Guitar hero, now with more pink!

My guitar is done, and I’m fairly pleased with it despite the problems I ran in to.

The first problem I ran in to was with the pink paint. It had a much thicker consistency than the black (maybe due to it being a different brand…I don’t know) and even after a test spray it coated my face plate with a bit of a lumpy texture, so I got some bumps I wasn’t really happy about. It’s a satin finish…not sure if that has anything to do with it either. A few coats took the worst of it away though. You can still see small bumps/imperfections, but in person it looks far less worse than in pictures.

I used the Dresden Dolls plane logo for part of the design. They’re my favorite band and I love that logo! If you haven’t heard of them, please visit their site!

This is where I ran in to my second problem. I used some packing labels Paul brought home from work for the stencils I used. They’re sticky, but not too sticky because I wanted to be able to remove the stencils without marring the paint. Apparently they weren’t quite sticky enough for the detailed work I was trying to do because the paint feathered all along the edges You can really see what I’m talking about in the next picture.

Dirty Business is the name of a song by the Dresden Dolls. I love it, so I chose to name my guitar after it You can see the way the paint feathered out under the stencil. In retrospect I should have used masking tape and many many thin coats of paint instead of four or five thicker coats. I sprayed some paint into a paper cup and hand painted around the plane logo to clean it up, but I decided to leave the feathering on the words because it just seemed fitting. It was an unexpected design element!

I even did detail work on the rest of the guitar:

Details were hand painted. They’re a bit shaky, but I liked making it all match. I learned a lot with this project. I learned to test my paint better, do many thinner coats instead of a few thicker ones. I learned to be more fastidious with my stencils and that spray paint is near impossible to wash out of paint brushes. I still love the way it turned out, despite it’s unexpected design elements

I finished the pink cabled strap too.

I’m probably going to have to wind up lining the back side because it’s a little stretchier than I expected. It turned out pretty well though!

I also started two more knit projects this weekend.

I pulled the Valpuri top that I was making for my Mom apart, and started a new project with the yarn.

I just kept having this nagging feeling she wouldn’t care for the top, so I started the Hemlock Ring Blanket. I’m actually using the instructions here though, instead of the original instructions from the vintage pattern. I think this will be much more to my Mom’s liking and she can use it for whatever she likes. It’s a pretty nice cotton yarn so she could use it as a tablecloth, a blanket, a shawl, whatever she wants. It’ll probably wind up a giant doily or a tablecloth for her outdoor table. Mom and Dad just bought a new gazebo/pavilion so they’ll be spending a lot of time out there this summer. I have a feeling she’ll probably use it out there. it’s a beautiful pattern and I may queue it up again later to make one for myself!

I also started work on my Burridge Lake Aran Afghan.

I got a pretty good amount of it started for as little as I worked on it this weekend. I’m using the no cable needle method and I’m liking it much more than if I had to knit, move stitches to cable needle, knit, knit stitches from cable needle, repeat. I can move the stitches over into a twist and then knit them all in a row. It’s an interesting technique…maybe I’ll do a video on it one of these days.

So, that’s what I did this weekend! I wanted to update yesterday but I spent a good chunk of the day laying in bed in agony from a friggin’ migraine. They always seem to hit me when I’ve got plans that don’t involve cleaning house.

**And to you WordPress. Shame on you!!! You don’t log someone out halfway through a big assed post where they lose half the damned thing when they try to publish! You suck right now!

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