approx. 365 days later

Future Envy via Threadless

Hello hello! I bet you were wondering if I would actually get around to putting up a post for the last day of this year’s Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. And I do, I do, I’m just a bit late. Ok, more than a bit, but I’ll delay putting up a new post so you’ll have a whole extra day with this post at the top of the blog. Today’s topic is all about the future, particular the knitting future.

Day Seven (Sunday April 28th): Looking Forward
One year from now, when the 5th Knitting & Crochet Blog Week rolls around, where do you hope your crafting will have taken you to? What new skills, projects and experiences do you hope you might have conquered or tried?

This could be anything from mastering a technique (broomstick lace, entrelac, etc), trying a new yarn or skill, or a long term wish to crochet only from your stash, or knit every stitch in one of the Harmony Guides. Maybe you have no desire or plans for your craft at all, no new element of knitting or crochet that you dream of mastering, in which case write about why that might be. In a year’s time participants will be asked to look back to see if they achieved any goals, no matter how general, and see which house conquered the art of looking forward.

So, let’s imagine it’s April 2014 (sheesh!) and I’m looking back at what’s been going on. Well, one of my big goals for the year is reduce my stash of yarn. It is pretty darn huge, so I really need to start whittling it down. I’m planning to destash later this year, and I have a few projects planned that’ll use a lot of yardage. But really, I need to look at my current yarn first when contemplating a project. Normally I see a project on the pattern page on Ravelry or in my queue and then I think about colors and yarn, and then I look what I have in my stash. Which is still distributed among a few places since I’m still not finished moving (sigh).

I think my process needs to change around – I need to choose a yarn and then find the right pattern to show it off. The thing is though, since so much of my knitting ends up as a gift I’m often limited by the giftee’s request – shape, color, technical elements like cables, lace and other things people stick in their requests. Or in the future I’ll just do the pattern picking and give people only a few options. Especially since no one is as interested in looking at different pattern options as I am. Hmmm. Something to thing about.

According to my infographic, another one of my goals for this year is steeking. I’m actually almost done with the hurricane vest I was working on and which has been hibernating now for a while. I’m really nervous about the securing the steek step. I think I can get in some sewing machine time via a friend (phew!) so I don’t have to secure the steek by hand, crochet hook, or not at all (scary!).

And now that I’ve become more comfortable with knitting various types of projects – lace, socks, toys, garments – I really would like to get more comfortable modifying patterns to the point that I use other design-elements, and maybe even adding my own design motifs. I love seeing how people got started on designing and I’d love to dip my toes into those waters. That’s a big goal though, no idea how likely I’ll be at implementing that. But I guess the motto is to dream big.

What oh what will you be? Let’s meet in the future and see. (Hopefully not a moth!!!!)

And since I’m dreaming big, I’d like to see if I can manage to stay on track with my knitting yardage this year. I’ve knit over 10,000 yards in each of the last two years, so it would be great to manage to keep that up this year. Let’s see if that’ll actually work out. I’ll be taking a look at all of these goals next year, and I’ll be curious to see what I’ll actually have managed to achieve. Most of the time I’m not really good at setting reasonable expectations for myself – perfectionist here – so hmm, I’m not sure if I’ve actually set reasonable goals.

Finally I wanted to share with you the progress I’ve made on my mascot socks, which meant getting in a little photo-op time. This was a post I couldn’t prep ahead of time. So far I’ve managed the leg and heel of the sock and I’m currently working on the foot part of the sock. I’m really happy with the result so far – and you can really see the hexagonal shape of the pattern. Mascot pattern success!

yay for hexagons! and berries and cream! (apologies for the crappy picture)

And on that note, I conclude. Thank you all for sticking with me throughout this year’s Knitting and Crochet Blog Week! I really appreciate all your comments and visits and feedback. I feel like I’ve stretched my blogging muscles and taken a new look at my knitting and knitting skills,  and that’s the point after all. I’ll hope you’ll still come back and visit – after all, my mascot project isn’t finished, all those wips need to be cast on for and MadTosh Mad May 2013 is around the corner. Plus a whole bunch of food and photography posts, and some major blog changes. Stay tuned for more!

