30 September 2011 · 4 Comments
Folks, have you looked at a calendar lately? I’m less than two weeks away from the book’s photoshoot. Do you have any idea how cool that is? Do you have any idea how nerve wracking that is? The balance between cool and nerve wracking shifts from moment to moment. To cope, I’m going into super organized mode (yes, scarily enough, it is actually possible to be more organized than I usually am).
As part of this organizational frenzy, I’m reblocking most everything for the book. Some of it had been folded up in the box, and those folds sort of took (it’s been humid, I shouldn’t be surprised). Since I like to totally soak things when I block them (none of this squirt bottle nonsense for me), it can take a while for things to dry. Hence the early start.
I’ve now discovered that I can block seven things at once with the props/pins/space available to me…three pairs of socks, two mitts, one hat, and one cowl. My office looks (and, ahem, smells) like a flock of wet and very colorful sheep went on a bender. Once these are dry I’ll be tagging them with their super special notes for the photoshoot and carefully laying them (flat) in the box I’m preparing for the big day.
28 September 2011 · 2 Comments
Some things in this world are simply true. It doesn’t matter if I remember them or not. It doesn’t matter if I like them or not. They just go right on being true in blatant disregard of how I think the world should work.
For instance, I am a big person, and I have giant freaky man hands. Also, it is rather challenging to take pictures of hands.
Given these two truths, it really shouldn’t surprise me that taking a picture of giant freaky man hands that 1) makes them look willowy and delicate 2) shows off the knitting they are wearing 3) is marginally interesting and 4) doesn’t show anything in the background you want to hide is flipping impossible. Especially if you’re trying to pull the whole thing off for three different projects in ten minutes.
So we’ll try again this weekend. But until then, mitts…without hands.
28 September 2011 · No Comments
Several things have happened at once.
- I’m home during daylight (not that rare).
- The Boy is home during daylight (much more rare).
- The weather is pleasant (quite unusual).
- I have finished knitwear to photograph (nearly unheard of).
The combination means that there is a very good chance that all three of the little fluffy mitts shown a week or so ago will be ready to show off in their final project photos in the next day or two. Which is excellent, because that means I’ll be able to start wearing them. Holding off on wearing perfectly good knitwear is rather taxing. I get the tiniest bit impatient (shocking I know).
26 September 2011 · 10 Comments
I’m meeting with the photographer for Book the Second on Thursday. We’ll be having a planning meeting, wandering the halls of our photo shoot location, and generally plotting how to make this book extra awesome.
I have my list of ‘things to ask’ and ‘things to insist upon.’ But I’m sure there’s something I’m overlooking. After all, this organize and execute a book thing is still new to me.
So here’s where you come in. I’ve got two questions for you.
First, what do you always wish you could tell the photographers of your knitting books? Is there something you love? Something you hate? Something that just bugs the crap out of you? Whatever it is, lay it on me. I can’t promise to do everything (because sometimes y’all give contradictory answers), but I can promise to read and think about all of your comments.
Second, do you have any favorite knitting photographers I should be flipping through for inspiration? I know (and love) Alexandra Grablewski, and would love to have names or sites for other folks I can look at and share with my photographer.
25 September 2011 · 2 Comments
We had always intended to use carpet tiles, or something like them, for that entrance. It seemed easier than taking up the linoleum.
The house and I have a slightly wary relationship. I like it. Love it even. And I admire it for sticking around for 91 years and counting. But I don’t trust it not to do something like spring a leak or develop holes or do something else equally dire. I’ve adopted a sort of respectful distance. I will fix problems. I will make considered cosmetic improvements. I will not go mucking about with perfectly good (read functional) things that don’t need to be changed.
Given this philosophy, tearing up the linoleum seemed unwise. It could be full of asbestos. It could be all that was holding the floor together. The tearing up could just piss the house off and drive it to do something dramatic four months from now (it will be snowy four months from now, the scope for drama is increased).
