Rosemaling

I have just finished an 8-week rosemaling course. It met on Thursdays for 8 weeks. I missed two weeks because I was traveling, but I did do some painting.

Here are the things I painted in this class. Rosemaling is Norwegian folk painting, that is normally done on wood. It can be done on other surfaces, but wood is the most common one. I, however don't feel I'm good enough to paint on a lot of wooden objects. I am still practicing and learning, so I do a lot of painting on paper. sometimes if the design turns out well I scan it and make cards from it. So during this class I painted many designs on paper as well as 3 wooden plates.

  I paint free-hand and my designs are my own. Many rosemalers, especially at the level I paint trace designs or sketch out designs before they start, but I'm just too lazy to do it that way. This is a 6-inch plate.

 

 

 

This is one I did on paper, scanned and added the outer color on my computer, to use as a card. This is the extent of my photo-enhancing skills.

 

 

 

 

This is a 7-inch wooden plate.

 

 

 

 

 

I did these three yesterday. The teacher had left a sketch on the board from the previous day's class and I used that as inspiration for this design, which I did three times with the same colors, but slight variations in the design. I cannot do 2 identical designs.

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, this is inspired by a painted sketch done by Norwegian rosemaler Nils Elingsgard. 

Back to the Freya

I am making progress on this Elsebeth Lavold design, which I thought was called Freja, but now I see it is spelled Freya. I think it's pronounced the same either way. Here's where I am with it now.

I have completed both sleeves. I had to rework the top of the first sleeve, because it was coming out way too long, but it seems okay now and I did the second one the same way. The sleeves are fairly skinny, but I tried them on and they will be fine, I think. Then I picked up the stitches of my gauge swatch and did the cable motif to practice it. I had never done this type of cable with the starts and stops, so I thought it would be good to see if it was going to give me problems before I cast on for the front. I did it twice to be sure I had it.

I love the charts for cable knitting. I haven't used charts for cables before, but I find it so straight-forward. The symbols on the charts are very logical. I had to read the definitions the first time, but then was able to follow without referring again to the definitions except for the decreases. Those I had to check again, because some are done on the back (reverse) side and those require some thinking. I think I have it now. This has been fun and I hope it turns out nicely when I am done.

Mystery shawl - clue #3

Here's what the shawl looks like this morning. I finished clue 3 over the weekend. I'm sorry this isn't a very good picture. I'll try to get a better one after the next clue.

The pattern this time got pretty complicated in the middle and was hard to follow, so I added vertical lines with different colored markers to the printed pattern. This helped me remember where I was on the pattern. That helped a lot. I have used 2 markers one in each side of the triangle. When I put in the life lines they go through the markers, so I drop them on the next row and put in new ones. I forgot one of the new ones the last time, but that explains why there are 2 next to each other on the right side in the photo, in case you were wondering. :-)