Out Like a Lamb

 
 

Snippets of March:

  • A picture book dummy detail, some middle grade concept art and thumbnails. Green sugar-coated shamrock cookies are not required, but help nicely.

  • I’ve also been working on some patchwork (above). It’s a way to use up all the test swatches I’ve accumulated over the years from Spoonflower.

  • I’m trying to double down and finish The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I feel like an awful human being admitting this, but I am on the struggle bus with Tolkien. Objectively, I appreciate the talent, the world-building and the way that the book speaks to virtue. But for whatever reason, I’m not connecting. My nieces are horrified with me. I might as well have told them that kittens are a scourge to humanity and that Taylor Swift is a talentless hack. I don’t believe either of these things to be true, but that’s the most extreme example I can cook up to illustrate their reaction.

  • Since January, I’ve been getting back into these Atelier classes. I’m working on the Belvedere Torso right now and it’s pretty slow going. What Bargue has taught me is how little I observe of the world around me. Sometimes you just have to sit and stare at a shape to understand it, even when you’d rather be throwing down lines.

  • I planted pepper seedlings in February and they’ve doing nicely. It wasn’t until this past autumn that I realized that peppers can be overwintered inside, so that’s the plan this year. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t credit this terrific small-space French gardening Instagram account for the pro-tip.

Ghostly Marks

 
 

I did a test print of the block I’m carving. I usually do a couple runs extra at the end to get the ink off the block, which is where these spectral images come from. In a strange way, I think I like these fading, forgotten marks better than the actual print. But one more block to go, the background color, then it’s time for a print run.

I think winter is over? Hopefully? It’s been a mild one, an easier one. It’s been a relief as I started the year feeling like I’d been tossed up on shore, full of seaweed and ocean. I think my land legs are coming back, slowly.

Other things on the horizon:

Forgotten/Remembered

 
 

I am whittling away at work. Carving prints and sketching for a picture book dummy, still chipping away at the longer book. And I am trying to get back into the habit of sketchbook keeping (above). Once finished, she looked like she needed some forgotten blooms. So I picked a few, then walked back to my studio, carrying a bouquet of dead flowers through town in February. I hope my neighbors enjoy the free entertainment…

Assorted things I liked this month:

  • The Who Killed JFK podcast (because I have never met a Lee Harvey Oswald conspiracy that I could say no to).

  • To say I am obsessed with this toy instrument cover of “Don’t Worry Baby” would be a vast understatement.

  • Collingwood-Norris Mending is a terrific resource for visible mending techniques.

  • I watched Elizabeth is Missing last weekend. A murder mystery told through the lens of memory, it’s a splendid story of loss and justice (with just enough humor to keep things from being too heavy). Glenda Jackson was pitch perfect in the part; if you’ve ever had a loved one with Alzheimers or dementia, her acting resonates deeply.

 
 

Back in ‘22 I said I wanted to turn this fellow into a block print and now here we are. I usually start carving the largest areas with the biggest blade, then work my way down to the smallest blade and the more detailed work. But I’ve learned that there’s nothing more maddening than spending hours on a block and then goofing up something fiddly, carving off a key element accidentally at the 11th hour. So now I do the stuff that makes me hold my breath first, then sit back and enjoy the easy parts. I’m working on this in small increments, when I need a break from other things. But I’m hoping to have this printed in the next month or two…

 
 

And I had every intention of doing Hourly Comic Day last week, but life happened. I did manage, however, the 6:00 hour and a very honest representation of my hair.

Seafolk

 
 

Never not painting mermaids. I love swimming and would give anything to stay submerged for far longer than a measly minute. I suspect the fellow above would like to do similar.

And I’ve popped this painting into the originals section of my shop. The print version is available over on Society6.

Scrappy

 
 

I spotted some modern, geometric quilts on Pinterest last year and after pinning a handful, decided to make one. I just finished up the last of the binding this past week and managed a few photos in the 35 minutes of the day when there’s actually sunlight. Ah, January…

For fabric, I used a mix of my own designs and remnants from other sewing projects. A handful of the blocks are Spoonflower test swatches (my designs Russian Alphabet, Zakopane and Penhallow Street). I’ve also used prints from my 2018 fabric collection Eloise’s Garden. Because I had some on hand, I used polar fleece in lieu of batting. It doesn’t have the same satisfying squish factor as batting, but in a pinch, worked. And since the idea of making mountains of bias binding had me losing the will to live, I opted to do a self-binding (here’s a tutorial). I quilted everything by hand with basic squares all over, some following the outlines of the blocks and others overlapping. I love hand quilting. It’s a slow, slow process, but if you add a binge-able podcast and cocoa to the mix, it’s delightful.

And I am looking forward to curling up with this quilt and a book at the soonest possible opportunity.

A Wander in the Woods

 
 

A new year calls for a new pattern. And a mockup. To be fair, I actually did make sea salt chocolate chip cookies last weekend, but they didn’t last long enough for a photoshoot…