Saltwater Purls

Things that go 'ugh' in the night

Where have I been? Well life is getting a little busy around here. I am teaching a short course that began yesterday. Ihave been silver smithing (squeee! when can I find time to go into the studio again, I want to bezel EVERYTHING!). Spring is here and I have garden projects and before I disappeared into the garden I promised to help finish some house projects. Our modemhas not recovered from the power cut we had last week. And knitting has had its ups and downs. I do a bunch of my knitting in the middle of the night jiggling my baby back to sleep. It's not great on the wrists and light is terrible but I GET TO KNIT! When the light is so bad it is hard to tell how a project is turning out....

I really wanted to make the soft linen feather and fan cardigan in the recent Classic Elite Make It Modern booklet and I thought my Diakeito Diacosta would be perfect. Who knew all I would see would be a large yellow stripe? Secondly an all man-made fiber yarn is not suitable for lace as it doesn't block as well.

F&F cardigan redux. Using Louet Kidlin (Kid Mohair and Linen) Lace weight yarn....in black (killer on the eyes but I was being practical and as pretty as the orange was...I would never wear it).

New Camera....new looks

Guess who got her new camera....still trying to work out how to use it though. I  don't really like the 'out of the box' pictures, but as this camera is a different brand from the last (Cannon rather than Olympus), the interface is different and you know how great instruction manuals are...like how many different names can you come up with for picture resolution?

Adelaide, two months old. She smiles, she coos and her hair stands up on end.

One Ring to Bind...

I took my first silver smithing class last night at the Bead Gallery (what was Unearthed). What fun! I made a simple ring that I will adorn in the next class in a couple of weeks (I already have my star ruby chosen). So last night was just taking a silver band and soldering it, then sanding it. Look out everyone...no more necklaces, it'll be rings for birthdays and Xmases. Like a good stasher I have already started collecting cabochons and paraphernalia to put in silver jewelery. Still no camera....

Sticks and Stones

Continuing the series of images...I present stones, Strangely I like to capture them on film. These were doctored in photoshop like the fish. The first picture was taken in Kaikoura, New Zealand using my Pentax K1000. The second two were taken in Australia, south of Sydney using my Olympus.

On the knitting front, I have finished knitting Viktor but haven't sewn him up. I am on the last sleeve of loop-de-loop. And I started a number of new projects all of which appear somewhat disasterous. You'll see soon as I ordered a Cannon G9.

Decisions, decisions

I've narrowed my choice of camera down to an Olympus SP550 Ultrazoom (replacement variety) which has the advantage of being cheaper but the disadvantage of non rechargable batteries...or a Cannon G9 which comes highly recomended but is more expensive. Once upon a time you brought a camera for life, now electronics are not expected to last more than 5 yrs. My teaching computer now 6 yrs old will not support the most recent OS....gah.

On the knitting front I have almost finished viktor...I'll probably be blocking him tonight. I have run out of yarn for the smocked cardy...I thought I might, bu I ran out way earlier than I anticipated. Oh well it enabled me to get some more stash to fill my latest addiction...Rowan Tapestry...I don't like knitting it but I love the results.

Spring has arrived in Michigan and I have a beautiful display of Crocus, Scilla and Eranthis. You'll have to trust me on this however as I have no camera.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Blue Garter challenged her readers to blog photos that make them feel centered. I couldn't identify one particular photo so I decided to show you a series of my favourites. They will begin with classic photos I took with my trusty completely Pentax K1000 that never took a bad photo and end with my now defunct Olympus Camedia C5060. I can't decide whether to replace with a small and handy point and shoot or go for a digital SLR.

These were all taken with my K1000. The dead fish are all from the fish market in Marseilles and the koi are from the Golden Gate Park Japanese Garden. I then fooled with them in Photoshop turning them into 'paintings'. Click on the picturesto make them bigger if you'd like.

A new take on the Fox and the Hound

Sometimes I wish I had a little camera to capture images I pass on my daily travels like the day when I saw a cute sports car being towed with a large air conditioning unit punched through the bonnet/hood.... owww! That had to be a punch in the stomach for someone. But even if I had a camera I couldn't have captured this. We usually drive into work via a back route because we live near a school and 8am traffic is pretty bad. This morning as I was slowly driving through the quiet residential back route a fox raced across the road....leaping and skipping at high speed. We agreed it was a fox when a larger animal bounded in front of us at equal speed after the fox...a deer. My husband asked 'Do deer chase foxes?' and that friends is the big question to ponder today. I'm glad we slowed down for the fox otherwise the deer would have hit us.