prints I got at M & L Fabrics near my house. And I already have an idea for another patchwork purse in red with Asian prints. So many projects, so little time. Right now all I feel well enough to do is type on the computer and read novels. I'm behind on Nanowrimo now and haven't written a thing in two days. It's one thing to write a blog post. No pressure there. It's trickier to figure out what the characters in my novel are supposed to be doing next. One is having a baby, one is being held by kidnappers, one is learning to play violin, and they just got 5 new cats for their house. Things are getting more complicated by the minute. I'm not even to the halfway point of 25,000 words and the thing ends Nov. 30. Sigh. The photo is of me last Sunday at the archery gathering writing my novel long hand in my journal. Sometimes I feel bad I can't afford a laptop, but then I remind myself that Shakespeare didn't have a laptop and he did okay for himself.

• Pasadena Bowyers Gathering

  Today sure had it's ups and downs. Right now I'm just tired. I took photos at the Pasadena archery range but I won't be posting them tonight. There seemed to be a lot of dogs and horses there today. And tonight when we were driving through Arcadia I saw 2 raccoons by the street. I also heard a bullfrog today. At the archery range I worked on beading a hat and knitting a rug. At one point my hands were too cold to do much of anything. About then we decided to pack it in and go somewhere warmer. My friends Roland and Merikan worked on their basket quivers. Most people were working on bows. We always take way more than we have time to work on. Aimee showed us a beaded medicine pouch she'd picked up at a Fresno shoot. I wish we could go to the Fresno shoot but it's just too far from Anaheim for us to go.

• Four New Paintings

  I'm supposed to be working on my Nanowrimo novel, so of course all I want to do is paint. I've done four paintings in two days to try out my new watercolor crayons. I like the little girl in the snow the best. It's called 'Snow Day'. Next time I'll tape the paper down to a board first so it won't curl as much. These were all painted with a combination of watercolor crayons, watercolor pencils and white acrylic paint. They dry quickly. They are in a folk art or naive style. Ironically, once you've learned to paint in art classes, it's harder to go back and paint in a primitive style and throw proportions to the wind.