Moar 'baggage:' In Which Count Sockula Can't Stop Crocheting

Here are the latest ' round' of crocheted bags.  Count Sockula started crocheting baggage merely to have something to do when resting a painful knee.  Now I can't stop.

It's a little scary.  Muahahaaaa.

The white-ish drawstring mini was from long-forgotten yarn that I found, and it had already been worked into a round.  It's a soft, lustrous cotton with a springy twist.  The green and white mini is stretch sock yarn that had been wound a little too stretchy. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Most of the others are made of discloth cotton.  And very, very simple not-really-patterns at all, in which you either make a round in whatever stitch you like, or a rectangle, to make the bottom, and stop increasing to make the sides, which in most cases is a simple arch stitch.  

Hook sizes appropriate to yarn: H/8 for the dishcloth cotton, E/4 for the smaller stuff.

 

There are three, no, four more bags in the works, including a mini done from free yarn given to me by a local store.  I don't know what yarn it is but it's pretttyyyy.  Pics when they are done.

Oh..the biiig striped bag?  An old one, in a yarn now no longer made (Speed Cro-Sheen, pity...loved that yarn)...and sagging from holding ALL the previous bags.

 

Stay tuned.  Dr. Inkenstein is looming on the horizon, and I see MOAR blue ink!

The Story of Ruth: In Which Dr. Inkenstein Paints Horses

Way back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and no one ever thought of the word 'collectible,' Dr. inkenstein owned some Breyer horse models.  Of course, they all vanished somewhere along the way, perhaps to the singularity in which also resides the collection of original Superman comic books.

More recently, I have been thinking about attaining Breyer models for the express purpose of re-painting them.  Maybe with some fantasy colors, blue-black, orange, with contrasting mane and tail.   Oh, not new Breyer models.  But maybe just a few worn and dinged-up numbers gathered at yard sales or fleabay.

Three years of searching yielded nothing that appealed to Dr. inkenstein's sense of True Cheapskatery.  And then one day this spring, we chanced upon a garage sale with Breyer horses.  Lots of them.  In all sizes.  Selling for the sort of pittance that sets my heart leaping.

I bought a bunch of them.  And there were still plenty left over for the next seeker.

My first painting project was inspired by the 1950s Biblical film, The Story of Ruth.  There was a horse in it.  A near-black horse with a Technicolor orange mane and tail.  And, as I fell asleep before the entire film unfolded, I was unable to tell if this was a natural horse color or a Hollywood Dye Job Horse Color.  But it really doesn't matter, because there are liver chestnut horses that come in those colors.  In real life.

One of the garage sale Breyers was a Stablemate flaxen chestnut (though an ebay figure was listed as sorrel)  which gave a good base for the liver makeover.  it was just a nice little flaxen chestnut with three stockings and a blaze.

Oversized pics.  But see? 

Out came the ancient Atelier acrylic paints: burnt umber, burnt sienna, cadmium orange, black, and a floating medium.  The first thin coat of burnt umber went on using a soft filbert brush, leaving mane and tail as they were for the moment.    After three coats I modified the mane and tail color with some burnt sienna and a touch of the cadmium orange on a liner brush.

Dr. Inkenstein's advice is: for a first horse-painting project, get something that you don't need to look at in a magnifying glass.   

This is the finished horsie.  I'm thinking of calling him Ruth.