ChristineMM's Creative Pursuits

Now It's Called Steampunk

2011-11-24T15:40:00.000-05:00

When I did more art experimenting and artist trading card swapping and crafting, there was a trend. There were Victorian themes and things like skeleton keys, padlocks, clocks, gears, wings, hinges, and doors. There were metal charms and stickers and rubber stamps showing these themes. Using antique ephemera in collage was popular. The look of distressed things, everything sepia, and using products and sandpaper to make something look old and worn out was popular. Alongside, nature themes were popular such as butterflies and bees and flowers.

Somewhere along the way something called steampunk started to happen. I knew this to be related to books such as the Leviathan series by Westerfeld.

While in Barnes & Noble yesterday I spotted two books highlighted in a display. One was about making steampunk jewelry and the other was about making little knitted stuffed dolls that are embellished with metal objects and calling them stempunk.

When I looked at the books what I saw was the same design element which was being used a lot in 2006-2009 when I was busy crafting. Only now, people are calling it steampunk. The designs include metal pieces, gears, keys, locks, and chains as well as wings, butterflies and bees. The metal pieces are combined with glass beads and metal beads and chains to make pins, rings, necklaces and bracelets. They are perhaps embellished a little more heavily rather than being dainty and "nice", to look a bit more confused and combined into nonsensical "objects" that never existed in real life.

In order to make jewelry, collage or art objects we followed basic directions but used the elements of our choosing. Now the directions are available but specifically instructing you to use this or that element that they feel is steampunk.

Well it's just surprising that what was popular five years ago is still popular today but with a new name and so it seems like a new fad. Or maybe the trend grew and it needed a name to keep it going? I find it all a bit odd, the naming of it and pretending it is something new, I mean.

I still like art with clocks and butterflies and keys. I'm just not sure that I like steampunk or that I need to call those things "steampunk style".

Well if you like steampunk, enjoy it, that's all that matters I guess!

Polymer Clay:

Knitting:

Autodesk Sketchbook Pro 2011 Software Review

2011-01-27T15:42:00.001-05:00

Autodesk Sketchbook Pro 2011 Software Review by ChristineMM

My Star Rating: 5 stars out of 5 = I Love It

Summary Statement: Fun and Easy for This Amateur Artist to Use

SKETCHBOOK PRO 2011 contains DVD two discs that can be used on either a Windows or Mac based computer. You do need a DVD drive to use it (three of our home computers don't have a DVD drive). You also need a mouse, that's all you need.

This is a fun program in which you manipulate the mouse to make art. Since I own and use Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 I note some of the controls are quite similar such as selecting the tool and opacity and working with layers.

To start, you just click on the type of medium you want to use (i.e. marker, pencil, paintbrush) then select the thickness, color, and opacity and you are off and running. The menu bar is in the corner and you can expand some of them if you find that easier.

I started fooling around with this without directions, since none came in a paper form and I'm a book person. However there are tutorial documents on the disc to help you. On a whim I used an internet search engine and found video tutorials from the manufacturer on YouTube. These helped me the most.

I am an amateur artist and enjoy this program. I let my kids test it out, they are aged 10 and 13 and both found it simple. They used the tools intuitively and found more features than I realized existed. They really liked the split screen mirror image tool and the one that repeats in the four quadrants what you do on the screen (imagine drawing with one line but seeing an image like a kaleidoscope).

Since I am new to making digital art, I realize there's a learning curve. While I can control a regular drawing pencil in my hand to sketch on paper, it's a completely different skill to use the mouse to replicate the same thing. It's an odd feeling to try to do something you know you can do with pencil and paper but struggle to make a smooth or straight line with the mouse as the tool. In the beginning it feels like a trick on the mind to use a mouse and see the medium you usually associate with a regular marker, paintbrush, or pencil making magic on the screen.

I have no compaints about this product.

As with any computer program or with any traditional art medium, what you get out of it depends both on what you want to do with it (translating your concept to reality) and also how much time you put into learning the skills, procedures and techniques necessary to get it to do what you want it to do. I'm a newbie and I find this program fun so far.

Disclosure: I received this item from the Amazon.com Vine program. I was not paid to write this review nor to blog it nor was I encouraged to write a favorable review. For my blog's full disclosure statement see the link at the top of my blog's sidebar.

Anime Studio Debut 7 Software Product Review by ChristineMM

2011-01-13T14:44:00.003-05:00

Anime Studio Debut 7 Software Product Review by ChristineMM

My Star Rating: 5 stars out of 5 = I Love It

Summary Statement: Inexpensive, a Bargain Really! Really Easy to Jump in with Beginner Mode

My sons are manga readers and anime watchers. They have been teaching themselves to draw manga using how-to art instruction books. They have enjoyed taking film-making classes doing live filmmaking and editing at a film center. The downside to those classes was they were taught to use very expensive professional software programs that we would never purchase for home use due to the high cost, so their live film-making adventures have been put on hold. Also the classes are too expensive for them to take year round, truly it would make more sense for them to do it on their own at home, however we don’t own any film editing computer software (yet). Meanwhile, they also wanted to dive into creating anime (cartoon) movies. I thought this software would be a good fit for them since it is compatible with our Windows-based home computer system. (This software is compatible with both Windows and Mac.)

The low price of this ANIME STUDIO 7 is a major draw. For about the price of one video game you can have this software that can provide a lot of entertainment that is creative (rather than passive entertainment like a video game is). The price of this program is less than what we paid for two hours of classes at the film center (read: dirt cheap).

Another important thing is this software has a beginner mode. It is so easy to use that anyone can dive right in and start using it. There is a quick start user manual in PDF format in the program that takes you step-by-step through the process to get up and running immediately. I tested this myself and found it easy to use. The tools and language are similar to photo editing software so if you know some of that this program seems easier to approach. The beginner mode was so simple that my ten year old used it all by himself. (I left him alone with the program as part of the product testing process.)

You will get out of this program what you put into it. If all a person wants to do is fool around in the beginner mode, that may be good enough for them. If they are willing to apply themselves and learn to use the technology more fully to create more in-depth and complicated anime, that capability is there. I was impressed to see that the software allowed importing of photos and audio files so the customization seems pretty impressive given the low price of this software. As with everything, to master a new skill, there is a learning curve and time and effort must be put in. How far someone takes their use of this program is up to them. The program can do a lot if you are willing to put in the time and energy to play, create and explore with it.

No additional equipment is needed, this program uses the computer and a mouse.

This mother of a tween son and a teenaged son who are both interested in creating anime at home is impressed with the ease of this use of this software and the low price. So far this is good enough for our family.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this software from Amazon.com as part of their Vine product review program. I was not paid to write this review. I was under no obligation to blog this review. I was not under obligation to give a favorable review.

Oral-b 1000 Professional Care 1000 Electric Toothbrush Product Review by ChristineMM

2011-01-13T13:59:00.000-05:00

Oral-b 1000 Professional Care 1000 Electric Toothbrush, White and Blue

My Star Rating: 1 star out of 5 = I Hate It

Summary Statement: Buy an Oral-B Smart-Series Instead!

As I've shared in previous reviews for Oral-B electric toothbrush products, one of the Oral-B "regular" electric toothbrushes (similar to this ORAL-B PROFESSIONAL 1000) made my teeth sensitive to the point of having pain. My dentist, who had praised the Oral-B toothbrush in the first place, diagnosed the Oral-B electric toothbrush as being to blame for taking the enamel off my teeth. This was a temporary condition that resolved on its own once I discontinued its use per the dentist's order. At that time under the dentist's direction, I went back to using a Sonicare electric toothbrush. However not much later, Oral-B came out with their first "SmartSeries" which has a special sensor that monitors if the user is pressing too hard on the teeth--this is indicated by reading the signals on an LCD display. My dentist then recommended the SMARTSERIES model.

My husband and two children have been using the [[ASIN:B002HWS9GG Oral-B Professional Care SmartSeries 5000 Rechargeable Toothbrush]] for a few years. We own two units because my kids have their own bathroom. They all like the SMARTSERIES 5000. I like that it helps teach my children just how much pressure is enough and when it is too much. The dentist and I feel this helps prevent damage to their enamel due to erroneous use of too much pressure.

After trying the ORAL-B 1000 PROFESSIONAL CARE electric toothbrush product I was reminded again that I'd rather not risk hurting the enamel on my teeth. I feel that the Oral-B seems very "hard" and puts a lot of pressure on my teeth compared to the Sonicare or hand brushing, I just don't like the sensation of the Oral-B 1000. I'm sticking with the Sonicare while my family will stick with the ORAL-B SMARTSERIES 5000.

I see that what the Oral-B 1000 series has going for it, is it's the lowest priced Oral-B electric toothbrush on the market . However you can find the [[ASIN:B002HWS9GG Oral-B Professional Care SmartSeries 5000 Rechargeable Toothbrush]]just 20-25% above the cost of the 1000 series. Spread over the 3-4 years or more that this will last it seems worth the expense to me!

I rate this product 1 star = I Hate It due to the fact that my dentist diagnosed enamel damage from a similar non-SmartSeries Oral-B model. Given that Oral-B offers an alternative that would prevent such accidental mis-use I just can’t recommend any other model produced by Oral-B.

THE ONE WE LIKE IS this model.

Disclosure: I received this item for review purposes from the Amazon.com Vine program. I was not under obligation to rate it favorably nor was I bound to blog my review. I did not get paid to write the review.

Happy with New Comb Binder Machine

2011-01-13T12:42:00.000-05:00

I received a comb binder machine from the Amazon.com Vine product review program. I have wanted one of these for years but was putting it off due to the cost. I wanted it so I could print e-books I purchase. Lately I am also buying knitting patterns and knitting books that are self-published. I plan to also comb bind some documents I create for our homeschooling such as log books to document my children's educational work completed.

I find staples sloppy. Pages get much more tattered and torn when they are not protected by thicker covers. I have been three hole punching papers and using 3 ring binders but often those are too large and bulky, and then the holes on the pages tear during normal use anyway.

The machine I own is the Fellowes Office Comb Binder Pulsar 300 and it is considered a middle of the line product. I wrote my review for Amazon.com's Vine program and published it on my other blog. The rules of my BlogHer account prohibit me from publishing that review on this blog so if you want to read my review click here to link to read it on my other blog.

Fellowes Office Comb Binder Pulsar 3000 Product Review by ChristineMM

2011-01-13T12:20:00.001-05:00

Fellowes Pulsar Office Comb Binder Product Review

My Star Rating: 5 stars out of 5 = I Love It

Summary Statement: Great - Easy for Binding Home-Printed e-Books and Our Family’s Personal Documents (Non-Electrric)

I wanted one of these for years and am thrilled with the FELLOWES OFFICE COMB BINDER PULSAR 300 which is more than adequate for our purposes. (This is not electric.) We are a homeschooling family. We purchase e-books for educational purposes, and I also buy e-book knitting pattern books. We need to have them in printed paper form. Now I can also create my own document booklets such as homeschool student assignment log books and have them neatly comb-bound.

Having a comb binding allows for durable front and back covers and allows for less ripping than when using staples or binder clips. I find the internal papers in three ring binders often tear. Usually even the one inch three hole punched binder is too wide and takes up too much space on the bookshelf.

This PULSAR 300 can punch 15 20 lb. paper sheets at one time. This device comes with a starter pack of 10 clear plastic covers, 10 thick paper back covers, and 10 combs (sizes: 5-6mm, 5-8mm). See my list below for comb sizes to page count so you can order the size you need at the same time that you purchase this device. I loved that there are comb size checker slots in the storage tray since the size of the comb is not printed on the combs and we need to know how many pages fits in the comb.

The PULSAR 300 is the middle of the line product by Fellowes, classified for ‘moderate’ use and binds 2-300 pages . Fellowes also makes the models Starlet 90 for ‘light use’ and the Quasar 500 for ‘regular’ use. I have not used those other models so I cannot do a side by side comparison. However I demonstrated this for my husband who has used a professional model at former employer (brand name unknown) and he said this Fellowes is far superior as that other one had only one handle. It required you to punch all the papers, put them to the side, and then assemble it at the end. More movement of papers allows for the holes to become misaligned and can take longer to do.

The directions are only 1.5 pages long and are pretty skimpy but this is not rocket science. You place the comb and open it with one handle. A different handle does the hole punching. The blades are inside so there is no risk of injury. I used it working from the back to front. I punched holes in the back cover, and moved it directly to the open comb. Then I punched the interior pages starting at the back, and I loaded them right onto the open comb. Then I did the same with the front cover. Then move the comb’s handle to close it, and it’s done!

Regarding size and storage:

The device is as large as a typical computer printer if you were thinking of keeping it out on your desk be forewarned you’ll need to have a fair amount of space. The device is deeper than my desk bookshelves so using those as storage when in use was not an option for me. The storage drawer extends out to the right side so you may need to move it around when in use (depending on the layout of your desk and what is to its right side). It is lightweight and I found it easy to move to a clear work surface.

