x_los | Hip to purl a square

Finally hung seven paintings, two embroidery pieces and a mirror I’ve long needed to, mostly from Katy’s mother’s house. Re-hung and moved another seven to make room and re-balance things. At the moment it’s portraits of women/Pre-Raphaelites in the master bedroom, with architecture painting in the hall and Japanese prints, European Japonaiserie and Other in the small bedroom. The main floor is difficult for pictures due to the wrap-around bookshelves mom and I designed taking every inch of space except a little niche by the built-in desk, which is already occupied by my paper theatre, Katy’s meh stylised prints of Croydon and my embarrassing but intrinsically funny portrait of Dickens when he was still a twink (yep: there was, unquestionably, a long twink era).

I don’t know quite what I think about the two Italian architecture prints I put up in the hall. They’re not bad, but somehow they’re, idk, easy? Blair-era? Vaguely tacky? Weird that I feel this when I like Venice fine—microclimates of Zeitgeist. They’re from Katy’s childhood home, though, so could be excused much, and they really aren’t bad—maybe I just feel cringe about over-saturation. The real treasure of the new-to-us pieces, I think, is a big, magisterial architectural study of the entrance to London’s Natural History Museum. I don’t care about the contents, but what a building. And it’s lucky Katy’s mom had a Pre-Raphaelite photography print for Isle of Wight reasons—people tend to forget there was a whole associated photography movement, in many cases pioneered by female artists.

Can’t deny that the real drawings look better than even famous reproductions in many cases, though. I love my small, drawn portrait of a German sitter from the 1810s, my watercolour of the Nuremberg Frauenkirche, my worst sister’s painting of Makku and what I believe might be an exterior view of Canterbury cathedral. Decent painting can be so cheaply got, if you’re patient and willing to do a fair amount of organisational work. Also prints are so dicey. Our “Accolade” cuts off the top of the frame, the window, in a way I find ruinous to the proportions. It’s still worth having, Katy having got it well-framed at a good price, but it’s so irritating because the painting itself is just so much better, the real length of the original ‘shot’ is so much more—mature feeling. Katy pointed out that Leighton did draft several versions with this perspective—well, he didn’t go with them, did he? My “Mariana” is slightly curtailed to the right of the desk, as well. Very annoying. The light sources and spatial recesses really matter to these compositions!!

Cleaned the hell out of the small bedroom, with these paintings out of the way. Still a lot to do before it’s ready to serve as a nursery, but there’s time. Was nominally at work of course, but everything that came in took an hour to settle. Bought a couple more tile lots from Morphets today—having already made a small purchase from them, this made sense for combined shipping reasons. Plus stuff was going at quite fair prices.

Got a meh lunch together. “Food Wars” really will make you feel miserable about your real life, non-shonen cooking in a way BNHA could never hope to (one does not have to try to do pro-hero work multiple times a day, with less narratively satisfying skill than a protagonist).

Finished square 1/16 of the baby blanket and started on square 2. This involved relearning to purl, with two quite ugly failed cast ons I had to unravel completely. I think I have it now, though. Square 2 is looking smooth, thus far.

The great triumph of the day was the flea combing: only one of the cats (Sasa) had a singular flea (Makkuro Kurosuke and Hairy Sullivan are much better at cleaning themselves). I’m still going to environment spray the house again and flea comb them on Monday when we’re back, but that feels like we could be turning a corner.