Albany

The top picture is a section of the NY State Capitol's roof.

The second picture is from a sketch of 714 Madison Avenue, next door to where my friend Sue used to live.

Rochester vacation

We spent four days on Easter Weekend visiting Rochester, NY, photographing architecture and the remnants of the long-abandoned Rochester subway. A highlight of the trip was shopping in person at Rochester Art Supply. They sell many brands of pastels, some of which are not otherwise readily available.

Inktense

I recently got a set of Derwent Inktense pencils. They are water-soluble coloured pencils. I was never too keen on watercolour pencils because I felt the colours were not saturated enough. These pencils, apparently containing ink, are really saturated. After colouring the paper, just brush with water and they spring to life with bright colour.

Ansonia

Haven't been posting because I was sick for about a month ... and then had a lot of catching up on things to do for the Christmas season. I wasn't able to knit for a few weeks when I was sick, but when I was able to, I started making some throw-pillow slipcovers ... something easy ... and now I'm thinking about a sampler afghan to go with them. Also I have been drawing and painting. Was thinking it would be cool to be in New York, so here is a picture of the Ansonia (Broadway x 73rd). Although streamline moderne is my favourite architecture, beaux-arts sure is fun to draw!

Watercolour card

I do a lot of painting, mostly watercolour. This is a card I made for an exhibit of flower paintings. The pansy and geranium on the left are coloured pencil and the other are watercolours.

Streamertail completed

I finished Streamertail a few weeks ago.

Lliclla

I am making the Lliclla (large shawl) from Andean Inspired Knits by Helen Hamann (Interweave Press). A really interesting book ... the patterns are very creative with interesting use of shapes, and it's a good read with much information about the region and alpacas and their yarn.

The Lliclla is pretty easy knitting, mostly stocking stitch with mitred corners. The only tricky part is the beginning ... cast on 512 stitches. It was tricky keeping all the stitches on the needle the first few rows. I'm down to about 350 stitches per row now and it feels like just flying along!

The Lliclla in the book is done in earth colours, cinnamon, brown, etc. I opted for rainbow colours ... however I went for some variations on the rainbow, including turquoise and hot pink, for example. I am using mostly Paton's Look at Me, which was discontinued circa 2005.