Flight of the [Bumble]bee

{this moment}

Today’s post is a mashup of the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week assignment and {this moment}. The assignment is to come up with a different kind of post.

Day Five (Friday April 26th): Something A Bit Different
It’s the annual challenge to blog in a way different to how you normally blog. You may choose to create a podcast, or vlog, create a wordless post or write in verse. You’ve already stretched your wings with an infographic, now it’s time to freestyle. You can post on any topic you like, but be sure to post in a style different from your usual blog presentation. There’s not too much guidance for this one simply because the more varied the posts are on this day, the wider the sources of information for other bloggers will be. Bonus points if you manage to work your house animal in somehow.

Last year I stretched my blogging creativity muscles by creating a stop motion animation video. That was a lot of fun but my goodness, it was a lot of work. You take a photograph, then move things a teeny bit, take another photograph, move things again, take another photograph and on and on and on. It takes forever, I mean f-o-r-e-v-e-r. I used an iPhone app to help me out but still, that was a lot of work. And then you add in the editing and music and text and so on and it’s pretty much a day’s work.

This time around I had a few ideas, but my main idea was to make some kind of knitting gif. Or some kind of slo-motion or high-speed knitting video. And then I picked House of Bee and really spent a lot of time and thought on this bee thing and, well, the idea for the flight of a bee was born. Except that this bee likes yarn better than fruit. Especially since the colorway sounds like its some kind of yummy dessert. So – enjoy!

I’ve got some info for you…

Hello! It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for a Yarn Along post. So here’s my most current wip made out of the yarn I showed you yesterday – said Berries & Cream socks. I’m hoping to make some more progress by the end of the week and I’ll share any updates with you as I progress.

As to reading – sorry, I’m not reading much these days. Instead I’m spending a lot of time writing – both online and offline. And of course I’m writing &  experimenting with the blog as part of the Knitting & Crochet Blog Week. So, without any further ado here is today’s assignment:

Day Three (Wednesday April 24th): Infographic
There are many ways of conveying information on a blog; text and images being the two most widely used. Many infographics combine both these elements to provide a visual way of presenting text information. […]

The whole point of this topic is to experiment with infographics as a way of sharing facts, information and ideas, and to explore another tool in a blogger’s arsenal of communication options.

Honestly, I’ve never really thought about making my own Infographic. I’ve pinned a whole bunch of the on Pinterest, so much so that I have a separate board for Infographic pins. When I first read the assignment I started looking for the opt-out post – in the past years there’s been a wild card assignment to swap out a day’s assignment. And yes, while I could just draw an infographic I actually need to have an idea as to what to draw. But I was stuck.

waiting to be knit up…

And then I decided to go the House of Bee path. Given that I like to have multiple projects on the needles, I decided to look at my ginormous queue.  I use my queue like an inspiration board. Whenever I come across a pattern I like I just queue it. The first few pages of my queue contain the patterns that I plan to make sooner rather than later. But otherwise my queue is pretty much a mess, so nowadays I also tag patterns. That way it’s easy to look through them and search for, say, a fingering weight sweater patterns if I want to knit a sweater out of Wollmeise. I should go back and tag old projects, but given that my queue is  46 (!!!) pages long – that’s 1375 patterns – that’s not going to happen.

So – I’ve decided to share my knitting evolution with you: How my knitting and knitting skills have progressed, what my queue looks like when looked at more closely, and what actually happens to the projects. Nope, I’m not much of a selfish knitter – most of my projects are gifts. I also started taking a look at the colors I like to work with, but more on that tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy the Infographic! I spent a ridiculous amount of time on it. I bow to all the people who come up with all those gorgeous, complicated Infographics. And mad props to Piktographic – I used their free templates to make this Infographic – it really gives you a great starting point. Then you have all kinds of customization option but you really need to spend some time with elements and layers – like in PowerPoint and Photoshop.

Leave me a link to your Infographic in the comments and I’ll swing by and check it out. And all of you Yarn Alongers, here’s the blog hop part: I’m linking up with this week’s Yarn Along, this week’s Tami’s Amis WIP Wednesday and Frontier Dreams’ Keep Calm and Craft on (KCCO) blog-a-long. Check out some of the other awesome wip posts.