FLOR seemed a good choice. It didn’t require any holes in the house (one of the central tenets of my respectful distance philosophy). It doesn’t even stick to the floor…it just sort of holds on with gravity and friction. It seemed to fall on the side of reasonable cosmetic change. Even better, the website made it look easy and quick.
And it likely was a good choice. It was affordable, I was able to get it fitted to the space, and it looks good. It was not, however, quick or easy. Now to be fair, a big part of that was me and the space I was working in. The landing has lots of corners, lots of edges, and lots of fiddly spots. Even better, it has limited space to maneuver and poor lighting. Each and every tile required at least one cut, most more than that. Add in a few kitten supervisors and a very sharp knife, and I’m a bit scuffed around the edges. It took about three hours and my pajama pants may never be the same. But the floor looks good, and the house doesn’t seem to be pissed off enough to be plotting revenge.
And of course it’s nearly impossible to photograph. If you’re standing on it, you’re too close to see it through the camera. If you stand upstairs, you can only see part of it. If you stand downstairs, you don’t get any sense of perspective (but do get an excellent view of the dirt on my shoes). I know this isn’t great, but it will have to do.
I’m standing in the kitchen peering down the stairs. That’s the side door there and the milk door beside it (I love my milk door, the only thing cooler would be a dumbwaiter). All the way at the right you can just see the edge of a coat hanging from the row of hooks over there. We’ve got a little shoe rack (each of us keeps two pairs of shoes by the door, any more than that and it gets unruly). Levon is staring down into the basement waiting for someone to do something about the laundry pile down there.
Now as soon as my fingers heal, I promise I’ll come back with some actual knitting content.
23 September 2011 · 9 Comments
I’ve got a quick little freebie for you. We all know I’m shamefully easily amused. I have a suspicion one or two of you may suffer from this condition too. So I’ve written up some quick instructions for making your own squirm of tentacles. You can use more or less any yarn (each only takes a few yards), and you can bang several of them out in a night. They make excellent desk pets, they are highly entertaining when tucked around your house in unexpected places, and they are fearsome yarn guardians.
Make some of your own and see what they move you to do. All I ask is that you post a picture on ravelry if you find yourself inspired.
23 September 2011 · 1 Comment
So you know how you get one project done, and then you find yourself inspired to do something else…and something else…and something else? Yeah. Me too. Now sometimes that’s cool and leads to scads of productivity. But sometimes it leaves you sweaty bleeding and swearing on the floor.
I know I mentioned that we had the house painted (all done, looks good). Part of painting was getting as much stuff as possible out of the way so the painters had easy access to the house (why hello garage, you’re looking rather full). This meant coming to grips with one of our more shameful bouts of homeowner failure. You see, we have a side door. About two years ago, the side door’s screen door’s pneumatic canister thingy committed suicide. A few months later, the screen door handle joined his canister friend in death.
We, being responsible homeowners and competent adults, did the only reasonable thing. We held the screen door shut with industrial strength twist ties and just pretended that door didn’t exist. For two years. We are so awesome.
The door was so banged up that the painters couldn’t really work around it. So we took it down (a process which took all of 20 minutes…I have no idea why it took us two years. Of course we’ve not yet put a new one up, but we’re pretending that’s because the painters just finished up this week and we have to wait for the paint to cure.) But, we are now using the side door (by far the most convenient door given where we park).
And since we’re now using it, we wanted to make the side entrance nifty. It’s a tiny space (you come in on a little landing that’s about 7 by 3…there’s a half flight of stairs up to the kitchen on one side and another down to the basement on the other). We’d already painted it and lined it with hooks (about three months before the door offed itself and we stopped coming in that way). But the floor still needed some attention. For you see, it was ancient crumbly linoleum. Ancient crumbly brown linoleum. Ancient crumbly brown linoleum with mystery stains. It was not attractive.
So I ordered some FLOR carpet tiles…which I will tell you all about…as soon my fingers finish healing.
Older Entries
