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  • Spinning in the middle of the night…

    My life is going through one of those periods where I feel out of rhythm all the time. I’ve been travelling for work a lot – and while the shine hasn’t quite worn off on the idea that someone likes my photography so much they’ll fly me around instead of finding a perfectly suitable west coast photographer, I’ve got to confess I’m tired.

    My equipment weighs about 35 lbs, and when all your projects are in a small locale you walk everywhere. When the weather is good you might find yourself (as I did) shooting for 15 hours with only the slimmest of breaks for things like food. Because my work is weather dependant, sunny skies often put me in a state of mild panic when I’m working, feeling the pressure to get every shot in and make it perfect before the weather gods move on.

    Silly things start happening towards the end of such a day, like me splitting the crotch of my jeans wide open while trying to shimmy up a lamp post for a shot (luckily it was in the parking lot of a mall, so I repaired the problem post haste), my camera crapping out on me, and the discovery that I now talk to myself in public as I caught the fact that I was giving the camera a pep talk while petting it as though it were a dog and begging it to let me finish the shoot. I believe I even dangled the carrot of a sensor cleaning afterwards.

    Don’t get me wrong, I adore my job. I love to travel, I love to shoot, and I love the amount of knitting time that travel affords. I finished another colour affection shawl almost exclusively on planes and in airports, 2 weeks start to finish (of course, I can’t show you photos because I don’t have a camera). That’s pretty awesome, but it doesn’t take away the fact that I’m now sort of haggard looking, haven’t been to karate regularly, am feeling the stress of my camera being in the shop and have become an insomniac.

    So what do I do at 3 am? I spin. And even though my brain feels like spaghetti, I swear it’s getting better.

  • Proper FO shots – the Shattered Sun Shawl

    Ah, the joys of a willing and beautiful model for your knitting….

    Ravelry project page here:

  • Photo-Take-Outter Friday #14 – The Silky Water effect

    Have you ever seen a photo of water and wondered how they get the water to look so silky and smooth? The answer is a trick, all you need is a tripod and a DSLR or digital that lets you shoot in full manual.

    Set your camera on the tripod and set it to manual mode. If you have the ability, shoot in RAW.

    Here’s the trick; squeeze your aperture as far up as it will go. Remember, aperture numbers are like fractions; bigger numbers mean a smaller opening and you want the smallest you can get.

    Make sure your ISO is 100 or as low as it goes, so the camera doesn’t try to compensate for the tiny aperture.

    And now lower your shutter speed as far as you can without overexposing the shot – even in daylight you can often get up to a shutter speed as long as one second – especially if you’re working with a lens that lets you drop to, say, f32.

    And that’s it! You only need a second for the water to blur beautifully. If you can get more than a second then you can into some truly beautiful effects. Enjoy!

  • Just another shot…ZZzzzz…..

    Leaving for Toronto in the morning and I am tired, but thrilled with the work done today. I couldn’t have asked for better skies. I shot for a total of 15 hours, starting at 4:30 am. Here are 2 of my favourites from early this morning, of lovely Calgary :)

     

     

  • Just a shot of my beautiful city…

    Blogging from Calgary tonight, and feeling totally beat. It’s 12:30 am according to my body, and I’m getting up at 4:30 to shoot the blue hour. However, I am travelling and shooting and being paid to do my 2 favourite things, so I can hardly complain about being tired. Oh, and I got a new video tripod today that is just the bees knees, time to buy the wordpress video upgrade!

    In the meantime I leave you with a photo I took last night, from the roof of 20 Bay Street, of beautiful Toronto.

    Toronto

  • Goodies for Diabetics – Sugar Free Peanut Butter Cookies

    It’s been a while since I found a great diabetes recipe – but I had a craving for peanut butter cookies the other day, and wanted to make something sweet for my mom. These worked like a charm.

    They do contain Splenda, and I’m still searching for a great alternative to it, but the taste was completely awesome and no one in my ‘taste test crew’ could tell they were sugar-free.