CAUTION: If you load the extra combs into the comb tray then put it back in the box to store in a closet, it sits on its side and the combs dump out inside the device. This happened to me and then the tray got jammed when I tried to open it. I had to pick it up and shake it vigorously while someone else kept the tray from flying out to rectify this situation. I was happy the combs didn’t get wrecked in the process. If you plan to keep this stored on its side in the box, I suggest putting the combs in a large zip top plastic bag instead of keeping them in the storage drawer.

The comb sizes go with these page counts (using 20 lb. paper):

6 mm = 2-20 pages

8 mm = 21-40

10 mm = 41-55

12 mm = 56-90

16 mm = 91-120

18 mm = 121-150

22 mm = 151-180

25 mm = 181-200

32 mm = 201-240

38 mm = 241-340

I’m happy to finally own a comb binder and look forward to reducing my use of staples, binder clips and three hole punched paper in (often too-large and too-bulky) binders. This is simple to use and my sons (aged 10 and 13) asked to give it a try and were able to use it with ease.

Disclosure: I received this item from Amazon.com for the purpose of writing a Vine review on Amazon.com. I was under no obligation to rate it favorably or blog about it. I was not paid to write or blog this review.

Which Two Do You Like the Best?

2010-11-05T16:36:00.000-04:00

Japanese Barberry in November 11/14/09

November Sunset 11/15/09

Sun Through Early Morning Fog 6/23/10

Witch Hazel #1 10/26/10

Forest Floor Yellows 10/26/10

Witch Hazel #2 10/26/10

(it's supposed to be oriented horizontally but having a technical difficulty)

Wild Black Cherry in October #1 10/26/10

Wild Black Cherry in October #2 10/26/10

Witch Hazel in October #3 10/26/10

The Grapevine Won 11/15/09

All photos copyright ChristineMM. None have been digitally altered and no special camera effects were used.

Disclosure Statement for My Blogs

2009-12-01T19:49:00.002-05:00

Disclosure Statement for My Blogs

To comply with the Federal Trade Commission’s Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials 16 CFR Part 255 I share the following information, prepared December 1, 2009.

This disclosure applies to both of my blogs:

thethinkingmother.blogspot.com

Christinemmatcs.blogspot.com

I publish my blog posts on blogger.com under the pen name ChristineMM.

BlogHerAds

For The Thinking Mother blog only, I am a member of BlogHerAds. One ad for BlogHer appears in my blog’s sidebar. I receive monetary payment not based on the content published on my blog but for showing their ads in my blog’s sidebar. BlogHerAds has strict rules regarding the content I publish on my blog and I am bound by contract to adhere to their rules. For example, I am prohibited from posting any reviews for which I’ve been paid money to write. I am prohibited from blogging a review of any product or service valued at over $40 which I have received free for the purpose of using to write the review. At the present I am not allowed to host “blog book tours” or give-away’s for promotional contests with product supplied to me by a third party (i.e. a book publisher or a publicist). For more information about the BlogHerAds policies, see their website.

If I prepare a review that violates the BlogHerAds agreement it will either not be published by me on any of my blogs or it may appear on my second blog which is not bound by the BlogHerAds contract: christinemmatcs.blogspot.com.

Other Ads

My blog does not accept other advertising, such as being paid by a company to show a specific ad in my sidebar, even though this practice is common in the blogosphere.

Amazon Associates Program

Since the fourth quarter of 2005, I have been an Amazon Associate. Purchases made through Amazon affiliate links on this both of my blogs (listed above) yield a small referral fee. This applies to all purchases made on Amazon regardless of whether the product the consumer purchased was mentioned by me or not. The consumer’s purchases are confidential; I don’t know who has purchased items using my blog’s Amazon Associate links.

Amazon Vine Product Review Program

Since mid-2007, I have been a member of the Amazon Vine review program. Amazon.com invited me to participate in this program. If I so desire, I may select a certain number of products per month (usually a maximum of 4) from a list that Amazon.com offers me. I may choose to not receive any product or I may leave the program at any time. I do not receive monetary payment for participating with this program. The product received is either a small sample size (i.e. one can of beverage or one granola bar) or a demo copy (scaled down copy of the real product i.e. DJ Hero video game). Books are usually in the form of an ARC or bound galley and many times are not the same edition of the book that a consumer would buy. These products are not owned by me, they are owned by Amazon and per the agreement I must return them to Amazon.com if asked to. I can submit reviews to Amazon.com which are clearly marked as Amazon Vine reviews. I do not have to review these products but in order to be eligible to receive more product I must maintain a 75% review level. I publish these reviews on my blog ONLY if doing so does not violate the terms of agreement I have with BlogHerAds. All of my Amazon Vine reviews are clearly marked as such on both Amazon.com. I am not persuaded to only write favorable reviews, Amazon.com encourages our honest opinions and asks us only to comply with their review policy (i.e. no use of profanity and some other general etiquette guidelines to encourage professionalism).

Not all of the Amazon Vine reviews I write are published on one or both of my blogs.

To be clear, my review arrangement with Amazon Vine is for reviews published on Amazon.com and clearly marked as being Amazon Vine reviews. Any reviews I wrote for Amazon Vine that I choose to also publish on either or both of my blogs is done of my own free will and was not published on my blog(s) at the request of Amazon.com. I receive no compensation for any Amazon Vine review that also appears on my blog(s).

See “Amazon Associates” section for more information.

Amazon Customer Reviews

Since 1997 I have been submitting customer reviews to Amazon.com. May Amazon customer name is ChristineMM. I receive no compensation from Amazon.com for writing these reviews. Since starting my blogs I sometimes publish the reviews on my blog(s) also. These blog post reviews are items are either purchased by me with my own money or borrowed from a public library or borrowed from a friend, unless they fall into one of the other categories mentioned in this disclosure statement. The source of the product will be mentioned in each blog post.

See “Amazon Associates” for more information.

Library Thing Early Reviewers Program

Occasionally I request and receive an ARC, review copy or a promotional copy of a book from the LibaryThing.com Early Reviewer program. My LibraryThing account name is ChristineMM. I receive no compensation for participating in this program. I am not bound to write the review and am not persuaded to write only favorable reviews either. If I do review it, the review appears on LibaryThing.com. I may choose to also publish the review on my blog. The source of the book will be clearly noted on those blogged reviews.

See “Amazon Associates” for more information.

ARCs, review copies, promotional copies from other sources

Occasionally I will accept ARCs, review copies, and promotional copies from authors, publishers or publicists. As of 2009 this is not something I frequently do. I am not bound by contract to write these reviews nor do I receive compensation for doing so. Some of these reviews are published on my blog while some wind up never being reviewed (as in the case of a bad book that I couldn’t manage to finish reading). These blogged reviews will be clearly marked with their source.

See “Amazon Associates” for more information.

Other Reviews and Comments Made on My Blog

Since starting my blogs I sometimes publish reviews on my blog(s) or mention various products on my blog which are all relevant to the topics discussed on my blog, mainly, parenting, homeschooling, education, art, crafts, handcrafts, photography, gardening, housekeeping, cooking, baking, nonfiction books for self-education and fiction pleasure reading. I sometimes review a product I own and love or discuss a movie I watched or own a copy of.

These are items are either purchased by me with my own money or have been borrowed from a public library or borrowed from a friend, unless they fall into one of the above categories, in which case they will be clearly marked as to their source. Sometimes I may discuss a product I would like to buy but have not yet purchased or consumed. I do not receive any compensation from any source for mentioning these products on my blog such as the publisher or the product manufacturer.

See “Amazon Associates” for more information.

Prepared by ChristineMM, published 12/01/09 7:45 pm EST.

DJ Hero Video Game Review

2009-10-27T19:24:00.001-04:00

Product Name: DJ Hero for xBox360

My Summary Statement: A Review From a Mom of Tweens -- We Like It!

My rating: 4 stars out of 5 = I Like It

Note: The Amazon Vine program provided me with a demo kit which had 4 songs (not 93 that is on the full game) and a wired turntable (the regular product’s turntable is wireless), so my review is based on limited game play.

Parents, note that the ERSB rating is T = Teen for lyrics and "mild suggestive themes". Since my demo kit has so few songs I can't comment on the song lyrics. Product information also states ERSB rating does not apply to additional downloads.

Our family uses the xBox360 and we own and use three different Guitar Hero (GH) games and own two GH guitars.

We don’t normally listen to mixed music or hip hop but my kids and I still had fun with this game. Not only do the kids think the sound of the mixed and scratched music is fun, we like that the songs are from a variety of music genres that they already know with some new-to-my-kids (but not new to me) songs. The full game has dance, pop, rock and hip hop. The songs include some classic rock and the songs are from the 1960s to present.

The games can be played solo with one turntable that comes in the bundle pack, or with two turntables (which requires an additional purchase). The second player can also use their GH guitar so by using DJ Hero you can inject fresh song tracks to your GH game play. Also if one person (friend or family member) prefers GH to DJ Hero in the end they can still play a two player game together using DJ Hero. The kids are already asking me to buy a second turntable and the full game with 93 songs.

Because our family plays video games together as a family and because visiting kids often play with my kids, everyone in our family is most interested in games that are flexible and are multi-player. DJ Hero fits that bill.

From a mom’s perspective, I’ll share how my two kids and I liked it to give you an idea of how different players of different ages experience the game. One of my sons is a natural at Guitar Hero (and also has been playing a real guitar for almost a year). He wanted to play with DJ Hero as it was something new and different. He took to DJ Hero immediately and found it fun (not frustrating at all). My other son doesn’t do so well with GH and avoids playing it was interested in DJ Hero. He is doing great with DJ Hero and was surprised to find Guitar Hero so challenging for hand/eye coordination with the GH guitar, but finds DJ Hero’s turntable easy and fun (and has no problem doing complex moves on other xBox360 games with the normal controller). Both kids laugh and talk while they play, so far no anger or frustration!

I tested the product and found some challenges with the turntable that my kids didn’t find to be an issue. Most problematic for me is I can’t find a good place to put the turntable so it is comfortable that is also a steady, non-slipping surface. The design doesn’t have enough grippers on its legs so it slides around easily. When I sat on the hardwood floor and placed the unit on the floor in front of me my back cramps up from bending over and down to reach the turntable plus was looking up toward the TV. The floor is not the most comfortable place to sit either and my legs fell asleep in the middle of some songs. I tried putting it on my lap and that didn’t work as it slides around. Losing contact with the buttons messes up the game’s whole score and was frustrating for me. (I am curious how others are positioning the turntable and how they can keep it from sliding around.)

Perhaps the best idea would be to sit on a chair or couch and use a coffee table for the turntable surface (I can’t test this because the wire is not long enough on my demo kit, the normal product is wireless). Sitting on the front of a chair and leaning forward may not be so comfortable and definitely not for long periods of time, and I still worry about the slipping of the turntable. If the whole bottom surface had a rubber bottom or something similar (like a skin) you could sit back with your knees angled up or sit flat and use your lap but the current design is too slippery to allow that.

You are basically tensed up during the game play with much less freedom of movement than any other xBox360 game requires. I don’t know how this can be remedied; I’m just stating a fact. Both the guitar for the Guitar Hero and the regular controller are much more flexible with one’s position, standing, sitting upright, or lounging back, and with the ability to move around during game play to use whichever is most comfortable at the moment is a big advantage over the turntable whose design is just challenging due to the nature of its design. Maybe players who like to be able to move around or shift position during game play may not like those restrictions on their physical movement.

As for what is on the screen, as with GH and Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) the player must focus on their section of the screen that shows their moves. Others in the room can watch the background images which are bright and ever-moving, just like those in GH and DDR of crowds, dancers, and with DJs.

In summary the game is fun for both solo and multi-players, so I’m rating it 4 stars = I Like It. The reason for not getting 5 stars is due to the challenge of the turntable sliding around and the difficulty with finding a comfortable way to sit that allows for proper game play.

Disclosure: I did not receive any payment to write this review. This demo kit was provided to me by the Amazon Vine review program. My demo game has 4 songs on it, not 93 and is not sold in stores. My wired turntable is not sold in stores (a wireless, better version is). The retail value of this demo kit is $0 and I am prohibited from reselling it.

Technorati Tags: DJ Hero review, DJ Hero , DJ Hero xbox360.

Visions of America Book Review by ChristineMM

2009-08-26T09:41:00.002-04:00

Title: Visions of America
Author/Photographer: Joseph Sohm
Publication: Visons of America, 2009

Author and self-proclaimed Photo Historian Joseph Sohm has spent over thirty years traveling across America taking photographs. At some point the travel photography journey turned into a more of a quest with a goal to capture in photographed images, the idea of what democracy is and expanded to include visits and photographs of all fifty states. As a self-employed photographer without access to press credentials, Sohm has had to work hard to gain access to locations and politicians to succeed in capturing the wide range of content which he felt was imperative to the project (such as access to photograph Presidents).

I learned about this book by seeing Sohm on CSPAN's BookTV discussing the book. In his lecture, I enjoyed hearing stories behind some of the photos of his passion for photography and his patriotism for America. However I mistakenly assumed the book was ONLY a coffee table book of photography.

I loved seeing the high quality photography and the large number of photographs that should go without saying. But what surprised me about VISIONS OF AMERICA once I had it in my hands, was that it is filled with essay stories by Sohm.

