Ah ha

Breakthrough: I have figured out how to oil in.

What is oiling in? Gross.

As paint dries it sinks into the surface and becomes dull, making it impossible to match colors the next time you sit down to work on it. You have to wait for it to dry completely and then rub oil back into it to bring out the color. This sounds easy - because it is - but I got weirdly defensive about finding out why it wasn’t working for me. The oil beaded up, my colors were all wrong, the painting dried weird, it was awful.

So here it is:

Slow down, use less oil, rub for longer. 

I’m sorry to pair that information with this image, but that is what you have to do, and I finally did it correctly, and it is just a terrible coincidence that I was painting romance paperbacks in the break room when it happened.

Nothing says “romance” like a headless man hiking up his pants

And now suddenly my “in progress” pile is out of control,  because I am ready to fix everything with my improved skill set.

Most of them aren’t dry yet, though, so I painted a D20 for Gavin, instead. 

1 = fail

 

Sarah and I have embarked on a knit-along. She chose Astragal, a cropped oversized sweater with a ladygarden motif knitted around the neck. I went rogue and knitted leaves and bobbles, instead.

left the camera on "live" and caught an attempted murder

This pattern features German short rows; the short rows you accidentally make when don’t know how to do short rows. Like when you’re learning to tie your shoes and just get mad and do it however the hell, then somehow end up with a tied shoe and feel proud even though you don’t know what you did. If anyone notices it looks a bit funny, you say, “those are German short rows” and they will be very impressed. That is called “heirloom quality”.

I get to pick the next pattern. I’m going to pick Radmere and Sarah is going to strangle me with her circular needles.