Colors - Potential for Creativity

Colors - Potential for More Creativity

     I have finally finished my mandala by crocheting one.  The paintings below that I briefly wrote about gave me the inspiration along with the designer who created the star portion of this mandala.  

     I ended up changing the second part of the pattern because I had a strong desire to modify it and put my own interpretation into it. So here it is.  I hope that it will give someone some enjoyment as much as it did while I was creating it. I have to mention who is the designer of the star portion of the mandala due to it having been her creation and copyright laws that exist.  So as far as the pattern is concerned, the star part of this pattern came from her pattern called "Starflower Mandala" which you can find at the following web address. Starflower Mandala

The rest of the pattern is my own creation and I did not take the time to write it as I was creating it. The stitches came based on how I was feeling at that moment and there was times where I would rip parts out and try something different. There will be no written pattern for the rest of the mandala.  Sorry about that.  

     The paintings below helped to give me some ideas with the colors. Of course not all of the colors in some of them were used in the mandala but some were.  I love colors so much. Makes life more enjoyable.

     When I was younger and my aunt introduced me to both crocheting and growing plants. The very first plant she introduced me to was a cutting from her Coleus plant. The plant has bright vivid colors and some of the other ones had deeper colors as well. 

     As I grew older I discovered more and more plants that displayed colors and before I knew it I had many plants. By the time I reached adulthood I had become knowledgeable about plants and started surrounding myself with plants of many textures and colors. Sometimes I wish I could display the colors in my mind onto some kind of canvas but of course it stays locked up inside my mind. 

    Since I have been living in Greenland for the past three years I have developed a strong desire to work with brighter colors when it comes to 
potential crochet projects.
                                       

     When I was younger I didn't give it much thought being I had surrounded myself with flowers and plants that had colors all to themselves and I so love what mother nature throws at us when it comes to plants and flowers.

     Being I live in Greenland now, there isn't so much relating to colorful fauna year around.  Most of the colors happen between June - September.

So having written that, I have taken to noticing more colors in things like artwork and well whatever else that might catch my eyes at the that given time.

     So while my husband had taken me on a short tour of his employer Royal Greenland I had a chance to take some photographs of some of the artwork on display in the offices.

     







I love how the artist used bright colors in the paintings.

    I will have to make sure my daughter Lynnette (the artist in our family) sees these paintings. I think she might enjoy them. I thought the paintings were also cute in light of the little text writings added to some of them about who is eating who. :)

I think the usage of colors makes the paintings even more fun to look at.

This is the center part of the mandala that is actually the Starflower Mandala pattern.  Thanks to Zooty for sharing her patterns too. 

Crochet Crazy Link Along

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Tuesday – September 24, 2013

Day 21 of Fall Trip 2013 (Munkebo, Denmark)

Day 17 of Sailing trip – currently in Dry dock with the Qaqqatisiaq

Day 6 in Dry Dock at Lindo Shipyard – Monkebo, Denmark)

https://www.stok.dk/

Tuesday we were invited to attend a tour of a company "Stok Emballage" that Royal Greenland uses to wrap the product they produce after it has been boxed or packaged so that it can be shipped without incident.

This is the old equipment that had been being used on the Qaqqatsiaq.  It is time for a replacement. 

  The tour guide gave us a little bit of a speech with video to go with it but of course it was all in Danish so I didn't get much out of it. After the speech he took us on a tour of the facility.  

This is the more updated equipment that probably will replace the old one. 

On a secondary note, I couldn't help but take photo's of some of the artwork on display around this business along with some very nice looking indoor plant life.  Here is a sample of one in fact. 

After that we all went to a local Go Cart facility "Odense Kart Hall" in Odense, Denmark to have some fun with Go Carts. The kart slogan is: "Give your boss the rear!"  LOL

http://www.gokart-hal.dk/english.html

This is the first time I have ever been in a Go Cart and I have to say I was a bit apprehensive because I did not know what to expect.

We got to race each other in four different heats in which we would change car numbers as well.

My husband Nikolaj getting ready to whoop some butt!  LOL

I noticed that it became quite competitive between some of them but it was all in great fun. We all had a good time.