Sohm's passion for America, his pride in being an American citizen and his wealth of knowledge about United States history was clearly apparent. I was so entranced by Sohm's words right from the first story that I decided to not peek at the photographs in the future pages, and instead read the book cover to cover, slowly taking in each image as I read the stories in the order the author intended to reveal his literal 'visions of America'. The images so closely tie in with the stories and the finely crafted chapters that reading it in its entirety and in order seemed the most respectful and best way to approach this book. Of the storytelling I will say that the stories are just right, not overdone, are full of passion (not exaggerated) and seem so sincere.

This winds up being anything but a generic compilation of color photographs of the United States of America, there are surely a number of those types of coffee table books on the market already, good only for their photographs. This book is different and SUPERIOR because it tells a story not just in the images selected in the chapter groupings, painting a picture of America's past and present but it is a collection of stories that reads like a travel journal and also like a memoir. The historical content gives a bit of nonfiction history book flavor to the book as well. Additionally there is a fair amount of discussion of the challenges of taking good photographs and the quest and hard work trying to get a great shot so that photographers who like to read about the photographer’s artistic process will enjoy that element of Sohm's stories as well.

The book is without strong political bias but I detect hints which were not troublesome to me. The books contain images of Presidents. Sohm was hired to photograph President Clinton and so that is the time period when the bulk of his Presidential photographs were taken and the book is heavier on the Presidents post 1992. There are images of the Bush's and a couple of now President Obama, taken close to the publication date. The hot button issue of global warming found its way into the book with the author seeming very worried about it (he's clearly not a validity of the issue doubter). A chapter features some photos of some abuse of the Earth by humans (pollution, garbage dumps and so forth) as a bit of a call to action to treat our planet more gently.

Patriotic Americans will love this book. This is a great book for families too, being a wonderful photographic introduction to our United States of America. If my eleven year old son was any indication, kids will enjoy hearing some of the stories too (he loved the story of the difficulty in getting a clear shot of Mt. Rushmore, when a man in an orange jacket was standing right on Lincoln's head, ruining an otherwise perfect shot).

This is also a great book for public libraries.

This is a great coffee table book for casual flipping for people of all ages, but readers should do themselves a favor and take the time to read through the book cover to cover to savor it to its fullest.

I can't recommend this book highly enough! It is a beautiful book, very high quality paper and printing with stunning color photography with very good storytelling.

Bravo Joseph Sohm and thank you for sharing your Magnum Opus with us!

External Links

Author's official website, see samples from the book

Watch author lecture on CSPAN's BookTV

Technorati Tags: Visions of America, Visions of America book review, Joseph Sohm, photography America, U.S. History.

Word of Promise Next Generation New Testament by ChristineMM

2009-06-07T21:18:00.003-04:00

Title: Word of Promise Next Generation New Testament
Genre: Bible, New Testament Dramatization for Children
ISBN-13: 978-1400313273
Full Retail Price: $49.99

My Rating: 2 stars = “I Don’t Like It”

Summary Statement: Mismatched Actor Emotions to What is Being Said, Bad Music Match to Content

I delayed in publishing this review because my opinion dissents from the majority. After discussing this with some other Christian parents they implored me to share my honest thoughts. I was also feeling guilty to share a negative review of a Bible product, to be honest.

I had high hopes for this as I wanted to hear a dramatized version of the New Testament for my own entertainment and information. I had hoped to share it with my tween-aged kids and the idea of them liking it enough to listen to it voluntarily appealed to me greatly.

I think this dramatization is of poor quality, not sound quality but it is a poor translation with a bare minimum of “dramatization”. It is more like an audio book being read aloud with a music track running at the same time. There are not enough sound effects to flesh out the scenes appropriately. In a scene with a crowd there is just music then a few voices at the end. In a scene with a boat there was music then a few lapping waves. Big deal.

I found it weird and distracting that a lot of the time the music track was not the same emotion or pace as what was being said. A serious scene should not have ‘happy and light’ music. The emotions were mismatched. Some of the music is classical type and others seems more of the new age-meditation type music.

The worst thing of all was the voice of Jesus Christ. This ruined the whole thing for me and caused me to give up listening to this a couple of times. There was only one tone to his voice, a monotone kind of hippie Kumbaya voice. To be blunt he sounded like he was high on drugs, mellowed out. In scenes where Jesus says things in anger, the voice was not angry. In scenes where a faster paced voice or a louder voice or a commanding voice was appropriate, the same monotone voice, quiet and calm was used. It was very strange and distracting with a tone one imagines someone saying “peace brother, God is Love”.

I had to keep playing some sections over and over as I was so distracted by the mismatch of emotion or the music that I had missed the content of what was said.

When my kids saw the box they were excited as they recognized many faces and names from the Disney channel shows. However they would have trouble following this as they are used to high quality recordings of audio books from Recorded Books publisher. This is not up to their standards.

As an example of what I think is a high quality dramatized product for children, I have read all the Chronicles of Narnia paper books, heard all the Recorded Books produced audio books and then heard the Focus on the Family Radio Theatre dramatized version of all the books (ISBN 978-1589971493). And I’ve seen the two movies that have been released in the last few years. That dramatization by Focus on the Family is a great example of the way a very good book can be adapted into an excellent dramatization by use of voices talking to each other with appropriate emotion with a small amount of narration and lots of sound effects (not simply reading the book aloud with mainly music in the background and a few sound effects thrown in here and there).

For my children and myself, I think I will find an audio book version of the New Testament and Old Testament with a high quality reader (even if it was produced for an adult audience), and scratch the idea of a dramatization or something special geared toward kids.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this product from the Amazon Vine product review program.

Technorati Tags: Word of Promise review, Word of Promise , New Testament dramazation.

Considering Shutting This Blog Down

2008-12-19T10:41:00.004-05:00

I have been posting my creative pursuits and thoughts on creativity and children over at my main blog, The Thinking Mother.

More and more this blog is just a double posting of some of the posts I do over on the main blog.

I am going to taper down posting here I think.

Luxury Yarn One Skein Wonders Book Review by ChristineMM

2008-12-18T13:49:00.001-05:00

Title: Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders: 101 Small Indulgences
Edited by: Judith Durant
Genre: Nonfiction, Knitting
Publication: Storey Publishing, 2008
Format: Softcover Book
ISBN: 9781603420792
Full Retail Price: $18.95

My Rating: 5 stars out of 5 (I love it!)

Summary Statement: Inspirational, Lovely Projects, Mostly for Intermediate or Advanced Knitters

This is the third in the “one skein wonder” series, featuring 101 projects made of luxury yarns. As with all books in this series the finished projects are shown in full-color photographs in a gallery in the front of the book. The chapters that follow are divided by yarn weight. This format allows for two options of skimming: you can browse through all projects with a certain weight yarn that you may want to work with, or you can skim through the photographs to find a project that catches your eye as the starting point.

The yarns featured in this book are: silk and silk blends, cashmere, alpaca and alpaca blends, soy, qiviut (arctic musk ox), bison, and corn. Some ‘ecofriendly fibers’ are featured: bamboo, flax, linen, organic cotton and organic wool.

Since luxury yarns are expensive, it is a great idea to have access to projects that can be made with just one skein. It is apparent that the designers tried to get the most and best use from each yarn, giving luxury yarns a project that would show off their unique beauty, or take advantage of the softest fibers to use it in ways that we can appreciate the sensual nature against our skin, such as a very soft scarf or a hat for a baby or an adult. The super fine weight yarns have been made into lovely lacey objects.

It seems to me that most of the projects are for the intermediate or advanced knitter. I feel this is due to the types of complex stitching used to either make a lovely lacey shawl or scarf or perhaps to make the one skein stretch to the largest size thing possible, as with the case with some of the scarves made more for show than warmth, and with an airy baby cap. There are gloves, socks, vests and baby sweaters which are projects or stitches for knitters with more skill than a beginner has.

While at first I was a bit disappointed there were not more easy projects for beginners, after reading through the book a few times I came to realize that this is probably due to wanting to use an expensive and luxurious yarn in the most appropriate way to ‘honor it’, if you will, by matching its cost and level of luxuriousness to a finished project that will really show it off. One would not want to waste an expensive and fancy yarn on a basic garter stitch scarf or a simple ribbed hat, typical beginner knitting projects. Also some of the yarns are delicate and would not hold up to some of the easier to knit projects that might get hard wear and be ruined in a short amount of time.

I love the book because the designers have provided a variety of projects ranging from wearable items for babies to adults to home decor that make good and an appropriate use of the expensive luxury yarns. I am a beginner knitter and feel I’m not yet ready to knit most of these projects. I am inspired by this book to continue learning new knitting techniques and to try knitting with more delicate yarns. This book let me see that I have a lot of options for types of yarn to work with in the future.

As a beginner knitter for one-skein projects I can, for now, use the two other books in this series as I continue to learn. I have skimmed through those two books and highly recommend them too.

Knitters who love to fill their shelves with books that inspire them would like to own this book. Knitters who like to do small projects or who are looking for good projects to make gifts would like this. This is also a good book for a public library to have in their collection.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from the Amazon Vine program for the purpose of writing a review for Amazon Vine at Amazon.com.

Technorati Tags: Luxury Yarn One Skein Wonders, Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders, Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders book review, knitting luxury yarns, knitting.

A Rite of Passage?

2008-12-16T20:44:00.003-05:00

I think I have gone through a knitter's rite of passage.

I was knitting along well with my sweater, working on the body. I tried it on and was shocked at how wide it seemed, but since not a lot was done on it, I kept going.

Then I tried it on when I reached 11 inches of body. It was short at that point, almost like a crop top. It looked too wide and was still too short. I decided to knit more, so I knitted almost another skein. I thought at that point that even if it was a bit wide if it was longer almost like a tunic then the wideness would not matter. I tried it on last night.

It looks terrible. Not my knitted stitches, but the shape. It is just way too wide. For once I was wishing I was larger, fatter, so that it would fit me well! Honestly, if I finish this I'd never wear it.

Don't worry, I'm not depressed about it. A bit deflated, yes, but not even angry.

The directions said to cast on 1/4 the amount of stitches in the sleeve for the underarm. It was 80 stitches and I figured 20 was way too many, so I just cast on 12. The more I knitted the body, the wider it got, which was odd as my stitches were not increasing. Each underarm cast on area added three inches to each side of the body. Back when this was just a yoke, it draped and went almost tightly over my shoulders and bust.

And the bulky Lopi yarn doesn't drape to go against my body, it is stiff and kind of stays 'out', larger than my body. It lies almost flat as if it were ironed, it is that stiff. It would have been warm to wear. This is knit on #8 needles and the stitches are pretty tight.

If I did finish knitting this I would have invested $64 (plus tax) on the yarn. I got it all on sale. I was thinking of finishing it just to have it done, even if I never wore it. However I am too practical, so, I think this will wind up frogged.

Again, I'm not angry. I consider this a learning experience.

And now I feel like I'm part of the club of beginner knitters who took the time and energy to knit a sweater that is utterly un-wearable.

I'm going to slow down on big projects and try to knit a scarf for my mother-in-law. I bought a funky yarn that is hard to knit with because it is a combination of stiff thread, beads, and mohair wool. It tangles and snags. I have started a scarf and frogged it ten times, at least.

After Christmas I will tackle this project again.

Talent and Skill

2008-12-10T06:00:00.003-05:00

Mental Multivitamin blogged some good quotes from a book called "Talent is Overrated: What Really Supports World-Class Performers From Everybody Else".

The ideas of this author may surprise you if you believe people are born with a natural talent whose mastery with the art or craft comes easily and quickly.

Now I want to read this book!

So many good ideas to learn about, so little time to read all the books I want to read!

Thank You for Your Amazon Purchases

2008-12-09T11:41:00.000-05:00

Thank you to all my blog readers who purchase items through my blog's links.

After you link through everything and anything you put into your shopping cart and then finalize the order within 24 hours means I make a commission on the entire sale. Your purchases are confidential so I don't know who is buying what.

The nickels and dimes add up to dollars as the month goes on, thanks to those of you who make purchases through my blog. THANK YOU!

My commissions are paid in Amazon gift cards which I use to buy materials to homeschool my kids or for my children's or my own life enrichment and pleasure. Often I'm buying things for my children but sometimes I splurge on something for myself, like a book about learning to knit.

Amazon also gives commissions to me for gift card purchases. In case you are considering buying gift cards for Amazon please consider clicking through the link. I'll put the link here and I'm adding it to my blog's sidebar today also.

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas!

Top Down Raglan Sweater Update

2008-12-09T09:50:00.002-05:00

Short update: I think I am on the right road with my top down raglan sweater knitting.

I am knitting in the in-between times and while watching (listening) to TV before bed. In the last two days, I have knitted six inches of the body so far. I figured out I'm knitting 100 yards in knit stitch in four hours.

Last night I spent a full four hours knitting, while a passenger in a car to and from a meeting, knitted during the meeting, and before I went to bed, and I knitted up one full skein of yarn.

Sorry I don't have a photo downloaded yet, when I do I will share it.

Block Play

2008-12-09T09:19:00.002-05:00

If...