Bees, beehives and honey

local blackberry honey – and I love that honey dipper

Day Two (Tuesday April 23rd): A Mascot Project. Your task today is to either think of or research a project that embodies that house/animal. It could be a knitting or crochet pattern – either of the animal itself or something that makes you think of the qualities of that house. Alternatively it could be a type or colour of yarn, or a single button. Whatever you choose, decide upon a project and blog about how and why it relates to your house/creature. You do not have to make this project! It is simply an exercise in blogging about how you come to decide upon what projects to make. Try and blog about the journey which inspiration and investigating patterns, yarns, stitches, (etc) can often guide you through. You may wish to make a collage or ‘mood board’ to present several ideas, or even sketch out your own design.

So, a mascot challenge. Since I’d picked House of Bee, I decided to start out with some free association instead of searching Ravelry for bee patterns. The first things I thought of were honey, sweet and beehive. No, I don’t mean the hairstyle a la Amy Winehouse. I mean the real beehive thing, home of the bees and so on. Still, no big mental leaps here. Then I started thinking of the friend who keeps his own bees – hi Thomas! – and the delicious honey we receive from him ever so often. And how I like finding local honeys (haha) and try to support apiarists (if you can’t easily find anyone near you, try local grocery coops). And I don’t mind crystalized honey – actually I like it better than squeezy tubes. Anyway, back to the bees. Another really cool thing about bees – apart from the fact that they make honey, mmm – is that they structure of the beehive is pretty ingenious. The hexagonal shape of the beehive cells is really efficient – they’re stable, and maximize honey storage with minimal wax required. In that sense bees are excellent mathematicians. There are a lot of cool facts out there about bees and bee colonies and yadayada. And now I will stop boring you with bee and honey geekage.

In clockwise order: Honeybee Stole, Honey Sweater, Bumblebee socks, Beekeeper Quilt and Honey Cowl

I started poking around Ravelry for bee related patterns. As you can see, I considered quite a few patterns. But in the end, it came down to two: Anne Hanson’s Pompa and these really cool socks named Snicket Socks. They were inspired by the movie Lemony Snicket, but I think they look like hexagons. And now you know why I picked those socks.

So, the next question was color. Yellow and gold are the obvious choices. As are yellow and gold stripes. And believe me, if I had some yellow yarn handy, or black and yellow striped, I may have knit one of those other projects above. I’m planning to use Wollmeise in Salamander to make those Bumblebee socks in that collage, the same yarn the designer used. They look like they’d be so much fun. But – no yellow yarn here. That’s what happens when you move and the rest of your stuff hasn’t yet caught up with you…

But I do have this gorgeous skein of A Verb for Keeping Warm yarn here, colorway Berries and Cream. It’s cream with occasional pink, in various degrees of saturation. Really really pretty. It makes me think of summer desserts – I mean, fresh, sun-warmed berries and a bit of cream, so delicious.

How many of us can remember sitting outside in the spring and summer sun, enjoying the rays and devouring an ice cream cone, or some fruit, or cooling off with a nice cold, possibly sweet drink. And then the zzzzzzs start, and you start having to defend – i.e. hide – your food & drinks from curious bee scouts. Worse if it’s a whole gaggle of bees seeking you out. (Of course, it could also be ants)… There are all these Disney cartoons out there about ant and bee invasions of various picnic parties… I remember Pluto being harassed by this rather, well, prickly bee in Bubble Bee. Ah, the memories..

It’s funny, I just recently did a food photography project involving berries, cream and honey. And mint. Mint was the unifying element. But more on that after Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. However, I did want to share a photograph of my inspiration and so I changed it up a bit, with strawberries instead of raspberries, goat cheese instead of yoghurt/cream, and of course that cute little honey dipper. Btw, it’s very difficult to do an action shot all on your own, especially if you don’t have a remote for your camera. I will be rectifying that asap. And the timer focus didn’t work well enough for my taste – somehow the shallow depth of focus wasn’t quite right…

Why am I not surprised that I managed to work in some food into the post, even though it’s supposed to be all about knitting? So anyway, I will be casting on for this project in the next few days. In fact, if I manage to cast on for it today, then I might have a wip picture for tomorrow’s Yarn Along-esque post. Which I still need to draft. Sigh.

