Modern Art Afghan 2 (reuse, recycle, reinvent)

After I finished my first "modern art afghan," using all scrap yarn, I decided that I had enough left over yarn from previous projects and from donations to make a second "modern art afghan." I discovered, too, that I had a large amount of green yarn, so I decided to use the green as the background color.
For this project, as for the last project, I chose to use a pattern for the squares that had been designed as a group activity in an email group dedicated to crochet. I've been part of this email group for about thirteen years. Even though I've never met any of the other group members in person, I feel that they have become friends. They live in a variety of states in the United States and there are a few Canadians, too. This is the "up-side" of technology... getting to "meet" people with whom you share common interests. Another "up-side" is that my crochet skills have improved dramatically since I got involved with this group. I learned how to read patterns and to crochet with thread and to create designs.
So here are a few views of the modern art afghan:

Here is a view of the corner of the afghan, which includes the border and some of the squares. No two squares are alike.

This is the entire afghan. I added each square as I made them, without regard for arranging them in any particular order, so as to get a sense of randomness in design.

Here is another view. Some of the squares are designed to be dramatic, while others are designed with more of an earth tone feeling.

Here is another view of the entire afghan. This one is a little closer than the first view that I shared.

Each square tells its own little story. Some of the colors pop out from the green background, while others just blend in.

Watching out the window

Back to watercolor painting class after a relaxing Christmas break. OK. I don't know if relaxing is the word. There is so much preparation to be done for Christmas... food, gift wrapping, Christmas card design, newsletter writing, mailings... that I'm not sure there is much relaxation going on. I am grateful that Christmas comes once a year!

So, back to painting! The goal was to paint an indoor scene with a view to the outdoors. I had to base the painting on photographs. I was allowed to take liberties with the scene, which I did. So there is actually no window behind the couch. The window is elsewhere and it is huge but the view out that window is a bit boring. What I did was to take a picture of a shed behind someone else's house. I made the shed look a little bigger and closer to my mom's house. Inside, I needed to add stuff to doctor up the scene. Normally that afghan (which I called my "modern art afghan") is not on the couch. I put the afghan there. OK. So we don't actually have an orange and white cat. Zoey is black and white. But now, there is an orange and white cat and a window where no existed previously.

The painting is a combination of reality and fantasy and completely the product of my "feverish imagination." I can say "feverish imagination" because, when I was in journalism school, my news writing teacher said that I had a "feverish imagination." As it turns out, he was right...