1. They have blocks available

2. They have space to build structures

3. They have limited screen time

4. They have time to play

Then...

They will build with wooden blocks.

Even at ages 11 and 8.

It is true.

It is not baby play, as they grow older their constructions get more imaginative, more complex, and sometimes more structurally precarious and engineering-physics-boundary-testing.

Younger son's creation (using imagination for a pretend building inspired by the LEGO catalog)--

Older son still loves symmetry (sorry Blogger turned it sideways...)--

Older son's creation (pretty complicated, more about testing limits and being elaborate than pretend worlds at this stage)--

Technorati Tags: block play, unit blocks, construction toys, children and creativity, children and play.

Feeling Stupid

2008-12-07T12:07:00.004-05:00

I am really hitting a wall with knitting a top-down raglan sweater.

I am at an all time high with feeling like a complete stupid person, a total idiot.

I know that in the beginning it was a good exercise for this homeschooling mom to learn something new. It is good to struggle because it reminds me of what kids feel like when learning something new. Being a homeschooling mom it is good for me to feel like what my kids must sometimes feel like, it keeps me in check so my expectations of them are not too high.

Regarding this sweater I am stuck on the part when the yoke is done and when I need to knit down the body then down the sleeves. I cannot at all understand the directions in this book I'm using which is not written for beginners. A major problem is I don't understand what to do by the steps, if I did I could tell myself not to need to understand WHY I am doing it but just do it and see how it unfolds. But since I can't understand WHAT to do I tried understanding what it is that needs to be done so that I could then approach it from that perspective. Not working.

I also have a feeling once I get this that I will not understand why the written directions were not making sense. But honestly they are not making sense to me right now.

I have the yoke tied off on four pieces of waste yarn. Each sleeve is tied off and the front is one and the back is the other. It fits me well.

I can't understand the method of cast-on the book says to do and I don't understand either what I am casting on for or where. Is the cast on for the sleeve? For the body? Why do I have the cast on anyway? In other words where does my needle go first, do I put the sleeve stitches on the needle then cast on then knit? None of this makes sense to me.

I am completely confused.

Last week I would have gone for the first time to a knitting guild meeting but it conflicted with Boy Scouts and I was being trained for a new volunteer job (small) that I am taking on. This week I can't go either as it is the Court of Honor and my son is earning a new rank. I am going to go to the meeting in ten days time and see if someone can help me.

I went to a local yarn shop for the first time looking for a new yarn. I had been told by two people they are super friendly there. Well they basically had no yarn that coordinated at all. They were nice but man, they had no stock. I was hugely disappointed. The shop's size was tiny and there were too many shoppers so I couldn't get to see all the yarn. Then people were just standing in front of yarn talking with their friend and relatives who were shopping with them and not even looking at yarn and preventing me from shopping. I left buying nothing.

I went to another local yarn shop and they do a sweater class for $150. That is how it is around here, nothing is for free, no help, you have to wait to take a class. That is the same shop that in the first week of July told me I'd have to wait for September to pay to take a class to learn to knit socks. At least another shop locally told me they'd do a private one hour lesson for $25 practically at my convenience. And at another shop out of state the shop worker gave me a private sock making lesson for free, she insisted on it, right then and there, in between helping other customers. Now that is customer service!

I spent an hour at Barnes & Noble yesterday. It was educator discount day so I went looking for a good book that teaches knitting sweaters from top down. I figured if that was all the book was about they'd teach it from a beginner's viewpoint and have good illustrations. And I'd buy the book from them too. No such luck. I found one book and the major focus was on seeing how fancy one can get with that method and there were tons of patters for sweaters with fancy stitches that I feel like I'll never be able to do. The book's directions were poor and mostly were abbreviations in patterns not for a beginner at all.

I have spent now about three hours on Google, You Tube, and Ravelry trying to find the information. So far I have found two posts from people stuck exactly like I am. I contacted one on Ravelry and despite something like 8 months having passed she has given up on it and is soon going to frog it. She never got the answer to her question. Another knitter got an answer that made sense from somone. I printed it off last night and tried doing that and it didn't work.

Another issue is that in other sets of directions some patterns do not call for casting on new stitches at all. They just say "pick up and knit". I also found one online pattern where the person knits the sleeves by themselves and then grafts them onto the sweater in the end. So one challenge is there are all different kinds of ways of doing this, I guess, so other descriptions of how to do it don't match my pattern.

It takes me a long time, about 30 minutes for some reason, to put stitches back on the circular needle from the waste yarn. I did that then I realized the yarn to knit with was on the OTHER side and useless. Now I will have to take this off and put the other side on the needle, I guess.

The good news on the sweater is that I finally found a new yarn for the main color at a local yarn shop. I bought 10 skeins of that dye lot to make the sweater with. So that task was accomplished. I knit four or five rows of the main color for the bottom of the yoke and it does look nice when put together for the sweater.

The bad news on the sweater beyond me being stuck is that one sleeve is 4 stitches wider, so I'll have to remedy that. And somehow the back is 101 stiches and the front is 95 stitches. More evidence of my imperfection!

I thought I had a better picture of this yoke but now can't find it. Maybe it is on the other digital camera and not yet downloaded. Yet another project.

So for now I'll show you my progress on my first sweater, this was taken on 11/26/08.

I could phone my friend who taught me to knit but honestly I'm feeling a bit embarrassed to call her again. She helped me already once with phone counseling about this sweater. I know she is busy and I feel too much like a pain in the butt to phone her.

I've started asking around to others if they've made a top down raglan. So far, no luck, the knitters all say they have not done it yet. One mom even told me yesterday she can't learn any knitting from reading written instructions and she can't read patterns so she doesn't even try. I refuse to not try.

I'm a persistent person. I want to work on this sweater. I don't just want it for a finished product. I want to get back to enjoying knitting it. I bought the yarn and I want to use it, darn it. I'm ready, willing and able.

Maybe later I'll give it another whirl by just winging it.

Update: My Knitting Angel read this post and phoned me with instructions. She completely understood the writing in the book's pattern and re-phrased it in a dumbed down format for my newbie knitter brain. I plan to work on it today. Now it seems ridiculously simple, what I am to do. Stay tuned.

Robot Dreams Book Review by ChristineMM

2008-11-29T12:27:00.000-05:00

Title: Robot Dreams
Author: Sara Varon
Genre: Graphic Novel, children, wordless
Format: softcover books
ISBN: 9781596431089

Rating: 5 stars out of 5
Summary Statement: Touching Story, Wordless

Book review by ChristineMM

Robot Dreams is a sweet tale told in comic book style. It is a wordless book. The sweet and innocent nature of this book allows it to be enjoyed by very young children yet the message and story can be enjoyed and appreciated by adults.

The story takes place over thirteen month’s time and the plot is very much associated with the changing seasons. It is a story of friendship between a dog (living and acting as a human) who buys a robot kit and assembles his new robot friend. When the robot rusts and stiffens while at the beach, trouble ensues.

I can’t give the story away so I’ll have to stop with the story summary at this point. The ending was surprising and very much not what I thought would happen.

The take away message for me was that friendships are important and the good memories can live on in our hearts even if due to various circumstances, friends become separated and they go off in different directions.

I’m not sure if all young children will get that same message from the book.

My eleven year old son who is a robot-lover and graphic book lover really enjoyed this book.

My younger son, aged eight, read it and enjoyed it.

I read it and loved it. Due to the nature of the story and despite the characters being male, I think girls might like the story itself, if they are graphic novel lovers. The story may be too juvenile for teens unless they are specifically interested in the storytelling form of the graphic novel.

The book also has an educational component if someone wishes to use it in that way. Teachers could use this to show how a story is built and how the trajectory builds up as the book goes on. Since it is wordless it can be consumed in a short time frame making it easy to teach from. Art teachers could use this as an example of the graphic novel format and to help teach student about drawing comics or using the graphic novel format. It could also be used as writing prompt for writing composition. Students could try to write a chapter of the story using the book as the source material. I am planning to use this book in those ways with my homeschooled children.

I am a lover of books and the written word, however the more I read graphic novels of a different type than Superhero-based action stories, the more I am coming to appreciate the art form and the difficulty of communicating a storyline in purely visual format for the wordless graphic novels, and also for those with far less words than ‘text only’ books. It takes a special talent to be able to portray in all visuals, a complete and touching story. Sara Varon has succeeded with her story Robot Dreams.

While the value of traditional books will never fade, I do hope that the graphic novel genre continues to grow with high quality stories artfully told.

How I Came to Read This Book: I found it on the shelf at a local Barnes & Noble and due to its cost I decided to borrow it from the public library. However we love it so much I may buy it and use it in our homeschooling. After I read it I heard Amy of the Creative Mom Podcast, in episode #113, review and recommend it.

Technorati Tags: Robot Dreams, Robot Dreams book review, Sara Varon, teaching comic book art, teaching writing composition.

Winter's Coming

2008-11-25T13:20:00.001-05:00

It is getting cold!

Photo taken by ChristineMM on November 23, 2008, in Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Slow Going on Knitting My First Sweater

2008-11-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

My knitting feels like it has come to a standstill.

For the last two weeks I have been trying to knit a sweater.

I have been working on gauge swatches. I realized that yarn #1 for contrasting color will not work. I don't like how it is coming out. And it is a thinner yarn than what I'll use for the main color.

I decided to use a Noro yarn I already have on hand. I believe I own enough (one 100 gram skein) but even if I run out and need more a local yarn shop has more in that dye lot. I chose the yarn that I used to make my hat and scarf. So this sweater will have a 'faux fair isle' band of that same yarn. The bottom of the sweater will be a natural color. That means the sweater will look great with the hat and scarf.

I have done two swatches with the main color.

I just finished the gauge swatch with the new contrasting color.

I am really not enjoying this part of the process. As a consequence I have not been knitting in public. I've been reading a lot and brining books with me everywhere. I have been busy and doing a lot of appointments outside the home or else busy at home doing homeschooling lessons, cooking and cleaning. Also my husband was away for business so I was the 'single mom' living 24/7 with my kids. I have barely been watching any TV so no knitting is happening while in front of the TV.

I miss knitting. I want a project that I can just pick up and work on.

I am beginning to think that this sweater will never happen and that just to get knitting again I should go back to hats.

I'm not feeling so fulfilled as a knitter right now...

Must Have This

2008-11-19T13:01:00.004-05:00

After seeing this video preview of "An Illustrated Life" compiled by Danny Gregory I realized I must have this book. Must own. Must read. Must refer to. Must enjoy.

The book is being released on December 16, 2008 and is available for pre-order through Amazon now.

Hat Tip: R. from CMPCircle referred me to this blog.

More About Danny Gregory

Danny Gregory's webpage

Danny Gregory's Podcast Archive

Looking West

2008-11-19T09:10:00.001-05:00

View from the front of my house looking west.

The rain and winds have brought down nearly all the leaves, almost in one fell swoop. My eyes are getting used to the new look of the landscape. It always seems other-worldly when the transition from lush green leaves, to wild colored foliage, sometimes too harsh for the eyes, to this.

The bare trees with their fine details, reveal differences between tree species. In my yard, the tall oaks dominate, so obviously dominating the other trees.

Why did I take this photo? The color of the clouds caught my eye. Blue skies with puffy clouds, white on the edges and deepening to dark gray in the center, complicated by the sun setting and the new sky filled with branches not foliage. That's why. Sometimes what I see cannot be captured well by my camera, but it is worth a try anyway. I never know if the viewer of my photos sees the same things as I do and I'm not sure if that matters anyway. What is more important is my seeing it, my appreciating the beauty in nature and small things seen, the fun of the process of photography, that is what matters, the seeing and the process. The final product is different and is not as important as the process itself.

Make It From Scratch Blog Carnival #90 Has Been Published

2008-11-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

The Make It From Scratch Blog Carnival #90 was published on today at A Bit of Flour. Check it out and get inspired to make something from scratch.

Consider submitting to this blog carnival if you make things from scratch. It can be anything from cooking and baking to sewing and crafts.

Red Leaves Falling

2008-11-16T12:55:00.001-05:00

I couldn't resist snapping this photo of this gorgeous tree with its red leaves falling, on a Saturday afternoon. It had rained steadily for about 24 hours and the tree went from being intact the prior day, to this.

Less than 48 hours after I snapped this photo, I saw this tree again, every leaf was off the tree and the red leaves on the ground had turned brownish, and the homeowner had spent time the day before (a Sunday) raking up the leaves.

This is a good example of why stopping to snap a photo when you see something you want to remember is a good idea. Beauty is fleeting and we never know how long what we see will remain that way.

Photo taken by ChristineMM in November 2008 in the Tashua section of Trumbull, Fairfield County, Connecticut.

PJs!

2008-11-15T15:53:00.001-05:00

Younger son and I collaborated on making a pair of pajama pants for him to wear. We finished pair #1 the other day. I was teaching myself using a book and he was learning right alongside me.

I found the book "Buckles and Bobbins" at a homeschooling conference. It is written to teach boys to machine sew and includes 'boyish' patterns.