    You will need:

    • 2 cups natural, smooth peanut butter
    • 2 cups granular splenda (or other granular, no-calorie sweetener)
    • 2 large eggs
    • 1.5 tsp vanilla extract.
    Directions:
    • Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease a cookie sheet.
    • Mix all ingredients together until well blended.
    • Make little balls about 1.5″ in diameter and drop them onto the cookie sheet, pressing lightly into the top of each one with the back of a fork to flatten.
    • Bake for 10-14 minutes or until centre is firm.

    Enjoy!

  • Upcycling and Reupholstery 101

    I’ve got two good-for-nothing, freeloading, overweight, unemployed, couch surfers who live with me, and who I love dearly. In other words, I’ve got cats. One of them (Shodan) is black and a real shedder. So when Tito and I bought our dining table chairs at IKEA it only made sense to get white seats, right?

    In short order, the chairs looked like something from our first apartment when furniture was something you found on the curb and brought home. I found myself going through lint removers faster than I did in my goth days when I wore nothing but black and owned a fluffy white dog. I was going to replace the chairs but then then that stubborn voice in my head screamed ‘Replace them ?!?! Are you crafty, or aren’t you!‘.

    Reupholstering a chair, it turns out, is super easy. I got some fabric I liked that was sort of canvas thickness, a pair of scissors and a staple gun. I took off the seats and used them to roughly measure out a square the size of the seat.

    Starting on one side I secured the fabric with a few staples, folding it just at the edge to give it more strength and stapling through both layers. Then I pulled the fabric snugly over the opposite side and secured it there as well.

    From there it’s a lot like gift wrapping – if you’re good at that you’re likely to be good at this too. I used the same techniques for making the edges nice and neat as I would use for wrapping a box. Any excess of fabric was folded tightly and secured with a staple – after all, it’s all on the bottom so it doesn’t need to look perfect.

    And voila! While I was at it I cut out a few large squares of black fabric as well, to serve as chair covers when we’re not home. Because I know who really owns those chairs…

    …and there is no way I’m keeping her off them.

  • The Versatile Blogger Award? Me? Aw, shucks…

    I’ve been nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award! It just makes me feel so warm and fuzzy it’s like rolling around in the yarn stash.

    According to the VBA Rules, here are the next steps:

    1. Add the award to your blog
    2. Thank the blogger who gave it to you
    3. Mention 7 random things about yourself
    4. List the rules
    5. Pass on the award to 15 bloggers
    6. Inform the 15 bloggers by commenting on their blogs

    Thank you Sandra, and Curls & Q!

    I have been nominated twice it seems, so a huge thank you to both Sandra and Curls & Q! The goal of this blog has always been to celebrate creativity and inspiration and it’s very wonderful to hear that I may have succeeded in some small part.

    Here is the link to Sandra’s blog, and here is Curls & Q. They are both super fun blogs and I definitely recommend checking them out!

    Share 7 facts about yourself:

    1. I’m a neat freak, except when it comes to the desk at my office. Then I’m an animal.
    2. I play guitar and I love to sing, though I’m not particularly good at either.
    3. I love to travel. I’ve shot 18 countries and 85 cities around the world. So far.
    4. I’m not just crafty, I’m a ninja – I’ve studied martial arts for 15 years.
    5. I believe that one day I will die from the failure to cultivate a healthy fear of either dogs or heights.
    6. I believe that every day, in every way, I can be just a little bit better.
    7. Of all my projects, I honestly think the Blue Brick Blog is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever made.

    Nominate 15 blogs/bloggers that I follow:

    1. The Yarn Harlot
    2. Tanis Fiber Arts
    3. Woo Work
    4. Regretsy
    5. Dragon Jools
    6. The Purl Bee
    7. Ohmygoodknits
    8. Jane Richmond
    9. Sweet Georgia Yarns
    10. MochiMochiLand 
    11. Curls & Q 
    12. Knitting to stay sane
    13. Dylan Dias
    14. Alaina Maboso’s Blog
    15. Never Not Knitting

    From crafts to fashion to commentary, these are the blogs I check out at least once a week, hope you find something in there that you love as much as I do ;)

  • Drop Spindles and Fluff

    Photo-Take-Outter Fridays have been thin lately… because I’ve been busy photo-take-outting. I’ve got a cool thing or two buried in the gigs and gigs of RAW files that are clogging up my mac. I’ve also been bouncing around on weird hours between the west coast and Toronto and let me tell you folks; When you live in Toronto, Vancouver should never be considered a day trip.

    Shall we talk about something else then? How about spinning? I took my first ever spinning class last Saturday afternoon at the Purple Purl. Our instructor was the wonderful Leslie Ordal who took us through getting the wool ready, thinning it out, spinning it and finally plying it into something that might resemble yarn if you closed one eye, squinted with the other, took some acid and had never seen yarn before.

    We learned the difference between roving and ‘top’ – this, to my surprise, is not roving. It’s much nicer.

    Tito took part in the spinning as well, to the amusement of his friends. Not surprisingly, he also turned out to be better at it. I know you’re thinking ‘what a good sport’ but really, he was interested in spinning before I was. True story.

    Leslie is a great instructor, laid back, friendly and patient. I’ll definitely be trying another class with her just as soon as I’ve got enough practice under my belt that my skeins don’t resemble sheep with dreadlocks.

    We bought some more (top? roving? let’s just say fluff…) I plan on getting much better at this before tackling these two lovely shades which I will ply together and knit a brag-worthy hat from someday.

    Here is the spindle that inspired me to start.

    Gifted to me by my penpal at the convent in Boston this ‘drop spindle’ is from the holy land. It’s a stick, with a nail through the top. Its got a skein of camel hair wound around it. The Bedouins in the desert have done it this way since time out of mind.

    As Leslie pointed out, spinning is ancient. Humans have been spinning for the entirety of civilization. Sticks and fluff and a couple of wooden knitting needles and you’ve got mittens. One of the reasons I love fibre arts is that it’s so low tech, which is refreshing when you work with computers all day.

    It’s like pottery that way – it’s an ancient art of simple tools that allow me to take something from lump of mud to delicate vase, and there is something deeply satisfying about that.

    At her suggestion, Tito and I are trying to spin for about 15 minutes a night.  It’s getting just a little better each time. It’s actually pretty relaxing and to my amazement,  the difference in skill is noticeable!

    Now… where on earth will I put a wheel?

  • TFA Colour KAL – the Neapolitan Ice Cream Shawl

    My TFA Colour KAL  project is finally finished, off the needles and I love it. I love it so much I’ve already cast on another one. The Pink Grapefruit turned out to be just the thing. Ravelry project page here:

    Colour Affection

    This is the Colour Affection shawl all done! Thank you to the lovely Jeanette for modelling it for me.

    Colour Affection

    I love the way these three colours come together. The only change I’m making on the next one is following the Yarn Harlot’s suggestion of adding a yarn over after the first stitch on every row and dropping it on the way back to give the edge some ease. Despite my best efforts, this one is a little tight.

    Colour Affection

    I hate it when I finally cast off a new shawl and it turns out to be way too small to actually wear as a shawl. It becomes a cute little neck warmer that leaves me feeling just a wee bit disappointed. Well, this shawl delivered and then some. It’s super snuggly and easy to wear at a whopping 8 feet by 16 inches after blocking.

    Colour Affection

    The garter stitch does feel endless at the end but it’s …. garter stitch. It’s mindless and fast and I even managed to whip off a few rows in a movie theatre. Honestly, 2 weeks start to finish and I’m not a fast knitter. I’ve already got another one in the works – this time combining 3 skeins (all of which had other plans initially but Oh Well) of precious Viola yarn:

    Colour Affection

    Selfish knitting on both fronts. Oh yes, I cannot bear to part with these babies. Not much can make me wish for winter weather in May… but this comes close!