Thank you all for bearing with me, and for following along with my thought processes. I’d love to see your mascot project ideas, so please, leave me a link to your post! And for your enjoyment, here is Bubble Bee:

4th Annual Knitting and Crochet Blog Week

I had a different post planned for today, but I figured I’d give you a heads-up that this year’s Knitting and Crochet Blog Week is almost upon us! The post topics are already available, so if you like to draft your posts ahead, go for it. I know I’ll be preparing mine ahead of time, especially the one where we make our own Infographic. Plus it’s always easier getting your photographs done ahead of time, and if you’re planning something more elaborate for the always interesting “Something a Bit Different” post, then now’s the time to get on it. I know that my back would have thanked me if I’d started my knitting stop-motion animation earlier last year. But because it was so much fun, I’m sharing the video again:

So yes, I will be participating once again. As you can see, the whole thing starts on Monday, so I have some prep to get through. Especially this whole choosing a house thing. I may just be a monkey, I think… Or maybe a bee? Wondering what I’m talking about? I quote:

Are you a busy bee that dips into the golden nectar of many projects with your needles and hooks? Do you calmly indulge in the slow comfort of your next squishy new project? Do your wise and inquisitive monkey fingers seek new challenges in each project as you test your abilities? Do your peacock feathers shine in the form of beaded shawls and highly decorative projects?

Have you managed to decide what house you will be in for Knitting And Crochet Blog Week? If so, vote in the sidebar now and declare your allegiance! If you haven’t yet decided, re-fresh your memory using by following the link above and come back when you have decided which house you best associate with.

I hope you join in and I look forward to seeing what you all come up with!

Homework

shallow depth of field

 

Hi! If you were expecting a Wednesday Yarn Along kind of post, there’ll be one of those next week. I’ve actually made some progress on my socks, and I think I’ll be casting on for another wip (work in progress), to give me a bit of a break from knitting socks. And I really need to get back into the groove of blogging regularly. Even though it’s kind of hard with the household that I’m currently living in. But more on that another day.

 

For today though, I’m sharing my homework with you. Yes, homework – it’s so weird to once again have assignments that have to be turned in. But this homework is all my own fault. You see, I signed up for a food photography class, and as part of our current homework, we were asked to take two photographs, of two food-related items. They could be anything from a finished food items to ingredients to herbs and spices. The assignment was two take two type of photographs – one with shallow depth of field, and one where the entire photograph, with all the components were in focus. The next class will deal with lighting, so this is a good prep for that class. So, in case you hadn’t noticed, the top photograph was the one with shallow depth of focus, and the following one is with everything in focus.

 

everything is supposed to be in focus

 

If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you might recognize the tart. I’ve made it before  and blogged about it too – it’s the whole lemon tart recipe from smitten kitchen. I’ve made it before, and quite successfully so. I’ve definitely gotten positive feedback from all the various consumer’s of the tart. This time around though, I made some changes. I used Meyer lemons instead of regular lemons, and it really does make a difference in the taste. It’s not better or worse, it’s just different. Honestly, I can’t tell you that I liked one or the other better, they’re both good.

 

I also used smitten kitchen’s great unshrinkable tart crust recipe instead of a Mürbteig base (classic German basic crust recipe). The crust was good – but not “oh my God, this is out of the world great, this is now my go-to crust recipe” great. I think I might stick with a regular Mürbteig. I like the texture better. Oh, and for the sake of the little person with dairy allergies I used Earth’s Balance soy-free butter sticks instead of butter – yes, also for the filling. I’m not a fan of margarine generally – the whole hydrogenated fat thing is a turn-off – but, well, if I want to make this a dessert that everyone around here can eat then there really isn’t much of an alternative. I did find the texture of the crust to be different though – it was so ‘buttery’ that I added extra flour to the crust in order to get a more of a dough and less of a buttery consistency. I have no idea how people got a crumbly kind of mixture in their food processor. I guess I should try making the version with butter before I render my verdict on the tart shell. And I do have some leftover dough which will probably be transformed into Easter cookies.

 

 

And that’s it from my end for today. Stay tuned for more of my photography adventures. I should have a new post up in a few days, probably on Friday. Until then!