The pants ended up too large for my son, so I'll be tweaking the pattern to customize them, for pairs #2-6. Making those is on my "to do" list. My son wants to use the sewing machine by himself. I let him do a little on this first pair. As we work on the rest of the pairs together I plan to have him do more and more of the work, all of it, not just the machine sewing part.

Below is a photo of his idea to help me. When I was getting pieces mixed up of which was which of the four parts to cut out, he used Post-It notes to label them. Hooray for creative thinking on the fly!

My sons both got to see me struggle to learn to make these pants. While doing this I had to teach myself to do all the basic stuff to the machine from winding the bobbin, fixing tangled up thread, replacing the needle, so on and so forth. I think I experienced every kind of error and problem that can happen when machine sewing and I resolved them all, calmly and without tears. It is good for kids to see that adults struggle to learn also.

In case you're wondering I'm making these from scratch because I can't find decent PJ pants made of cotton. Also I hate that chemical flame retardant that the federal government mandates be on children's pajamas.

Rain on Leaves

2008-11-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

The heavy and steady rain with the winds the other day brought down a lot of leaves.

Photo by ChristineMM taken near my home in Fairfield County, Connecticut on November 8, 2008.

Losing Its Color

2008-11-13T07:11:00.001-05:00

Photo of a burning bush taken by ChristineMM near my home on November 8, 2008, in Fairfield County, Connecticut.

Finished PJ #1

2008-11-09T08:22:00.003-05:00

Last night my younger son and I finished PJ pant #1.

I was so excited. Well after putting in the elastic per the directions he put them on and I realized I would have to cut off about 5 inches of fabric from the bottom before hemming it. So I did that.

In the end I was so psyched!

Then he put them on and we realized:

1. the ankles are giganticly-wide
2. the waist is too loose and they fall right down as he walks
3. they are still too long

It looks like for pair #2 I will have to modify the book's pattern to be something else that will fit him better.

I feel like this is an experiment in progress.

The good news is that the sewing is going well. I have successfully problem-solved a few issues, wound a new bobbin, changed a needle, put the presser foot back on, and other basics. I'm getting more confident with the sewing machine and that is a good thing.

After the digital photos are downloaded I'll share some photos...

Sewing Pajamas for My Son

2008-11-07T21:09:00.002-05:00

My worst fear in life is machine sewing. I am not kidding.

I have had a hard time finding decent cotton flannel pajamas for my younger son (age 8) that are not coated in horrid chemicals to make them flame retardant. I understand that it is a federal law to have such a chemical on the PJs. Actually most boys PJ pants are made of 100% polyester. When my son wears one pair he has of those he has a nightmare and/or wets the bed every time. Hmmm.

Also in general for some weird reason, I just can't find PJ pants for my son anywhere. Old Navy staff tell me they are a seasonal item only sold at Christmas time. Interesting. After going to six different stores I gave up and decided to sew PJs pants for my son.

Oh boy.

A few weeks ago I got up the courage to buy the fabric.

Days later I read the pattern. I'm actually using a book that is intended to be used with boys, children and teen boys to teach them beginning sewing and it includes patterns boyish things for them to make.

I re-read the directions on another day. Trying to get my courage up.

I then cut one piece out. Got worried and stashed it. Got busy with Halloween prep. Put it off for a week.

Today my younger son begged me to get to work on it. I knew I didn't have the right elastic but knew I could do all but that. So I launched in. I had three panicky calls to my mother asking for help. The first one included a statement, "I think I am too stupid to learn to sew as I just can't understand what they are saying to do".

I am a person who learns by reading very easily. However I have huge issues with directions for things in writing that are three dimensional and I do with materials and my hands. I can't convert text directions easily to 3D objects. For example the basic instructions for how to set up and use the sewing machine is very difficult for me to understand. Sometimes the directions of things get mixed around like it say counter clockwise but I swear the thing I have to do is clockwise. Tonight my husband insisted that to turn it that way indeed is counterclockwise. Well I thought there was a typo in the instructions.

Okay I'll stop complaining. I did everything on pair #1 of the PJs except the elastic band. And I didn't cry or break down or stomp around, yell or swear. Younger son helped me a little including doing the pressing (he loves to iron with supervision).

Tomorrow I need to buy the elastic band I need. I'll check length and tweak the pattern before I sew pairs #2-6. Yes I am making 6 pairs in total for that son.

Oh, and I did buy the cotton flannel on sale for $5.99 per yard. Despite that savings I'll share that each pair will cost $15 in flannel and $1 in elastic band. So it is not a big savings, as Old Navy's PJ pants are $15 per pair and the ones at The Gap are $19.50. As someone told me, home sewing of clothes is no bargain anymore.

For the record, this is one project I'm doing just for the final PRODUCT and this is not about PROCESS for me, not this sewing!!

I can't wait to go knit and try to relax!

Started My First Sweater

2008-11-07T20:56:00.002-05:00

I finished frogging my third sweater. I had about a week of knitting nothing. No projects in process.

Last night I bit the bullet and decided to start my first sweater. I picked the Faux Fair Isle Raglan in Shannon Okey's book "Spin to Knit".

(I am loving this book so much I think I'm going to have to just buy it, I've renewed my library copy once already and think I may be due to renew it again!)

I chose a hand wool spun yarn (no name on it) that I picked up at a vendor booth (with no name on it) at the New York Sheep and Wool Festival last month. The colored part around the neck is shades of pink and rose. The rest of the sweater will be a natural color. That is from Wild Apple Hill Farm Ltd out of Hudson New York, and I picked it up at the same festival. This yarn was a bargain at $5 for a 210 yard, 4 ounce skein, it is a bulky wool.

My only worry is that the handspun wool for the accent color looks to be a narrower yarn. I don't know how to address that.

I am doing my first ever swatch to check gauge. Tonight I will finish the main color swatch and will begin a swatch for the accent color.

Whenever both are done I'll wash them and block them and see how it all turns out.

I am using the book "Knitting Rules" to help me understand how to check gauge.

I will confess to feeling quite nervous about this endeavor. My worst fear is that after the sweater is done it won't fit me or will look terrible on me.

I also don't understand the stitch k1f&b in continental. I have spent over 30 minutes on the Internet looking for a video that shows how to do the stitch through the back with continental stitch. So far all I have found is that stitch in American. I'll deal with that later, for now I have swatching on my mind.

Make It From Scratch Blog Carnival #88 Has Been Published

2008-11-04T10:16:00.001-05:00

The Make It From Scratch Blog Carnival #88 was published on today at A Bit of Flour. Check it out and get inspired to make something from scratch.

Consider submitting to this blog carnival if you make things from scratch. It can be anything from cooking and baking to sewing and crafts.

Gratitude

2008-11-02T20:40:00.001-05:00

Scenes like this are all around me. These pretty sights are so common here they are often unnoticed by most people including me. There is beauty in the architecture of an old church building. I appreciate also that the building is old and the special place that religion had in the settlement of Connecticut.

I am trying to take notice of sights like this, to appreciate them. I feel grateful for the beauty all around me which is there just waiting to be noticed.

I made my husband stop the car so I could snap this shot. So often as I'm driving or the passenget I see a sight and think, "The light is lovely shining through those leaves, I would love a photo to remember it" but I often don't stop to take that photo. Often I regret that later.

I'm glad I snapped this one.

This church is in South Britain, Southbury, Connecticut on Route 172. Photo taken on October 26, 2008 by ChristineMM.

Rip It Good!

2008-11-02T06:21:00.003-05:00

I have no current knitting projects.

The focus now is on frogging thrift store sweaters. Last month I did one cashmere sweater. I finished the second cashmere sweater last night. I then began ripping a bulky cream colored wool sweater last night.

My older son loves to help me. He likes ripping out the stitches. I've been winding them around a Sterlite plastic bin that is about 12x18 inches in size.

Today while out I'm going to buy a clothes drying rack as we don't own one and I've improvised in the past. I will use this to dry sweaters that I've washed, to dry wet pieces of machine felted or hand felted wool, and to hang skeins of frogged recycled yarn on to dry.

I've not washed or hung the recycled yarn yet as I have no where to hang it.

I've been taking photos and after will share the before, during and after shots.

Our Yard in October

2008-10-30T07:00:00.000-04:00

Here are some photos from our yard on what I feel was the peak fall foliage day in my area.

This year the foliage has been long lasting, due to the fact that we had many rain-less days and hardly any wind. We've had moderate, sunny calm days and cold nights . That is a recipe for long-lasting bright fall foliage. The burnt oranges, browns and purples came out after the nights dropped close to freezing.

All photos taken by ChristineMM on October 12, 2008 in Fairfield Couny, Connecticut.

Knitted a Green Hat for Me

2008-10-29T10:22:00.007-04:00

I finished this hat in the car at night, with the little reading light on. I was so happy that I had my husband take this photo of me wearing the finished hat, even though it was late and I was exhausted. This is not the most flattering photo of me by any means.

I purchased this handpainted wool yarn and the mohair boucle from a vendor, Handmade in the Hills, at the New York Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck New York on October 19. I started the hat on October 20th and finished it on October 25, 2008.

The yarn was a complete impulse buy after seeing the vendor's booth which really struck me as pure eye candy. I just had to buy something from them as I felt so inspired by the gorgeous handpainted yarns!

The hat was inspired by a hat that the vendor, Handmade in the Hills had on display. Deb Schildt's display hat had a wavy look to the yarn. I asked which yarn it was that looked that way and she said that it was two strands together. I had already picked out the base yarn and she helped me select a complimentary color mohair boucle. I was trying not to just buy yarn that didn't have a planned project. I was wearing my green-tealish colored wool toggle coat at the Festival and these colors were lovely with the coat. So right then and there I hatched the idea to knit a hat to match that coat, because I have no hat (or scarf or mittens) to go with that coat and usually wear plain black ones because that is what I already owned.

This was the first time that I knit using two strands together. It was also my first time knitting with boucle which I found slow going and annoying. My needles would often catch in the little circles and pull in a not-good way.

The hat pattern is the same as the other two I made for women, it is from a book called "Spin to Knit" by Shannon Okey and is the "Power Station Hat" on page 89. Although most of the stitches in the hat itself are up to the knitter becuase the pattern says to basically make up the stitches as you go and to change it every inch to inch and a half, then to start decreasing when it reaches a certain height.

With the leftover yarn I hope to knit mittens. I was thinking of using the boucle as an accent at the wrists or something like that.

Gauge! Gauge! I Get It Already!

2008-10-29T09:59:00.003-04:00

I finished my third hat using the same pattern. The pattern was written for hand spun wool.

I thought by substituting it with an Aran store bought factory made yarn would be alright. That yarn is said to be knitted on #9 needles. The first hat I made using that pattern and #9 with Noro Kochoran is large. It is also loose. My husband says it gives it a classy look. It is supposed to be more of a tight winter hat but it is baggy and has a bit of a shape to it. It is not supposed to look that way.

For hat #2 with same pattern and another Aran yarn by Noro (Iro) I downsized to #8 needles. I thought the length was okay but when it was done, it fit like a tight winter hat and my earlobes are exposed.

For hat #3 I used a worsted weight handpainted wool yarn by a cottage industry from Pennsylvania. I also knit in two strands, the second being a mohair boucle with #8 needles. The result is a tightly knit winter hat that is tight to my head and does cover my ears. This is the tightest hat so far.

I have come to the conclusion that this is a gauge issue.

I am a non-conformist and resent being told in a pattern which exact yarn to use. I want to pick the yarn I want and then find a look I like and have it turn out right. I've been reading "Knitting Rules" by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. The chapter on gauge has been eye-opening. Now I just need to be sure to use a pattern that explains the gauge and to knit a swatch and figure it out from there.

This is on my mind as I contemplate jumping in to knit my first sweater. I have all the yarn ready to go (purchased at the New York Sheep and Wool Festival a couple of weeks ago).

Make It From Scratch Blog Carnival #86 Has Been Published

2008-10-27T17:50:00.001-04:00

The Make It From Scratch Blog Carnival #86 was published on October 21 at Heaven’s Homemaking Haven. Check it out and get inspired to make something from scratch.

Consider submitting to this blog carnival if you make things from scratch. It can be anything from cooking and baking to sewing and crafts.

Good Advice

2008-10-26T19:29:00.000-04:00

This goes along with my word of the year, "content".

I thought of this recent post at Mental Multivitamin when I saw this old mug at a thrift shop the other day.

I had never heard this diddy sung by Burle Ives until I saw the link at the MMV blog, it was released before my time. However I could not get this song out of my head for days after hearing it just once.

Love It

2008-10-26T11:46:00.001-04:00

Notes by Mo Willems made while listening to a lecture.

I loved hearing Mo Willems speak at the Rabbit Hill Festival of Literature yesterday.

A Hat for a Friend (or I May Keep It If She Remains Too Busy To Connect With Me!)

2008-10-20T21:26:00.007-04:00

I purchased two skeins of Noro Iro colorway 41, it is 75% wool and 25% silk. The main color is black with strands of blues, browns and some pink. (Later I realized there is a good amount of purple in it also.)

I bought the skeins with the intent of making at least a hat for myself and possibly a scarf and mittens. I have a black ski jacket and also a long black dress coat. I had hoped that the hat made of this yarn would be warm to wear when sledding with the kids in my sporty coat and nice enough looking to wear with my nice dress coat.

