Craft Nights

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He who works with his hands is a laborer.

He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsmen.

He who works with his hands, his head, and his heart is an artist.

- St. Francis of Assisi

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I came across this quote in the book “Weekend Knitting” by Melanie Falick. My sister gifted me this book on my birthday last year. I am not the fastest knitter in the world and I tend to get bored with long projects so I’m always on the look out for quick knits. This book is perfect for me. It has 50 unique projects and ideas; some of which you can finish in a matter of few hours. I’ve knitted quite a few projects from this book but my favorite one has to be the fingerless mitts. I just finished my third pair this week for a very special friend. Fingerless mitts are perfect for keeping your hands warm but letting your fingers free. They are very suitable for the mild winters in sunny LA and are quite a fashionable accessary for a fall/winter outfit. The pattern from the book is very different from other patterns I’ve seen. These mitts are knitted sideways in garter stitch. Short rows are used to make the hand portion wider than the wrist and the thumb opening is worked like a buttonhole. My favorite part is there are NO SEAMS!!! The first and last rows are knitted together using a three-needle bind-off method. This makes finishing very easy! I will highly recommend this book to anyone who is a beginner/intermediate knitter and is looking for quick projects. 

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We have a natural inclination towards drawing every minute detail of the features when we start drawing a face. For example if I ask you to draw a face you will probably start with the eyeballs, the shape of the eyes and maybe even some pretty eyelashes, then move on to the nose, then lips and so on. When I started learning about drawing portraits the hardest thing to learn was to resist the temptation of drawing a hard line to define the eyes, nose, and lips. The key to drawing realistic portraits is to first lay down the correct tones of the face. If you squint and look at a picture of a face, you will notice that the eyes appear the darkest, front of the nose and forehead are the lightest and the rest is a mix of tones in between. By squinting you can see the general tone of an area and ignore the details such as eye lashes. You keep building on these tones and keep relating them to each other in terms of size, shape, and distance until you have a drawing that starts to look like the picture. Here are some photos of how I started some of my portrait drawings:

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Check out these laptop sleeves that my mom made. I love the fabric she used with matching lining and elastic bands. Aren’t they gorgeous?!?! They are available for sale on my etsy store. CLICK HERE to check the listing.

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