30DOC: Photo-shoot

Nicky4 Comments

If you’ve read this blog within the last couple of months, you will know that in addition to puttering around and improving my craftiness, I’ve also been trying to improve my photography.  I started this series a couple months ago and have been paying attention to print and online images that I like the composition of.  I’ve also been visiting some photo blogs here (where I got the 30 days to improve series from) and this one.

I’m going to blushingly admit that there’s been some change in my picture taking.  I’m seeing things differently and I’ve been a little more adventurous (aka ignoring motorists who’ve yelled out and asked why I was taking pictures of the fence and the tree in front of my apt complex).  😀  I’ve also been taking advantage of the outside light instead of trying to create shots only in my apt.  My camera settings are not so foreign to me now and the more intuitive ones have been put to use without my having to refer so often to the manual.

Knitpicks recently had a sale and I went batcrap crazy!!!!  Yarn diet …err … what’s that?  Everything went out of the window and I got some fingering yarn (gotta get over my fear of lace) and sock yarn (le sigh … one day this wouldn’t frighten me so much).  So today, with the beautiful weather outside, I set up a make-shift studio on my fire escape.  😀    If you look at the pictures closely enough, you’ll see the fire escape bars showing through the image.  I’m going to play around with using some denim or some dark fabric before I lay out my white board. 

Despite that, I like the pictures I got from the photo-shoot.

Gloss Fingering in Guava

Felici sock yarn in Aquarium, Tiki and Tyrian Purple

Gloss Fingering in Masala and Doe

Chroma Fingering in New England (Discontinued)

Stroll Fingering in Scarlet and Ash

The Ridiculous Haul

(what?!!!!  Some people haul clothes and shoes, I now haul yarn) 😛


My Trunk of Gold!!!!

My camera worked hard today!!!!  We went up on chairs, balanced on my shaky ottoman,  hung out the window through my safety bars and we had to contend with the wind but things went well!!!  😀  Right now, I only have a point and shoot digital but I’m going to use it until there’s nothing else I can learn about it.  Then I probably upgrade to a DSLR camera.   Right now … Kandy’s going to be enough!!!  😀

I used the popular “instagramish”, 1960’s filter that’s around these days on pictures 2 – 6 and on the collage.  The first shot is as is from the camera and I’m glad I can control my shake (I hold my breath) and capture clearer details than I did before without using zoom or macro.   I know I’ve improved when I look at the Felici shot and the shot of the red yarn.  The red captured is exactly what it looks like in real life and I feel like I can knit the Felici yarn through the screen with the image being so clear.  The last shot is my favourite!!!  I played around with exposure and sharpness in the Picasa photo editing app.  It’s not perfect but I really like the resulting shot!!!

How about you, did any fun picture taking recently?

All images in this post are owned & copyrighted by Dnali (aka Nicolette B.)

30DOC: New Skills

Nicky5 Comments

With not much time left in June, I’m just going to pick some topics from this series and do them as I feel inclined.

Life itself is a learning experience and I believe opportunities to develop new skills — whether it’s personally, professionally or creatively — come to us everyday.

Would it surprise you if I said the person who knitted:

knitted

as recently as yesterday?

Although I know I knit them, they don’t even look like they both came from the same hand, especially in the order that they did come.  This, however is not an exaggeration or a trick.  I really did knit both pieces — doing the Feather and Fan lace sample a few months after I learned to knit and the green — I don’t know what you’d call that — yesterday.  What does all this have to do with learning a new skill?  Let me tell you.  🙂

If you’ve been on this blog long enough, you’ll hear me say often — I’m a slow knitter.  I’m learned to throw and my throwing method is the slower of the two alternatives.  That is, I release my right hand needle, move the yarn over the left needle with my hand (instead of flicking with my index finger) in order to create stitches.  

I finish stuff but not fast enough or let me say — not as fast as I’d like to.   To that end, I’ve decided to learn the continental method of knitting.  

The hand movements are precise and more efficient, resulting in faster knitting.   The purl stitch looks crazy, but I even tried that last night. 😀  If you look at the green swatch closely, between all the dropped and wrecked stitches, you can see a little teeny tiny bit of stockinette stitch peeping out in the middle of the sample.

Now some might say “what’s the big deal?  You can knit already, why go through this?  They might be right, but I want to do this for me.  I put it on the list of things I wanted to complete in knitting this year and I think by the end of summer’s dog days, I should have a rhythm and be able to do it faster, having beautifully finished pieces instead of a replica of that green monster above.  😀

That said, what are you?  Are you a thrower or a picker?