 

NaBloPoMo – the month in review

It’s now 14 months since I started blogging. I started just before the 2nd Annual Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. That got me started on blogging daily, until I was traveling for a longer stretch. Blogging fell by the wayside since it was just too difficult to manage. Then I started up again, until life interfered and so on. I finally got back into the groove with the daily posts of this year’s Knitting and Crochet Blog Week.

I found out about National Blog Posting Month directly after that. NaBloPoMo is organized around a monthly blogging theme and May’s theme is. They provide writing prompts to help you get going, although I wasn’t particularly inspired by them. But you can also go your own way – which is what I did. After all, I find crafting and creating to be a form of ‘play.’ I have fun and I experiment, which is a kind of definition. In fact, let’s look at a few of the definitions of play:

Play
verb [no object]

• to exercise or employ oneself in diversion, amusement, or recreation
• to do something in sport that is not to be taken seriously
• to amuse oneself; toy; trifle (often followed by with)
• to take part or engage in a game
• to take part in a game for stakes; gamble
• to conduct oneself or act in a specified way: to play fair
• to act on or as if on the stage; perform
• to perform on a musical instrument
• […]

Threadless Design – Play

See, I think blogging, knitting, photographing, cooking, crafting can all apply. I managed to meet the monthly goal in my own way. I actually managed to set a blogging rhythm for myself and maintain it. And since it worked so well, I’m now going to participate in the WordPress “a post a day for 2012” goal. I’m managing pretty well so far, also because I’m scheduling posts. I’m actually traveling a good part of June, so my I’m writing posts ahead of time so you guys will have regular, daily content. I’ll do my best to answer your comments quickly, and if I have time I can always add new content.

But if you need some reminders when to blog, then this idea is genius: Create a calendar to keep track of when to put up new content on social networking websites. Plus it’s easy to make on your own!

Felt Social Networking Calendar via What Did We Learn

I fail

So, remember how I said that I’d participate in Cheryl Marie’s Knitting Marathon? The one where the goal was to knit 26.2 hours over the course of two days? The duration of the marathon matches the length of a normal marathon. Want to know how I did. I got in exactly 3.22 hours  hours of knitting in. Yes, 3.22 hours, that means that I spent 23 hours of time doing other stuff. I knew that it would be difficult to get in any knitting time on Thursday, but I figured I’d get some serious knitting done on Wednesday. I was moving along quite well, and then I decided to quickly make some chocolate avocado pudding.

Chocolate avocado pudding. Delicious. Don’t believe me? Once I’m done tinkering with that post, how that all works out – it’s a something different kind of post for me, I think you’ll like it. But I had to spend time setting up a photoshooting, photographing and making pudding, and so on. Plus, there were all the  hours spending time doing other life stuff, reducing my knitting time. But that’s realistic, you know? You can’t knit non-stop.

Knitters, unite! Even Shaun the Sheep knits

Do you guys get problems with carpal tunnel or other pains when knitting for a longer stretch? I remember Melissa Wehrle from Neoknits blogging about her problems with tendonitiswhile she had sample submissions due. Fortunately for me, it’s’just’ my hands that hurt – and I’ve developed a callus on my left index finger where the yarn passes over – I’m a continental knitter. I have to say, I’m very very glad to have to  that callus.

I worked on my Erin Go Bragh shawl and I still didn’t finish it. Sigh. I’m in the final stretches. Are you tired of hearing about that shawl? Well, so am I. That thing is gorgeous, but in the end, the rows are. so. long. I do like the pattern, and I love how Veera is able to take the concept of stripes, and come up with new concepts. But I’m ready to be done.

 

NaBloPoMo

Well, guess what. As if I haven’t already had enough of blogging every day, I’ve decided to join this month’s NaBloPoMo – National Blog Posting Month. The idea is to blog every day of the month, and to support your fellow bloggers. Challenging, right? I mean the writing part, of course. Well, at least to me it’s challenging, given that I’ve been blogging pretty sporadically in the past six months. I’d been traveling and helping my sister with her new baby, but really, I should be able to get up at least a short post every day. So let’s see how this goes!

You can still sign up for this month until May 5, and the website also offers you daily prompts for the weekdays, but they’re just a guide to provide you structure. You can totally do your own thing too. The theme for May is Play. That’s just perfect! Play can be all kinds of things – and to me, play is closely linked to creativity.

