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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The Pathology of Photography

I don't know how anyone else feels about their digital camera, but let me sum up my emotions thusly:

car wreck!
car wreck!

We bought the camera roughly 15 months ago, after the old one broke.  It has about 1000 pictures on it, all of them family photos (I tend to deal more promptly with the craft related stuff).  That's roughly two pictures a day (and I've deleted some!)  But what I haven't done is the usual sort and save and delete off the camera, and now it has become a task of Herculean proportions.  And yet not pressing, as there is still room for 3500 more pictures on the memory card...

So, I have two children.  For nearly the first three years of the first's life (let's call her B) I meticulously curated the museum of her photographs.  Then I lost my job*, and now, as I spend most of my time with her, I no longer relish the idea of spending my free time combing through her archives, or those of her baby sister, A, with whom I spend even more time.

Which makes part of me long for the old days and the expense and inconvenience of film camera, at least for family photos.

Of course, this does make me feel guilty!  To be the parent rebelling against the system!  But I do take pictures, I just don't look at them afterward.  And according to my calculations, it'll take 4 years to fill up the the memory card, so I have plenty of time to procrastinate.

But, there is, of course, much to be said for being able to take hundreds of pictures.  Not having to settle for out of focus or extremely washed out or people making weird faces because now you can take 10 pictures where you used to only take one.

There is the unexpected joy when an experimental shot pays off:

birthday cupcake
oooh...

There is the odd picture that says so much about someone's personality, taken while you were waiting for the subjects to take the task of being photographed seriously:

kid and bird
will no one look at the camera?

And there is the fact that being a craftsperson or a knitwear designer in this age means having and using one's digital camera.   Sigh.

* I didn't lose my job, it was taken from me...

Monday, September 20, 2010

Crafts of the Past: Hand at the level of the eye of your needle...

Here is a treasure of my childhood!  He has a place of honor in my jewelry display (which involves monkeys!).  My jewelry is much more displayed than ever worn, I regret, I'm not that kind of girl!
the phantom of the opera
Masquerade!


I'll admit, like many girls of my time, in our early teens in the early 90s, that I had a thing for Phantom of the Opera.  That was back, long ago, before we had the Internet (I guess, it was around, but WE didn't have it) and before werewolves and vampires started appearing together in books and/or movies.  Also, before wizards were being educated at boarding schools.  So, what choice did we have but Phantom?

I've even seen the show!  I suppose that helps.  There was a timely marching band show rendition of the musical, not our school but a rival, and dude....  I listened to the soundtrack constantly (even branched out to Cats, I shudder to remember), had a book with pictures and the score, even made a Phantom themed cross-stitch sampler that I was horribly embarrassed by months after finishing, but now I sort of wish I still had.

It is, however, likely that my sister made this particular guy, he's a pin, made from sparkly scrap fabric left over from a witch's cloak from a Halloween costume.  The rose came from the little independent craft store, one of the few shops in town we could walk to, apart from the gas station.  They seemed to specialize in plastic doll parts, from what I can recall.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

To dream, perhaps to spin

On a day like today, which was the Spinner's Flock Guild's Fleece Fair, at which I incidentally increased my roving supply, I thought I'd share my to be spun pile (mostly dyed by me and all done on my drum carder):

A. sock batts (superwash wool with nylon)

semi rainbow sock batt
too pretty to spin?







B.yellow & green with a touch of violet, merino - the third in a series of green toned batts, created one day when I was staring at a number of merino rovings I didn't like, and thought - hey, why don't I separate the colors and mix them up?  The other two were more successful....

yellow merino batt
it's just as horrible in real life!


C. Superwash wool with glitz, my most recent carding effort.

yellow and orange batts
orange = love






The current project hasn't been photographed yet...

Monday, September 13, 2010

First post and up to no good

I don't have a lot to say today, but that it's in the middle of that monthly fiber week where all the guild meetings line up like the planets in a fairy tale involving astrology.  (You know the ones!)  So.  I've a month to line up stuff for sale at the Ann Arbor FiberArts Holiday sale, and two months to do for the Black Sheep guild, and it may very well end up that I have four things for sale at both.

Last night taught me I still have a lot of product development work to do, and I guess I  just have to live with that.  However, lying in bed I had an idea that may fix the current issue and not cost me more money, so, that's cool.  Sorry to be cryptic!

Anyway, the blog seems to work!  So.  I'm hoping to take some pictures soon for a blog post on spinning.