Once it was all over, the top three was rewarded with medals.

ZOOM ZOOM!!!

I thought that was very cool and it sure did make the winners smile big time.

Afterward we drove to an Italian Pizzeria called Mamma's Pizzeria. (http://www.mammas.dk/Menukort.html)

What a nice restaurant too. There was twelve of us eating and they did not seem to have any trouble getting us into a table and the service was good along with the food.

Nikolaj had the following for his dinner:

1^st course consisted of:

Scampi Fritti: Butter Fried prawns flambeed in cognac. Easy tomato sauce and garlic. Served w / baguette and butter 

2^nd course consisted of:

Spaghetti agli Scampi:  Spaghetti with prawns, cherry tomatoes, parsley, white wine, olive oil, chilli and garlic.  

I had:

1^st course consisted of:

Scampi Fritti: Butter Fried prawns flambéed in cognac. Easy tomato sauce and garlic. Served w / baguette and butter

2^nd course consisted of:

Penne San Francisco: Best-selling pasta dish with large tender pieces of veal, chicken, roasted mushrooms, tomato / cream sauce and basil. 

A couple of the other crew members had the Carpaccio di Bresaola for their first course part of the meal followed by two different kinds of pizza's.

Course one:

Carpaccio di Bresaola: Thinly sliced ​​air-dried beef topside w / rocket salad and fresh Parmesan flakes. Serve with baguette and butter.  

After we finished eating, then Peder (company spokesman) took us to another place for a liter of beer for each person called Bryggeriet FlakiLaven.

http://bryggeriet.dk/eng

I didn't have any beer. The beer the rest had was brewed from some type of berry as well.  It was quite a dark colored beer too.   The entire business had brightly painted walls, artwork strategically placed in the right places as well as the ability to view their brewing facility as well.

I don't really care to drink it so I had a vodka/orange juice mixed drink instead. This business brews its own beer and has the brewing equipment and ingredients right on premises.

I took a couple of photo's of some artwork that was also on display in this place of business as well. ;) 

Don't forget to go to my photograph site to view more of my photo's.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kdojoelsen326

Scarves

A while back a friend of my husbands mom had seen a couple of my scarves in a local shop and wanted me to crochet her four scarves of different colors. I could choose the patterns and we had agreed upon a set price. I was very thrilled about this project because I could earn some money so that I could buy more yarn to add to my stash along with maybe buying a few skeins of yarn that is not of the usual kind.

This first scarf I used a crochet stitch called the crazy stitch. The stitch is very easy and once a couple of rows are done, there isn't much counting required and easily done while multitasking like watching TV or listening to music at the same time. I used a picot stitch for the outside border. 

Begin with a chain, in multiples of three, plus one extra. So I chained 16 + 1.

Chain 17, 3 double crochet in fourth chain from hook.

Skip next three stitches. *Single Crochet in next stitch, Chain three, three double crochet in same stitch.*

Skip next three stitches and repeat from * to *

Continue till desired length. Do not fasten off. Single crochet around all four sides of the scarf.

I used a simple stitch style for the second scarf. I rotated between a double crochet and single crochet. It makes for a nice pattern with the scarf. I used the picot stitch for the scarf border.

I used a cable stitch for the third scarf. This has been the first time I have attempted such a stitch and I have to say it was a bit challenging to begin with but once I understood how it works after a few rows than it was just a matter of my making sure I had the correct amount of stitches on each row so that when it came to the cable part it could be created. It took me a little bit longer to do this scarf but the results came out rather good.

The forth scarf is a combination of the crazy stitch, reverse single crochet and picot stitch.

Down below are some photo's of more scarf's I have done in the past six months. I will add information about them at a later time. 

I will add more about this venture at a later date.  I hope you like the scarves. I am on a mission to make different ones in order to show how they vary and maybe I can figure out which ones would be a big hit for selling so that I can pay my way through my hobby.  Ya know how it is, wanting more yarn to be more creative then I am.

