Blue Star: Start to Finish

Here are some in-process photos of a painting I recently finished.

Some guidelines drawn with light blue colored pencil.
They don't call it non-photo blue without a reason.

Some of the lines now inked with a nice waterproof fountain pen ink -
Noodler's Bad Belted Kingfisher cut with some of their
Whiteness of the Whale ink to lighten the shade considerably.

Adding some watercolors.

A few more sessions and all the blocks are now filled in.

Completed painting. Ta da.

Happy Fountain Pen Day

My posts seem to alternate between ink and wool. It seems I can't make up my mind which medium to focus on during my fluffing off times. Fortunately, I've not been forced to specialize.  Today being officially "Fountain Pen Day," makes it the easy choice of topic.

Got ink?

Here are some interesting factoids about fountain pens from the Pen Heaven blog. I don't have anything that comes close to the million dollar pen they mention - most of mine are in that cheap yet functional category. The exception being the unassuming green Sheaffer (5th from left) which someone told me was actually worth about $200! It would be terribly easy to pick out and order new pens every month, but I've limited my indulgences to joining a monthly ink club at Goulet Pens. I'm sorely tempted each week by their newsletters with all the sexy pen photos, and the Jet Pens emails too. November's samples are due to arrive any day and I haven't even used up a single one of October's five Ink Drop samples. (They're good for multiple pen fillings.) I guess that means I'd better get writing with a pen rather than a keyboard.

And for those of you who are stitching, rather than writing today, I point you over to my complimentary pen nib cross stitch design. Just remember to keep the ink away from the linen!!!

Click to get the full size pdf.

Cheers,
Tracy

Taste the Rainbow

Or rather, don't taste these rainbows. They'll taste nasty.

For recording thoughts chromatically. Thirteen is a lucky number.

These are 'ittle baby (4" long capped) fountain pens made by Pilot. The Petit 1 Model. I get mine at JetPens and I find I've accumulated a whole rainbow over time.  They are only a few dollars each and write surprisingly well. They are perfectly pocketable and I'm not going to cry if I lose one or a pen snitch steals it. You could buy cartridges to refill them, but I used bottled ink and a syringe for both economic reasons as well as mad-science mixing reasons.  (Although it's hard to credibly cite economic concerns after having bought so many of these little guys.)

So why show you these today? My new find from my Portland trip a week ago: Pilot Petit 3 pens! I've just inked it up. These are the same size and style, but have fude/brush tips instead of the fountain pen tip. Did I mention I love Uwajimaya's Japanese market there? Had to pick up a few of these. Here is a nice thorough review of these pens if you want to know the details of why these pens rock.

The lime pen is loaded with brown; the purple hasn't told me what color it wants to write yet.

Top these tips!

Double rainbow blogging today: here is one of cotton.  My Mum was cleaning out her stash boxes and found these threads that were set aside to make a stamped cross stitch quilt top.  I think the fabric parts were Goodwilled years ago, as the whole stamped cross stitching is so... so 70's. However, thread is thread and always a resource, but I think she's moved on past the DMC thing now that we've introduced her to such things as Gentle Art Sampler Threads, Gloriana, Vikki Clayton, I could go on...

So, awaiting my return from Nashville, was this pile of lovely cotton. I do still use DMC for certain projects. Like my recent Earbuds piece.  This is making me think I need a Dark Side of the Moon album now.

 

Also awaiting my return was a lovely box of books from my friend Sisu, who was also apparently trimming down the accumulations pile. I am a sucker for lovely graphics. I can't wait to dive into these for inspiration. Thanks so much, Sisu!