Fresh risen dough at full rising.
fresh dough after I punched it down, showing how much the dough rose.
Hot pads
Alaskan chopper
charger and stuffy dog given to me..
Finished cornucopia and turkey ornaments. Pixy/Elf figure now ready to paint.
Dress vase I reparied
Year 14, Week 47, Day One (week 693)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
12-14-13 Saturday
82 degrees, breezy, mostly sunny, mostly blue skies with fast moving large puffs. The puffs were thick and heavy in the morning, and became lighter, and a bit more sparse as the day wore on. This weather report was brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.
During the week, I baked some bread. The bread came out to be the best I have made to date. I used a frozen batch of dough as the yeast starter, adding the yeast to the new batch. It came together easily and I did not over bake it this time. I also made what was supposed to be cinnamon rolls. I made two mistakes that should have totally ruined them but the results were not all that bad even so. I know what I did wrong and the next batch SHOULD be right.
It will be a bit before I make bread again as I have a full loaf in the freezer waiting me to make sandwiches out of the slices. I have a few experiments in bread making to do yet. I want to make some of my own flour from the many grains I have and make bread with that.
I have to make Christmas cards. I dug through my stock of card supplies. I came to a big surprise. All I have is envelopes, with a few cards that are unusable because they are designed to hold photos. I was all up and ready to start painting images and could not start.
Friday, I was out and about, so I stopped and picked up a couple packs of 48 cards. This time I made sure they were cards, not envelopes like I got last time and just learned about... it took some doing but I finally came up with a card design. Now it is all a matter of painting them. I paint my cards production style. I paint one color on all the cards, then the next color, and keep doing that until the final image is done. I usually let them sit and dry between coats. It is a lot of work but I can do a whole lot of cards quickly. I don't want to be painting cards on Christmas Eve like I have done the past three years I pained cards so I must start on them now.
We hit some yard sales today. I kept my spending down quite a bit. I ended up with a set of five hot pads for 35 cents and an Alaskan cutting knife for two bucks.
Mom was in the market for a two shelf shelving unit. A woman had a three piece set. One piece was the two shelf unit, then there was a three shelf corner unit, and then a unit with a door and drawer. She picked them up cheep and once she stacked them, took all her husband's books and then some. He emptied all but one box of stuff and that had very little left in it.
From him, I got a little stuffy dog and a couple chargers that fit my phone.
I finally got to work on some projects. I wanted to make some drum sticks and since I have some slats of oak from an old whine barrel that was used as part of a fake wishing well for years. I picked a good one, trimmed the edges so they were square, then after a bit of time on the disk sander to clean it up and get rid of a tiny bit of the curve, I cut the slat in half length ways.
I mounted the piece of slat on the lathe, and started rounding. I figured out quickly that when I "centered it" I should have moved the center closer to the edge that the slat curved out from. I rounded the piece first, then started shaping it like the cracked drum stick I was given to copy. This old oak does not cut nicely. I am way out of practice so my technique is not great, and I really need to sit and sharpen all my tools properly as I have not done that in a while. Sharpening is one of those things one should do every time you start working, and it is usually something that one avoids like it comes out of your allowance. I do have a time allowance and did not want to spend it sharpening.....
The second drum stick broke in half while working it. Since it was half of the slat I made the first stick from, I have no idea why it broke. I took a narrow slat (The slats are different widths) and after preparing it, cutting a thin piece off to get my width. That one became rounded nicely. I shaped it also, but the surface was really rough. I swapped sticks and corrected the shapes a little, and sanded them. I finally decided they were done enough for tonight as my legs were bothering me from being on them so long. I gave them a spray coat of varnish.
I tried them out and found I did not like the shape or the balance between them. I will correct them some other time.
While trying to let my legs rest, I painted two ornaments I found while looking for Christmas Cards. I found a Pixy/elf figure I made from some tree mom had trimmed. it had some long shrinkage cracks. I filled the cracks with white glue, since it was available. I gave it a coat of varnish after it had dried a while to seal the glue. It is now ready to paint.
Tomorrow, I doubt I will have a chance to do any woodworking. Some of Mom's painting students are in an art show in a park so we will be going there tomorrow.
I will see what I do tomorrow.
Year 14, Week 47, Day Two (week 693)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
12-15-13 Sunday
85 degrees, breezy, mostly cloudy and getting heavier as a squall line was crossing the state, heading this way. The clouds became solid later in the afternoon. It is supposed to get COLD tonight, like in the 60s. This weather report was brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.
The Elevator in my Condo building is not working. That means I have to walk up stairs to get to my fourth floor apartment. I was always told not to stare..... This morning, my legs let me know they did not like all the standing and walking, along with stairs, that I did yesterday. It was not until I was really getting going that they quieted enough to ignore for a bit.
I got to Mom's house earlier than I thought I would. After petting and feeding the Momma kitty, I took out some of my ornaments and did a few little repairs.
Some of my toy soldiers had little flaws in their faces. I fixed the face, adding a nose on a couple, carved off the eyes and placing them where they were supposed to be, removing some paint that was not where they were supposed to be.
One of my leaping fish looked more like Jimmy Durante than a sword fish or Marlin. I trimmed down the "Beak" quite a bit and repainted it.
Finally, I gave these ornaments a coat of varnish, which someone had mentioned that they did not like that they were dull looking. I am calling all of them done.
After Lunch, we headed out to the art show. It was quite a bit of fun. The popular art they were showing was three dimensional paintings. They would build up some of the surface in relief, and then do the painting. One painting Liked had a courtyard scene. Pots were actually partly there, some of the building was raised up from the surface. She then painted it with bright colors.
Another artist made resin figures and applied them to a background. Excellent!
There was cloth art, dresses, lots of jewelry, regular painters.
There was a necklace I really liked. I could have purchased it but it is not something I would wear. It was a bunch of leaves and flowers in an arc that a chain would have when dangling on a chest. He had several colors, but I really loved the blue one. I forced myself to walk away.
I had walked a block to and from the art show, then walked around the art show itself which was two loops. Along with all I did yesterday on my feet, and the walking and standing I did today, plus going up the stairs, when I got home my legs complained loudly. It took several hours of resting to get the legs to quiet down.
Because of the condition of my legs, I gave up on even trying to work on the Christmas cards, which will take a whole lot of standing.
During this week, I have made headway on my scarves. One scarf is a carry-scarf. That one is about a foot from finishing the yarn. it is sort of a race to see if the yarn or the row will end first. I am sure the row will end first. There won't be very much yarn left. I decided that this scarf will remain narrow.
I had started a scarf at home. This one started with bright orange yarn. It lasted one and a half rows. I ripped out the half row and changed colors. I used a medium red on both sides of the orange. it looks good. I finished two rows of red on each side and just started a Burgundy yarn which will be two rows outside the red on each side. This may well be my favorite scarf.
These two scarves are being made where I decided the length and am choosing the width by how many rows I do.. I refer to this as working end to end.
In the truck, I am working on a scarf where I decided the width, and the length will be decided when I end it. On this scarf, I already have like 18 inches in length. Some is done at traffic lights, some is done while waiting for the office to open in the morning. Unless something changes, I doubt this scarf will be done by Christmas.
During this week, I will be painting Christmas cards. I figure I will be doing two batches. The first batch will be mailed out or handed out. The second batch will be more for family. I've got to start packing up ornaments and cards to mail out to various people.
I am not sure what I will do next weekend. I might fix the drum sticks, make new ones, or someone gave me a ladle project and I think I have the right wood for that.
I will see what I do next weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment