Rainy Day Doodles

Or should I say rainy DAYS!!  We arrived in Beautiful Barbados on Tuesday and to date have only had one sunny day. This time of year, there is always a bit of rain, and you don't leave home without an umbrella. But this year, the rain is so frequent, we haven't been leaving home.

So, what to do on a rainy day while your Kobo is being re-charged? Doodle.

In anticipation of my class at Trent this summer, I am doing a lot of doodling - both Zentangle - and not, to help create my teaching sheets for the class. I am learning as much from the doodling as I am from hooking the doodles.

If you are both a "zentangler" and a rug hooker, you have probably already figured out that some doodles are much more hooking-friendly than others. And there are quite a few other lessons to be learned as you move from the black and white fine marker sketches to the "fabric on backing" interpretations.

At any rate, a wonderful way to wile away this wet weather. (Unintentional alliteration alert!)
Here are some photos to show. Kudos to the Zentangle folk who are so generous with their doodles on tanglepatterns.com   They were the starting point for many of my sketches.

And since the rain continued again today, I spent most of the day with my Doodle Moose.  I started her on one of the other rainy afternoons. This project was supposed to last for the entire stay. At this rate, I will need either a big change in the weather, or another project when this is done.

I am hooking this very colourful moose with polar fleece - much nicer in the warm weather than wool. And a bunch of very inexpensive print blankets yielded a wonderful palette for this project. I will probably run out of strips before I run out of pattern, but at least "she" will be complete. I will call her "Josephine, the Technicolour Moose".

Doodling and hooking this way is incredibly free-ing, because obviously, many of the regular rules apply. However, I am finding that there are lots of things to consider when embarking on this translation.

One more thing to share before I sign off on this post. I discovered a new App called COLORFY. It is a colouring book app for FREE. And it is lots of fun on my ipad. You can find out more about it at colorfy.net.   Some really good stuff in the libraries.

And another great activity for rainy doodling.

Happy 2016

Well, the holidays came and went in our new home. It was fun finding spots for our usual decorations and establishing new traditions.

Our Santa collection found a home on the kitchen/family room mantle.

Snowman collection took up residence in the bay window in the living room.

And since we couldn't figure out where to put our larger tree, we bought this little pre-lit one, which fit perfectly on the blanket box in the kitchen/family room. It came out of the box with two kids of lights and no room for ornaments - doesn't get much easier than that!

Also, the kitchen island that we had ordered arrived just in time for the influx of visitors. It is where I seem to perch all the time. It is where I am writing this post. I think it will become the hardest working piece of furniture we own.

Since the second stool has not yet arrived, poor hubby still resides on the sofa in front of the island. We spent lots of time with family and friends and now truly feel like this is our home. 

So now a bright, shiny new year has begun with no mistakes in it yet. And we are counting down to Barbados. We will be there on Tuesday afternoon - yippee!

In anticipation of going, I am getting all my rug hooking student letters done for my various classes this year. And hooking away on samples to show in the two new classes that I have not taught before. I posted earlier about one of the Zen and the Art of Doodling, which is the Trent class. I did manage to get another one finished.

This is part of a study where I have repeated the same pattern four times and will demonstrate how it evolves when you add one colour, one full colour element and a full colour version. It's an amazing journey and I am enjoying every loop. Hooking doodles is certainly a relaxing endeavour!

As I gather my hooking supplies to put in my suitcase, I am reminded that warm weather hooking is quite different and that you become very aware of what is on your lap and what is in your hands. when it is 30 degrees. Yarn and panty hose become much more attractive to hold than wool. And a smaller piece of backing that doesn't "tent" your entire lower body is also advisable. But there are several rainy afternoons where hooking is perfect. And many of my hooking friends are there at the same time as we are.

All the best for this new year. May it bring health and happiness to all.

I will share pics from the sunny side - and they may actually have hooking stuff in there too.