Then I got the idea to use this yarn to make a hat for my friend as a birthday gift first. I can always make my own hat later if I wanted one!

I decided to fashion the hat based on the same pattern that I made my Noro Kochoran hat, using the general pattern found in "Spin to Knit" by Shannon Okey. Since my Noro Kochoran hat with #9 needles was loose I decided to make this one using #8 needles and see how it panned out. I would have liked this one just a bit longer as it doesn't quite cover my earlobes. It fits much snugger than the hat I knit with #9 needles. (Of course I have no clue how this will fit my friend!)

As I began to knit I realized that just when the ribbing at the edge was done, the color variagation was changing. The general gist of this hat is to make up your stitches as you go along, doing an inch or so of one stitch/pattern before changing it to whatever you feel like doing until it is time to start the decreases.

As I knitted I decided to make the switches where the color changes. So this looks a bit like a striped hat but truly it is one variagated yarn. I also loved how the top was coming out with the crown being all shades of dark blue, going to pure black.

It is hard to capture the essence of Noro yarns with photographs. Below is one photo with the flash on and one with the flash off. I'm trying my best to capture this yarn's beauty...

I started this hat on October 15 and finished it on October 16, 2008. I took a little more than four hours to knit.

Some of my notes on the yarn are:

I worry this is a bit too scratchy for a scarf. After loving the softness of the Noro Kochoran scarf and hat that I made (Kochoran has angora in it), I don't think I'd want this Noro Iro next to my neck, even though it LOOKS great. However if I want some kind of set perhaps some mittens of this Noro Iro, especially if I line them with something softer, would be GREAT.

After working with the Noro Kochoran with the angora in it this felt more stiff and scratchy.

One of my favorite things about working with Noro yarns is just watching and appreciating the beauty of the unique strands of color, as the variagation changes, it can't really be described. I didn't know this about knitting until I started knitting myself, that part of the fun is just handling the yarn as I work with it and really enjoying the beauty of the yarn as I watch it change. For this sheer aesthetic appreciation I don't know if I'd like working with a very plain, flat color! I'm getting spoiled by working with such lucious yarns!

Technorati Tags: Noro Iro, Noro Kochoran colorway 41, Noro hat.

Woodsy Hat for Younger Son

2008-10-20T20:52:00.004-04:00

Here is the latest knitted finished project of mine.

Younger son with his new hat, watching a llama and alpaca show at the 2008 New York Sheep and Wool Festival.

Younger son wearing the hat, happily watching a presentation with live reptiles at the Festival.

Younger son complained that the wool hat (Lopi bulky yarn) that I knit for him is too scratchy. The main intent of having the wool hat was to wear at his outdoor six hour long class where he hikes all day. I wanted wool because I knew of wool's warmth properties and that it also breathes when the person is hot, and that when wet it is still warm. I figured wool was best for warmth all around. It also was to be used when on Cub Scout camping trips especially when in cold weather and they need to wear a comfortable and warm hat to bed.

I already had this acrylic yarn on hand. I purchased it in August with this project in mind. The yarn S.R. Kertzer Northern, worsted. It is variagated and is a bit of a forest type camoflauge versus old militray green camo or desert military camo. The story with this yarn is I was in a local yarn shop looking for a camo yarn in wool and the shop owner talked me into buying this yarn as she said that acrylic would be good enough for young boys mostly as all kids, teenagers and even adults who don't fully appreciate hand-knit gifts from loved ones or friends, some of whom wreck said hand-knitted gifts. I was swayed by the opinionated woman (you would not believe the rest of our exchange if I told you, she was so brutal that my husband was upset by her, he was with me you see, and he thought I should have chosen to refuse to patronize her store, but I did, as I was out of state on vacation and desperate for yarn to knit with and thought I'd start the hat that very week ), so I bought it. Thinking back, I don't know why I had not brought back to mind the base fact that I wanted wool for its warmth for the hats for my boys and stated that to the shopowner to get her off my back about buying this acrylic yarn.

This was my first experience knitting with acrylic and I didn't enjoy it. It slipped and slid on my bamboo needles like wool never has, for me. I had a hard time keeping the row of stitches from twisting as I worked. Also my needle kept splitting the yarn and then it would fray and I'd have to deal with backtracking the needle to fix that and it just was sloppy to work with. I also had a had time with the tension. And acrylic yarn is so stiff and unforgiving!

I decided to use the 'pattern' that I used for my own hat. That is, after casting on, knitting a one inch rib with K2, P2. Then making up whatever stitch you want for about an inch, then changing it, so on and so forth. I winged it and did whatever I felt like doing until it was time to start decreasing for the crown.

I began this hat last Friday night and finished it on Saturday night. It took less than four hours for me to make. I knitted as my younger son and I watched two movies.

My younger son loves the hat so much he went to bed wearing it on Saturday night and wore it all day Sunday at the New York Sheep and Wool Festival even when it was warm and sunny enough to no longer require the wearning of a hat!

Technorati Tags: knitted hat, S.R. Kertzer Northern .

My First Knitted Scarf

2008-10-20T20:34:00.008-04:00

Last week I knitted my first scarf. It is to match my hat. It is knitted with Noro Kochoran colorway 31 dye lot D2. This blend is 50% wool, 30% angora, and 20% silk.

I modified a pattern used in the book "Spin to Knit: The Knitter's Guide to Making Yarn" by Shannon Okey. The original scarf in the book casted on 200 stitches and used different yarns to make long vertical stripes in garter stitch. So what I decided to do was cast on 200 stitches with a #8 needle (I use circulars) and to use this yarn which is variagated so it would have the effect of the long stripes rather than short stripes going the other direction, which seems to be a more common scarf design technique. I started by knitting up the rest of the leftover yarn from that first skein that the hat came from then added in the next new skein when that ran out. I kept going in garter stitch until the scarf was almost 5 inches wide. I stopped when I got worried that the skein may run out. So with two skeins of this Noro Kochoran I made the hat and this scarf with a little bit of yarn left over.

The scarf is super soft and it is so warm! I love it!

Because this scarf is only using the knit stitch, cast on and binding off, this is a PERFECT project for a beginner knitter.

Technorati Tags: Noro Kochoran, Noro Kochoran colorway 31, Noro scarf.

Started a Kids Hat with Acrylic Yarn

2008-10-18T18:40:00.003-04:00

Last night I began knitting a hat for my son in an acrylic yarn. I continued on it today while I sat in a meeting and I will continue it tonight while I watch a movie.

A local yarn shop talked me into using acrylic for hats for kids as the shopkeeper said the kids never appreciate handmade stuff and it gets wrecked.

I don't want to sound like a yarn snob but I am really NOT enjoying this.

The yarn is splitting, meaning that when I move the needles I accidentially split the yarn. I have to remove the needle and restart. The yarn is so inflexibile that it is so much different than wool yarn to work with. I find it stiff and hard to hold. Also for some reason it is slipping all over my bamboo needles and I am having a hard time holding the stitches in place to prevent it from twisting.

I am bound and determined to finish this hat. I'm not enjoying this experience.

I also realized the other day while finishing hat #5 (yet to be photographed, sorry), that part of what I enjoy about knitting is the yarn. I like holding it and I like seeing it as I work with it. I love the Noro variagated yarns as the different colors are spun together in a way that no two strands are the same. I enjoy seeing the colors change. Also that Noro Kochoran which has wool, silk and angora was so soft in my hands it was lovely to work with.

Wish me luck while I hopefully finish this acrylic hat tonight.

Today I visited a local yarn shop that I'd not been in before, "A Stitch in Time" in Bethel Connecticut. I was looking for double pointed needles in size 2.5 but they don't sell them there. I am considering learning to knit with the magic loop or doing two socks at once. I don't know what to do. In the mean time I guess I'll keep knitting hats.

I am looking forward to tomorrow when I will be going to the New York Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinbeck New York with a friend. We are each bringing our younger sons along so the kids can pal around together while their moms shop for yarn.

Wrong Size Needles

2008-10-17T18:31:00.003-04:00

I wanted to make socks. I was reading they often are knit on size 2 or 3 needles.

I had to go to Joanne's for some fabric and picked up a set of double pointed needles in size 2 and size 3. I thought I was all set.

I went to the local yarn shop and bought a skein of Opal sock yarn. I thought I was all set. I had looked at a lot of sock yarn and a lot of labels and finally just grabbed one and bought it.

When I got home I realized the entire label is written in German. Great. The visual key shows knitting needles and a crochet hook and says "2, 5". What the heck does that mean? Does that mean size 2 needle or is there a 2.5 needle? Joanne's carried Clover brand bamboo needles and there was no 2.5 size.

I just read on an online yarn shop site that other Opal sock yarns require a size 1 needle.

I have no clue what this yarn needs but if it is a size 1 or size 2.5 double pointed needle I don't have what I need.

Ugh.

My set of circular needles starts at size 6 and goes up to size 13.

Just had to share that.

(I finished knitting a hat last night for a gift for a friend. I am ready to start a new project and need to figure something else to knit tonight while I watch a movie at home with my younger son.)

One last thing this exact question is perfect for asking on Ravelry.com. I have been searching to see what others are saying about knitting socks with Opal yarn but so far am not learning much.

A Hat for Me!

2008-10-11T12:40:00.001-04:00

Here's the full story on my hat #4.

My kids were in a history class for homeschoolers in Westport one day last week. I had time to kill so went to their wonderful public library and scanned the knitting shelf. I sat down at a gigantic table (all alone) with a stack of knitting books spread before me. I then sat in silence and poured over the books for a couple of hours. Let me tell you that experience was pure bliss. What a wonderful way to spend a morning!!

One book that I was inspired by was "Spin to Knit: The Knitter's Guide to Making Yarn" by Shannon Okey. At this time I do not spin. However I did buy an inexpensive drop spindle at a homeschooling conference and figured it might be a fun thing to do for a history-related craft project with my kids.

I also have roving on hand so if I do figure out how to spin with the drop spindle I already have what I need to make a bit of yarn.

I borrowed the book from the library.

I then went to the yarn shop to buy some yarn but they were closed! So two days later when I was in that town again I swung by the LYS to get yarn for my husband's hat and picked up two kinds of yarn to make myself hats with. One color will match my winter coats well. The other color I thought would look nice with my skin and hair color.

I liked one hat in the book "Spin to Knit" which I'll call a semi-pattern. I say that because the intention is to use over-spun hand spun yarn and the fact that it is over-spun gives it a different visual effect. The fact that the yarn is hand spun doesn't make it an easy match to substitute for store-bought yarn so I wasn't quite sure if the gauge of my yarn was right or not. Also the only true parts to the pattern are the cast-on, the first inch of ribbing then the decreasing. For the rest it says to basically use all different stitches in a random manner, using one stitch for about an inch or an inch and a half. So we are to improvise and make up our own pattern. The pattern is called "Power Station Hat" by Shannon Okey and is on page 89. The hat in the book has a more solid color striped look to it (shade of brown and white) and the hat I was making was using a multi-colored yarn where the strand may have two or three colors in it and changes colors throughout the skein.

So I made the hat but did not use hand spun yarn, and did not use over-spun yarn either. I just used a lovely new yarn that I bought the other day. It is
a super soft blend of 50% wool, 20% silk and 30% angora (Noro Kochoran colorway 31 dye lot D2, handpainted and made in Japan).

This is my first all-finished, ready to use knitted project I made for ME!

I did a tiny bit of work on Thursday night before bed, continued Friday night before bed, and finished it this morning. I didn't time myself, I think that I spent six or seven hours on this.

This was also the first time I ever knitting with stockinette stitch other than in small swatches to practice. It was the very first time that I knitted in moss stitch. The hat has combinations of garter stitch, stockinette stitch, moss stitch and some random striping going from knitting in knit stitch then switching to some in purl stitch.

I really like the hat even though it is a bit longer than I had hoped for (even though I stopped knitting when it reached seven inches as the pattern said). It fits a bit on the loose side also.

I love the colors and it is so soft and warm!

One last note about the book, it is so inspiring. I have the urge to learn to spin! I want to hand dye my own yarn! I really like the creating part of making stuff. I'm not so much into following someone else's directions and just making projects. I like figuring out what to make, adapting things to suit my own tastes and also creating stuff from nothing into something that involves my own creative process. To me so much of the fun is in the creating part not just enjoying using the finished project.

My Third Hat

2008-10-11T12:20:00.000-04:00

Third Hat with flash on camera

Third Hat with camera's flash shut off

My husband asked me to knit him a simple hat to use while camping, especially to wear to sleep while camping in the cold weather.

After he tried the first hat made out of Lopi wool yarn he asked if I could find something a bit less scratchy.

I took a trip to a local yarn shop and found a wool and merino wool blend (85% wool, 15% mohair Lamb's Pride Bulky color M-82 Blue Flannel Dyelot 0192). Husband asked for navy blue. I bought the darkest blue I could find.

I started the hat before going to bed one night. The next day I knitted in public, knitting my way through a Boy Scout Court of Honor ceremony. I continued before going to bed and finished it up the next morning.