A perfect visit to "Color me Mine"

Today Kriston took me to a place in Hanford called "Color me Mine."  the shop is a paint it yourself ceramic studio. For one studio fee, it covers paints, glazing and firing.  The studio fee is good for the whole day and for as many pieces as one would like to paint.  Of course there is also the cost of the piece in question that will be painted. 

so Kriston picked a tall coffee cup and I ended up picking out a cookie jar.  I just couldn't resist it because of the style and how much space on it I could paint on. ;) 

I really enjoyed painting today especially with sharing it with my youngest daughter the joy of painting.  She had already discovered the shop due to somebody buying her a birthday studio gift from the shop.  

So it was quite nice sitting down and painting together.  I have to say it reminded me of how much it used to soothe me because it sure did soothe me today.  Very relaxing. :)

This is the website for this company: www.hanford.colormemine.com

The company can also be found on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/ColorMeMineHanford?fref=ts

Windsor, California 10/28/201

Wild Flour Bread
Wood Fired Brick Oven Baked Bread Bakery & Garden located in Freestone, California near Sebastopol. Today Carol and her husband Jerry took me on a road trip to go to see the Armstrong Redwoods in a State park named after it.  In this blog I'm going to talk about one of the places we stopped at on our way to there. Carol had told me that whenever they have house guest they'd make a special trip up to the "Wild Flour Bread Bakery & Garden just so her guest could experience the tasty natural breads that are made there.

So off on our road trip we went and when we pulled up it looked like a small shop or what some of us Southern folk would call a small "hole" in the wall.  Meaning that it's nothing of a large scale but people from miles around would come due to the tasty food served. In this case it is the tasty bread that people come from all around to have.

Wild Flour Bread uses a brick oven to bake sour dough breads, scones, and biscotti. Using a wood fire brick oven produces beautiful hard crust breads that people from miles around come to taste and enjoy. 

They tend to open with four breads only along with their sticky bun, cheese fougasse, goat flat bread and either the Bohemian (apricot, orange and pecan) or the Egyptian (pear, fig and candied ginger) and one or 2 out of 4 or 5 daily kinds of whipping cream scones which have become a daily sellout.

So the first thing you get to see when you first get ready to walk in is the amazing door way that greets you. Beautiful wood work is done at the entrance.  When you come inside the store, it's not real big but big enough that people can come in and order bread and even sit at a table or two to enjoy eating them there if they want to.

The people working behind the counter start their greeting by asking you which flavor of bread you would like to try out free before actually buying anything.  In fact I got to taste four different flavors too.  Each one tasted really good too. Although I have to say I liked the sticky buns over the Egyptian bread.  I liked the cheese fourgasse as well as the goat flat bread. I didn't get a chance to try any of the biscotti though.  Maybe next time.

When we left we had several bags with different flavors of bread in them. Some of them were going to the kids as well. I didn't know there was a garden in the back so I missed out on that part but hopefully I will get to visit again to see that as well and i will definitely make a point to go and see that as well.  We didn't spend a lot of time there due to the fact that we were on our way to see the Armstrong Redwoods. That alone had me very excited. I will show some photo's along with write a blog about that next.

When we were driving to the bread shop I noticed that there was miles and miles of grape vine vineyards.  Fall color everywhere as well. Lots of bright reds, and bright gold colors and colors in between.  The entire drive was very delightful because we went in an area where nature was on both sides and we couldn't see the main highway that ran parallel to it.  Jerry did this intentionally so that I could enjoy what I saw along with experiencing what surrounds the bigger cities.

A little more about the Bread bakery. 

About the making of the bread, it's made in the wood fired oven because it gives especially thick crust which contain the best flavors. All of the breads are sour doughs which doesn't mean they will have a sour taste but rather some breads including their sweet breads are risen only with organic sour dough (fermented flour and water).  This makes for the best tasting, healthiest and longest lasting bread.  They heat their oven every afternoon with 1 wheel barrow of eucalyptus so by 4 am the wood has turned to ash and after mopping the oven out they can start baking at 550 degrees, a much higher temperature than gas ovens. They never turn this oven off except for one time when the roof part of it needed replacing.  This is how they are able to maintain a reliable temperature to make such tasting bread.

The bakery also has a really nice garden out back that includes many flowers and small fruits.   Raspberries can be seen along with 12 foot sunflowers, and other assorted flowers and vegetables.