So come and join me – sign up for the blog roll, and let’s have some fun!

Photography Challenge Day

On to day #2:

Day 2: April 24, 2012. Photography Challenge Day!
Today challenges you to be creative with your photography, and get yourself in with the chance to win the photography prize. Taking interesting photographs in this instance isn’t about flashy cameras or a great deal of technical know-how, it’s about setting up a story or scene in a photograph and capturing something imaginative. Your photograph(s) should feature something related to your craft, so that might be either a knitted or crocheted item, yarn, or one of your craft tools. One example of setting a scene would be to photograph a girl in a knitted red cape walking through the woodlands with a basket of goodies, as in the Red Riding Hood tale, or you might photograph a knitted gnome hiding among the flowers in your garden. Photo editing is permitted for competition photos. Here are a few examples of my own photographs to illustrate an imaginative use of photography, but you can do much better than these…

Among the reasons I started to fiddle around more with my camera were the beautiful photographs of finished objects by other Ravellers. You get a much better impression of what a finished object looks like when the photography is good – plus you’re more likely to favorite the projects. And good yarn pictures make life easier too – if you’re destashing the yarn at any point, you already have good pictures, and good yarn pictures are also helpful when trying to figure out what yarn will look good for your upcoming project.

My photography equipment used to include a little Canon Ixus, and my iPhone (3GS). But lately I really haven’t used my little Canon. The iPhone gets heavy usage – you always have a camera with you, and you can take very nice pictures with it. Plus you can place your focus where you’d like to, and it’s easy to adjust the brightness. I miss the zoom though – where did it go? Aaaaaaand I just googled that – and found out that I have to pinch to zoom instead of tapping the screen. Ugh. I really should have googled that before. I feel very very silly.

My current favorite camera to take better pictures is a Canon Eos 20D. It’s not the coolest and the latest, but it works just fine. It has plenty of functions that I’m still playing with, and I’ve gotten some really lovely pictures. My only quibble is that it uses CompactFlash cards instead of SD cards. This is the camera I use when I know I’m planning to take pictures around a certain topic or I’m going on a photography expedition, or when I’m trying to stage a shoot – nothing fancy, but whenever I want to concentrate on a specific topic/presentation. So this is the camera that I used for today’s photography challenge.

The project is one that you’ve already seen as a Wip in past yarn along posts. It’s the Melody scarf that I knit out of Sundara fingering merino cashmere in French Lavender (as seen in yesterday’s post). I almost managed to make it to the South of France over Easter, but that plan was rained out (yup, literally as well). But maybe I’ll make it to the Provence in September – one of my (myriad) cousins is getting married in Nice and hopefully I’ll have enough time for a side trip. Til then I’ll be dreaming of the South of France – with a cup of tea, a few petit fours, a good book and some lavender to plant. Oh, and apparently this type of lavender is called butterfly lavender for the shape of its flowers.

Ok, to be honest, this photograph is staged specifically for today’s challenge. I originally thought to use my Color Affection shawl, with an Erin Go Bragh theme, since the shades of green in that shawl are pretty strong. I’ll still implement an shoot around that theme another time. But the lavender theme just offered itself up after I visited today’s farmer’s market. A stop at the local bakery was supposed to yield an eclair but instead led to petit fours instead. I was actually hoping for a pain de chocolat (chocolate croissant) or a chausson aux pommes (apple turnovers), but those, and those lovely miniature pastries that they have in France are probably only found in French bakeries…

So there you have my French themed photoshoot. If you’ve liked the photographs, and would like to nominate me for the photography challenge, here’s more information. As to my photoshoots, I’ve tried to stage more photography  involving my Impavido shawl or the orange scarf that you’ve seen in my past Yarn Along posts, and those photographs came out nicely. And in the past I’ve also tried to be creative when photographing older projects with a little theme, using my iPhone or little Canon Ixus, and some of those have come out quite nicely. I’ll leave you with a little collage of those projects for today:

The projects are:

so gosh darn cute baby booties; shroom, shroom baby rattle

Hatched! Easter egg; Otto

Azzuro shawl; pocket owl

Little Robin; Bunny!