Pattern Info: I used a pattern in the book "Stitch 'N Bitch" by Debbie Stoller. The pattern is called "Hot Head" and was designed by Alex Zorn, although the original was striped using different yarns in hot flame colors and I used one variagated yarn instead. It is on page 162 in the book.

My First and Second Hats

2008-10-11T10:32:00.009-04:00

I taught myself to knit using circular needles using directions in a book.

After two failed attempts which were frogged, I finally "got it" and so hat #1 was in progress one evening last week. I was so excited about it that I finished the hat the next morning before I even got out of bed.

Hat #1 (flash used on camera):

Hat #1 was made in size medium. I was not sure which kid it would fit. It was a perfect fit for my older son (age 11). It is a simple ribbed hat. The yarn is Lopi Jungle Green variagated #9980.

I do admit that some errors were made and it is imperfect. The dark color and variagation hides the errors which might not be noticed by a non-knitter.

That afternoon while watching a college football game on TV I started hat #2 in size small for my younger son. I finished it before bedtime that night.

This second hat has just one error in it, I believe. My son hasn't noticed yet.

Hooray!

Hat #2 (no flash used on camera):

The bad news is that despite them loving the color they feel the yarn is a bit too itchy and they want new hats that are softer.

And yesterday the kids had misplaced their hats. Ugh. So much for them taking good care of a handmade item. Then last night I got bad news when I found one laying on the garage floor. What an insult!

Future blog posts will contain the next projects.

I really like Lopi yarn! It is bulky and knits up fast. I made the two hats out of one skein and have more yarn left over from the skein.

here is more info on the Lopi yarn I used:

Brand: Reynolds

Yarn name: Lopi

Fiber: 100% Icelandic Wool

Weight: 100g

Yardage: 110yds

Needle size: US 10 - 10 1/2

Gauge: 3 1/4 - 3 1/2 and 4 1/2 - rows per 1"

Care: Hand Wash

Pattern Info: I used a pattern in the book "Stitch 'N Bitch" by Debbie Stoller. The pattern is called "Hot Head" and was designed by Alex Zorn, although the original was striped using different yarns in hot flame colors and I used one variagated yarn instead. It is on page 162 in the book.

Time spent: Each of these hats took me 3.5 hours to complete.

Practicing Purl

2008-10-11T10:27:00.003-04:00

Here is evidence that I was practicing the purl stitch.

A homeschool mom friend re-taught me the purl stitch at a homeschool park day two weeks ago.

This was my first practice, done about two weeks ago.

The skein of yarn by the Brown Sheep Company was purchased at a charity thrift shop on Cape Cod for a quarter. It is 50% cotton and 50% wool. It is odd getting used to working with a cotton blend because the cotton has a stiffness to it that is different than 100% wool. I chose to work with this because when I first tried using a variagated yarn in dark colors I realized I could not see the stitches well. Working in a lighter colored solid was much easier for me, to learn the new stitch and to be able to see what the yarn was doing more clearly.

How Much?

2008-10-09T17:12:00.004-04:00

I had not purchased new yarn in a yarn shop in over two months.

I went in to the local yarn shop to buy a soft wool yarn (one skein) to make a hat for my husband.

Noro makes my favorite yarns. The colors are to die for.

I want to make a hat for myself out of a Noro yarn. It cost $20 for one skein (160 meters).

I really, really want a Noro sweater. Today while online I figued out that Noro sells patterns. However to make a sweater with new Noro yarn will cost me $140-$200 in yarn alone.

I feel as if I've been tortured.

Do people really spend over $100 on skeins of yarn to make one sweater?

I think I have been spoiled by the prices of factory made sweaters sold in stores.

Groan.

If you don't know what the Noro yarns look like here is a link to a site selling books of patterns. By clicking on each book you can see numerous photos of projects made with these Noro yarns.

I have been using "World of Nature" Kureyon, I just bought some Iro and Kochoran.

Wise Words on Creativity and Finding Time for Creating

2008-10-05T13:23:00.000-04:00

Today while doing work at the computer I was listening to the Creative Mom Podcast #111 “Slippage”.

I wish I could quote what Amy says starting at the 14:00 point, where she gives a quote from a show she had done a year prior. She is speaking of finding time to be creative and busy-ness and the importance of carving out time for ourselves.

It is brilliant.

I love the part about being gentle with ourselves.

Take a listen, even if you start the show and fast-forward it to the 14:00 point.

Felted Octopus

2008-09-30T15:14:00.002-04:00

Here is a silly octopus that I needle felted.

If you like the cool colors, the wool roving is from Peace Fleece. I had bought some extra from a friend of mine.

Almost Done Knitting This

2008-09-30T14:57:00.003-04:00

I began knitting this in the first week of July. It was intended to be my July project. In reality I finished knitting it last night so it turned out to be a full three month project.

This is all in garter stitch as when I started the project I was having trouble learning the purl stitch.

The plan was to knit a bit rectangle then sew it into a bag such as a tote bag and then felt it.

The yarn is Noro Kureyon, 100% wool, hand painted and made in Japan. I love these colors.

I used #9 needles, first using straight metal needles then, after I bought it, transferring over to my set of interchangable bamboo circular needles.

This is my fourth knitting project since I learned to knit in May.

In the beginning I don't know what I did wrong but you can see holes or stretched spots.

I also somehow made accidential increases and so the beginning is shorter. When I realized that I had made that error I paid special attention to every stitch and the work evened out.

Also when I realized that I had holes in the work I started paying attention to every stitch and the holes stopped happening.

I lost count but I think this has a total of 4.5 skeins of yarn in it, if not, it is 5.5 skeins.

Last night after taking this photo I finished off the row, I then binded it off. Then I took swatches of similar colored yarn and tied the holes closed.

I think what I will do with this is machine or hand felt it as is and then afterwards will decide what to do with it and use the sewing machine to sew it into something.

I was disturbed to read some posts on Ravelry.com that said that the people had sewn pocketbooks and tote bags with this yarn but when it felted up it was thin and not durable or thick enough to withstand being a decent bag to actually use.

I also really loved these colors and working with this yarn. I would like to make a sweater for myself out of this Noro Kureyon yarn. Perhaps when I perfect the purl stitch I will make myself a sweater out of it.

Purling, Finally

2008-09-29T18:40:00.003-04:00

Last week at the homeschool park day I went with two sets of knitting needles and partial projects. I begged my friend to teach me to purl. She is the only friend I have very close by who knits continental style.

She did teach me. I then spent spare moments over two days purling so I would not forget.

I had the hardest time with books and even videos.

I made sure to let my kids see that I struggled so they can see that learning is hard for adults also. My kids, and I've been told other kids think this too, think that they struggle to learn while adults have no problem. This leads them to sometimes think they are dumb and adults are brilliant. How sad is that?

Other Knitting Updates

I washed three "like new" XL cotton sweaters that belonged to my father-in-law and will frog them and will re-use the yarn. We were going to donate them to Goodwill but I asked myself why am I buying sweaters from Goodwill to frog and then donating other good sweaters to Goodwill? So anyhow three inherited sweaters are ready to frog...

Other Fiber Updates

Last night I pulled out the wool roving for the first time in a few months. The kids and I worked at it while watching the first episode of The Amazing Race season 13. It was fun to needle felt again!

Paper Crafting Notes

I have not paper crafted in so long. I have been concentrating on keeping the house decluttered and also clean. I have been doing homeschooling with the kids. We have been catching up on doctor's appointments and dentist appointments. Younger son is going to have braces put on so consults for that have been happening. Two false blood results, one for me and one for my younger son had to be investigated and retested. We are both normal, thank goodness, and don't have the problems the first blood tests thought we had. All that has been sucking up our time. Oh and in the last four weeks we went on two trips out of state for a total of 10 days. I have been on a whirlwind, it feels like.

Blogging

I need to find photos of my projects and upload them here. That has been a low priority, sorry.

Can You Not Imagine...

2008-09-19T20:43:00.001-04:00

how a painter could literally go mad trying to paint something realistically? I imagine that trying to capture the exact coloration of this morning glory might be a huge challenge that might just make a person certifiably insane. And in a nutshell you now know why I do not paint realistic images. I don't feel that I'm capable.

Photo of morning glory flower that my younger son and I planted from seed in a container on our deck. Photo taken by ChristineMM on September 17, 2008.

Alton Bog

2008-09-10T09:52:00.000-04:00

This is the view of the Alton Bog looking to the west from I-95.

Sunrise over the Alton Bog, near Bangor, Maine, looking east while driving down I-95 heading south to home after visiting my grandmother in northern Maine.

I never knew this was a bog and while a teen I wondered why the trees there never grew high. I had no clue, no ideas of why. At about age 20 while driving myself up to visit my grandmother, I pulled to the side of the highway and got out to investigate. I was surprised when I stepped onto the peat bog, to find it squishing under my feet and so wet. I then realized it was a bog.

Years later while reading a book I saw mention of this being the Alton Bog. A few years ago the highway department erected a sign announcing to the passersby that this is the Alton Bog.

I love looking at the Alton Bog as I drive past it, it is one of the highlights of the trip.

Technorati Tags: Alton Bog, Alton Bog Maine.

A Photo Scare

2008-09-09T06:00:00.000-04:00

My husband bought me a digital camera for Christmas 2002. He had dreams of no more film processing and printing costs, it was done out of a desire to save money. I had made it clear I wanted no part of a digital camera. Giving to me as my Christmas gift was an affront as it was imposed on me against my will.

I barely took any photos in the beginning, still used to being thrifty with how many pictures I snapped. I also still was using film in that first year. Don’t tell him that though. Back then I didn’t trust digital cameras.

The photos from 2002 and 2003 were put onto CDs and taken off my husband’s hard drive at some point in time.

Two weeks ago my husband installed an update onto his computer. Suddenly he had no space on the disk. He decided to take the photos from 2004-2007 off his hard drive. First he backed them up to our external hard drive. I then told him if anything happened to that thing and all our photos were lost I would kill him. Literally. He then took CDs and put copies of all of those photos onto CDs.

I asked where were the CDs for 2002 and 2003 and for the week we spent in the Outer Banks which was for some odd reason, not on his hard drive. He found the old CDs, popped them into his pretty new PC and found out that, whoops, the newer computer could not read those old CDs. Actually when it happened he didn’t even tell me. I’m skipping forward too quickly, sorry. What happened was he started to act all twitchy and I could see his body language was indicating some problem was happening. At first I ignored it and kept on folding the laundry but out of the corner of my eye I saw him getting more and more antsy. Then he said something in a bad tone of voice. I then said, “Tell me what is going on. Now.”

He then admitted he could not retrieve the old photos from 2002 and 2003. I was about to lose it. Really lose it. I mean, really lose it. I took deep breaths. I walked away and busied myself doing something or other. I needed to get away from him to avoid freaking out.

He then pulled out the old laptop of his and lo and behold that CD could be read on the old laptop. He said something about the speed of the computer being too fast on the new one to read the old slow CD or something technical that I don’t understand.

He then took the oldest photos on the slow CD and put them onto our external hard drive. I asked him to put all the photos onto CDs as a second back up. So he did that. It took a long time because he had to split up the photos in odd ways to get the most photos on each CD.

Then he hit the delete button on all those photos from his hard drive. That made me nervous. Really nervous.

This is what I feared about digital photography. I feared that our technology would change so rapidly that someday we’d not be able to view those old photographs. See, my fears had a foundation; they were not a figment of my imagination.

Here are two other horror stories are that once my father-in-law only had his photos on his hard drive. Then his computer crashed, the hard drive was broken and all those photos were lost. Another time my husband’s uncle did something and lost all his photos. Fortunately my husband was able to retrieve them with a special program called Restorer 2000. The lesson in both cases is that it is a better idea to back up your photos, possibly in two places.

Technorati Tags: saving digital photos, storing digital photos.

Purl Stitch Video

2008-09-07T21:30:00.002-04:00

I am trying yet again to learn the purl stitch.

I have been super busy, traveling, and have not had the time or energy to devote to new knitting projects. I am still working a big rectangle of garter stitch in wool yarn which I'll probably felt then afterward, sew into something.

Tonight after I climb into bed I think I'll try yet again to learn the purl stitch.

(Last week while out of state I tried teaching myself from a book yet again and failed.)

Inheriting Half Done Projects

2008-08-24T17:41:00.004-04:00

My husband and I have been helping my mother-in-law, here and there, clean out stored items in her home since my father-in-law passed away. My mother-in-law cannot do this work herself due to her medical condition. My two brother-in-law's are 'thrower-outers'. We are trying to go through some things before one of them orders a big dumpster and just throws everything out like they keep saying they want to do.

Two things that one brother-in-law can't wait to throw out are:

1. A wool rug handmade by my husband's grandmother. When she finished it, it was warped. They tried to wash it. It mildewed before it was dried. They had it professionally cleaned and it has no mildew but it has mildew stains.

So much work went into it that my father-in-law could not bring himself to throw it away.

I have never seen the rug. I don't know what condition it is in. My husband shudders to throw it out as well. I don't know if it is worth saving.

