Aew324

🍉 Hello Swapping Friends, Welcome to my profile!

I love everything crafty and hand-made. I spend entirely too much time on the internet looking at art and craft content, studio tours and tutorials. I enjoy all arts-and-craft supplies and everything that goes along with living a creative life—there isn't a craft I won't attempt. I paint/draw/urban sketch, hand letter (not well), hand and garment sew, thrift, papercraft, decorate and renovate, try to spin and weave, and sometimes knit or crochet.

2026 Update: I am in ART SCHOOL! I started doing an online atelier program. Current classes: Foundations Drawing I and Art History.

2026: Celebrating 10 YEARS on the 'bot!

Favorite entertainment: Podcasts. Re-watchable favorite television series: Versailles, Outlander, Madmen.

I like independent films and shows about people and their unique stories or time in history. I enjoy interesting and offbeat documentaries. Truthfully, I watch content creators on youtube more than anything else these days.

Labyrinth, Lost Boys, and Highlander on tubi on loop as background fill as I craft or do art.

📚I like to read, and I read a lot. I generally get most of my books from the new fiction section of my local public library/library book sales or download what is available at the moment through my library's app. I support Little Free Libraries. I write professionally.

Reading goals:

• Agatha Christie [Happy Birthday, September 15 🎂]. Trying to read chronologically through her oeuvre. I own the complete Sussex blue Agatha Christie Mystery Collection (Bantam). [Related goal: sew fabric book sleeves for these and other books in my collection—DONE! 10/24] TIL...A.A. Milne published a cozy mystery before Winnie-the-Pooh, The Red House Mystery. I will check it out after I finish the Grafton alphabet.

• COMPLETED : Sue Grafton A to Y (2023 - 8/26)

• Was working my way through "The Artist's Way." I have decided I loathe the program. Any other Artist's Way dropouts in the house? I am enjoying "We Need Your Art, Stop Messing Around and Make Something" by Amie McNee. I have heard good things about "How to Live an Artful Life" by Katy Hessel, but I have been unable to find a copy.

Favorite author: Todd Noy ;)

HOME

I live in a 200-year-old house. Merging the old with the new is more than a style choice, it is a daily necessity and a license to decorate quirky. I enjoy resale shopping to find treasures from previous eras and lucky finds.

ART🎨 July is World Watercolor Month!

I collect pins, stickers, postcards, pencils and tote bags from the museums/interesting places I visit. I usually travel plein air/urban sketching ready.

--Art interests--

I collect every kind of art supply, new and vintage. I enjoy creating with:

Fountain pens. Fountain Pen Day is the first Friday in November. I love ink samples and ink swatches.

Pointed pens, Nikko G nibs for hand lettering/Spencerian.

✏️Pencils: vintage, drawing, Blackwing, Musgrave, advertisement; pencil point protectors, erasers, sharpeners, cases, pencil cups, the entire pencil lifestyle ;)

Colored pencils. All brands new and old.

Watercolor paint (especially Schmincke #1, Sennelier #2, anything in a fun/novelty palette #3).🫟 Dot cards. Getting into Daniel Smith.

Limited edition art supply releases, example: Yuko Higuchi and Rebecca Green sets for Holbein.

A solvent-free oil practice.

Gouache, traditional or acryla.

Paint brushes🖌️and travel gear.

Soft pastels. Elizabeth Mowry, Alain Picard.

Sketchbooks, putting gesso on objects to paint.

🖼️Paint by number.

Favorite color: I love all colors. Fond of earth tones.

All Stationery. Jetpens-type Japanese pens and stationery items.

Washi tape.

I am always looking for fun and interesting ways to store and display my art/craft/vintage items. I am lucky to have a home painting studio, craft and office area that I enjoy decorating.

Artist Trading Cards.

I recently inherited a huge stamp collection.

FIBER

I can hand and garment sew, embroider, knit, crochet, weave and spin.🧶

Favorite Fabrics: Cotton (retro prints imported from Japan and British Liberty prints), 100% wool felt.

🧵I do nearly all my machine sewing on a Bernina 240 that I have had for years. Also have a working Featherweight and 301 that I use occasionally. [Would love to sew on a treadle. I bought two, took them apart to restore. Decided the project was beyond me. Not among my best decisions.]

I have two Ashford spinning wheels, a single and double drive. I make ugly yarn. I should practice more.

I have a Kyra table loom that was converted to floor by its previous owner and a Windhaven Fiber Accordion loom.

Some sewing likes: Costumery, vintage sewing stuff (patterns, notions, buttons, equipment, literature, advertising, tools, toy sewing machines, furniture), friendship bracelets, modern macramé, visible mending, make do and mend, Boho Embroidery, Zakka, Sashiko. Ooak.

Summer 2026: I just picked up a simple punch needle kit and a small needlepoint kit for summer camping, road trip fun.

THIS AND THAT

Things that catch my eye and a random list of likes:

Nancy Drew

Libraries, Museums

Versailles, Marie Antoinette

The Golden Age of Ornamental Penmanship/American Penmanship

Art History

National Parks. Junior Ranger Program.

Metal detecting, Geocaching. Path tags.

High-quality stickers, vinyl, die-cut, holographic, custom, etc.

Coffee. I am teaching myself how to do latte art.

My two rescue cats 🐈🐈‍⬛

Hygge, Scandinavian design

William Morris designs

Dark and light academia

Favorite tea: Teeccino Dandelion Turmeric (best with good chocolate).

Making fresh bread every day with my breadmaker.

Subscriptions: Atlas Coffee Club. Creativebug (forget to watch).

Health Program: Pvolve. (Ibid, See above.)

Postcards: October 1 is World Postcard Day. I postcross and penpal. Lantern Press. May 2026: USPS is issuing a forever global stamp featuring postcrossing!!

2025 visited England, Ireland and Wales.

Current Creative Goals: Block Printing. Bookbinding.

Summer 2026 a couple new interests: Birdwatching and Drumming. Learning ASL.

Dislikes: I do not use social media. I do not scrapbook. I am a failure at journaling. I keep vowing to become a journaler, but it hasn't stuck.

THANK YOU!!