2. My father-in-law once started to hook a rug with wool yarn. I am told he started this to pass the time when he had injured his back and was on bedrest for weeks.

The new yarn is there, saved in the cedar closet.

What now?

I know nothing about hooking rugs. I'm a packrat, sorry to admit, but to throw that out will kill me.

I have a feeling the thing will come home with me.

Oh boy, perhaps this will be yet another handcraft for me to try?

If not, I would rather give this away to someone into hooking rugs to finish off.

Smaller Stuff

We took home two half-completed latchhook kits from the late 1970s. Both are masculine themes. My boys want to finish these. They like to do latchhooking.

There are a few partially finished needlepoint kits. One is a famous scene from the college that my husband earned his MBA through.

There is an almost done petit point needlepoint seat for a dining room chair. There is a story behind that which I'll not get into at this time.

I thought I'd share this short story because some of you who are into handcrafts may also be shuddering to think of these things being thrown away.

Totally Finished First Felted Bag

2008-08-22T22:11:00.003-04:00

This is a very imperfect first knitted item.

This is the first thing I knitted, a small felted bag.

I had trouble felting it. In June I thought it was done. In July I felt it more in the washing machine. Here it is after that second felting.

Handles for Cheap

2008-08-13T12:32:00.003-04:00

I was in a local yarn shop looking at handles to buy for my first big felted tote bag.

The shop had large (not huge) bamboo handles for $8 for each handle. So if I wanted two handles on the bag it would cost me $16.

I would have purchased them if they matched. Oddly they had one that was kind of longer and flatter and the other was taller and more of a steep upside down U shape so they could not be used as a set on one project. Perhaps some people make a bag with one handle and then that would be fine.

The next day I went to Goodwill to make a donation and popped inside to see if they had any knitting needles, yarn or anything else of use.

I was surprised to find two handbags with bamboo handles.

The large bag cost $4 and the bag was in like-new condition. I cut the handles off the bag and will re-use them in a future knitting-felted bag project. Net, two medium sized handles for $2 each.

The small bag was brand new with the original labels still on the bag. I paid $2 for that bag. Net, two small sized handles for $1 each.

These handles will be easy to attach due to the metal clasps they have on them. I plan to use yarn and go around and around to make a thick attachment.

Some in the green living movement call this "upcycling". By purchasing things at a thift shop, things that otherwise would have been thrown away, we are putting money to a charity and re-using existing stuff for a new purpose rather than buying the item newly factory made and sold for profit by a commercial vendor for its first time use.

I did feel guilty throwing away the rest of the bag but I got over my pack rat tendencies and did throw the bags in the garbage.

I'm at Ravelry Too

2008-08-11T21:48:00.003-04:00

For knitting networking I'm at Ravelry.com. My name there is ChristineMM (the same as here). I mention this in case you want to network with me there or look up my stash or something!

I am having problems getting photos to upload there, which is very frustrating to me. I am sure I am doing something very simple incorrectly. I'm trying to upload photos of some of my yarn stash.

I enjoy looking at what other people have made with the same yarns that I own.

I have knitted up four skeins of a yarn and it has too many mistakes that I worry won't be fixed by felting this project. I think the yarn is too beautiful and expensive to use it on a sub-par project, the more I think about it that is what I'm concluding. I am considering ripping it all apart (gasp). I'm heading over to Ravelry to see what others have made with this yarn...

Back Home & Stat Counter

2008-08-10T20:06:00.000-04:00

I just got home from eight days out of state on vacation. I had no Internet other than five minutes at a public library one time.

We had a good time.

I missed the Internet! I wanted to look up information about going to places while away and could not do it. I realized how I use the Internet for little information look-up's not just blogging or email or for discussion groups.

I am nearly finished with one knitting project. I finished one book. I started and finished three others.

We had good family fun.

I had a problem with Site Meter the morning I was leaving town and I had to pull it off of my blog. I just reinstalled it. I usually like to peek at my blog visits that happened while I was away but now I have no data for the last eight days.

Creativity Stifled

2008-08-02T08:15:00.006-04:00

I have been so busy with our foreign exchange student and also volunteering at day camp for about 40 hours in the last week, outdoors in the heat, that I have had little time for thinking about art or doing any crafts.

Being dog tired, physically drained, emotionally and mentally sapped, leaves no ability for creativity. The tiredness was also exacerbated by the fact that I was woken up too early (five in the morning) by various things (younger son's nightmare, on another day, the cats playing and knocking a framed print off the wall and smashing the glass front and so forth). I was so beat last week that I didn't even have energy for taking many photos while at camp. I could have cared less to snap a photo of a lovely cloud or the beautiful butterfly I saw. I had to force myself to even look at those things let alone SEE them and enjoy them. I literally forced myself to stop walking to watch a butterfly flitter and to look at the colors and I had to give myself permission to enjoy it.

I didn't knit for a week. I didn't journal. I barely blogged. I didn't watch much TV and I had no time to read a newspaper or listen to radio or TV news. I just slept at every possible moment that I was not entertaining people, taking care of home stuff (eating, cooking, laundry, pet care and so on) and volunteering.

This has me thinking that the door to creativity is not just about finding time and 'having time' but it is about having the mental and physical energy to allow creative energy to even flow.

Excited to Host a Foreign Exchange Student This Summer

2008-08-02T08:00:00.000-04:00

In June an email was posted to a local homeschooling discussion group asking families to open their homes to a Japanese foreign exchange student for four weeks this summer. This is something I always wanted to do back since I was in high school and a number of European exchange students attended my school for a full school year, being hosted by families in my town. I had hoped that some time our family would be able to do it. We had a family meeting to discuss it. We decided to apply. After a phone and in-person interview in our home, we were approved.

As to which child will be our guest, this organization has two rules. One is that the child is the same gender as your ‘host sibling’ and the other is that they are within two or three years of age of each other. Knowing that, we were able to pick from a list with information listing the children’s personality traits and personal interests. My older son felt that all the kids would be a good fit, but it was me that narrowed it down to those who had the closest interests to my children and whose personalities I thought would make a good fit with our family (the profiles included personality traits such as shy, talkative, likes to laugh, and so on).

Later I received a phone call with a stipulation about the boy we selected that I must agree to or else would have to select a different student. I think this was the problem with getting this boy placed in a home, why he was not chosen on the first selection (we entered the process later, in phase two). He is a strict Buddhist and he does not want to see or hear prayers to Jesus Christ, such as before a mealtime. He does not want to be taken to a church or forced to attend Christian worship services. We agreed to this although it will mean that our family will have to alter our typical routine (when in reality we are supposed to take the child into our lives and live as we typically do). My older son was disappointed that he could not take him to his youth group religious education sessions at church on Sundays. I’ll have to juggle around our family’s routine, but that is okay. The organization hosting this is not meant to have these visiting students converted to the host family’s religion, I understand that. However the lack of tolerance of allowing a family to practice their own religion just in the presence of the student is a bit different for me to comprehend because here in America we are so open minded and I’m used to more tolerance. It is one thing to not want to pray but another to not even want to hear the host family praying in his presence. I’m open minded to learn more about the Buddhist lifestyle.

Not knowing much more about the student, we were curious and excited to learn more. After about a week we received a paper application in the mail which contained more information about the student as well as some photographs of him and his family. For some reason this family has not provided us with their email address so that we can communicate with them right now via email (as other families are already doing). I do wish we had that option available.

I tried buying some books about life in Japan (children’s books) but found that Amazon didn’t have many that I wanted in stock and some were obviously out of print, which was quite surprising. (I’ll take a guess. Learning about the Japanese culture is not in state’s educational plans or on the standardized test for NCLB so the books are not in demand.) I then went to two public libraries to borrow some books. I have been reading the books and my children are reading some. Our family has been learning and discussing the differences in our cultures.

My kids and I have been discussing the different things we want to explain about life in America. We have been brainstorming foods to make sure we eat for dinner and places to go, such as our favorite, farm ice cream stand and to the best pizza restaurant around here. After the boy arrives I will try to figure out his preferences and see if he has a preference about attending a baseball game, a Broadway show, seeing sights in New York City or Boston, touring Yale University’s campus, and/or museum trips. Our family does do all those things so these are all in line with our normal lives. I would prefer that we do the things he has an interest in.

Then later we received a letter from the student and his mother. They were worried as the date is fast approaching and the boy had no placement. They are relieved now. I had been told the children speak English but the letter from both his mother and the boy says that the boy speaks very little English. I got a little nervous. We wrote letters back and explained some about what we will be doing while he is here. I included photos of our family to show more of what we are like.

A few days later we received a letter from the boy’s father and two more family photos. This letter again stated the boy speaks little English and he asks me to praise his son on his English speaking abilities. Since the boy says he is shy, I take this to mean that with encouragement he will feel freer to use his English. At this point with all the mentions of his challenges with speaking English I’m getting a little worried.

At an orientation meeting one family mentioned they purchased an electronic translator gadget for about $130. I envisioned something that I could type a sentence into and it would translate. I spent about an hour on the Internet investigating options but from what I figured those devices are little more than electronic dictionaries. They do not translate sentences. Some have phrases that are common in travel, such as for an English speaking person to use to ask a waiter for food when visiting Japan. Perhaps it might say “where is the restroom” when I need it to say “do you need to use the restroom before we leave for a two hour drive”. The expensive ones talk, which is useful for the example I just gave. Some run upwards of $500 but still they don’t translate full sentences. I settled for a good print dictionary instead (about $11) and am also getting a “point and speak” dictionary with images of many things that happen in normal daily life along with the English and Japanese words for the pictured item. That book is published by a United Kingdom company and is not really available in America; the only Internet provider I could find was company in Japan, with slow yet expensive shipping times. I mentioned this to the program coordinator (it is good to say such things) and found out they sell it in a Japanese shop in Manhattan, which she happened to be visiting the next day, so she picked up copies for everyone at the meeting that wanted them.

I was impressed and a bit envious at the meeting when I saw that a small group of homeschool mom friends were all hosting an exchange student. Two people were even sisters. They all live close to each other and plan to spend lots of time together. I knew some of them a little bit through homeschooling circles, they all live over an hour away from me. Some of them did this last year and they said it worked out great as the Japanese teens could talk to each other and it helped them not get lonely. As a matter of fact this group will be doing a camping trip together. I wish I could convince a group of my friends to do this together so we could hang out as a larger group!

I am both excited to expose this child to the American lifestyle and interested to learn more about life in Japan. Of course I want this student to have a realistic and positive opinion of Americans. It feels strange to feel that our family will be a major influence in this student’s opinion of our country and of American people (a bit frightening to be honest). What I will be concentrating on is who we are as people, how we treat each other (with respect), being kind and being just ourselves. I would like to somehow convey that in America we don’t have the same class system especially including that women are NOT second class citizens as they are in Japan. I also want him to see typical American life, daily life routines and how we go about living. To that end I am keeping our schedule as normal with an orthodontist visit for one son, a mammogram for me and a visit to the barber. I am not interested in showing off material wealth or giving him a full American history education.

As to what this visitor can teach us, I expect this to be a learning experience for me, my husband and my children too.

One thing that I have been doing is looking at our entire house and thinking about our lifestyle, trying to see it through new eyes. I noticed clutter that seemed invisible before. I noticed dust on places that have eluded the last cleaning, and I even found a few (small) stray Christmas decorations that somehow never got put away. I am trying to view our home as it may look through the eyes of not just a stranger but someone who will judge the American lifestyle on what this one house looks like and how this household is run. Yikes.

To make a good impression, I have been working to finish up some projects that I’ve procrastinated on, such as ridding the house of piles of papers. I have tidied up the overflowing books on most of the bookshelves and gotten rid of yet more books. I finished the playroom reorganization, because that is where the visitor will sleep. I had to rearrange furniture to make a good spot for the bed to be set up. We got rid of lots of toys that our children outgrew or are no longer using. My older son’s bedroom was entirely reorganized and straightened up as well as deep-cleaned. I’m even working on the clutter in my own bedroom. All the bathrooms are being scrubbed from top to bottom. The last thing on the list will probably not get done by the time he is here. That is to finish moving books around for next year’s homeschooling. Right now the family library has stacks of books on the coffee table about a foot high and the two end tables are stacked. Other books are stacked in neat piles on the floor. Perhaps I can continue that project after he gets here, or perhaps that will have to wait until after he goes.

I hope the student has a good time here and is happy to be here. I would hate for the teen to have a problem and put on a false face just to be polite. From what I read and have been told in the Japanese culture it is a sign of immaturity to show emotion on one’s face or to express emotion verbally. To have a more serious face and to be very polite is more important than being truthful about how one feels. If a person is given a food that tastes terrible to them they also would eat it and would not say anything and would even say they liked it. The focus on being polite to others is more important than having a person’s emotions known to others or one’s internal happiness. This is so opposite of the way American children are and the way many American adults are! I’d like to explain at least to the boy that in America open expression of emotion or opinions is welcomed, even if he cannot do it himself. Apparently it is a sign of maturity to mask one’s feelings, facial expressions and body language.

The last thing I’m worried about is giving my kids some down time by themselves. I’m worried especially for my older son to feel over-taxed by keeping the boy company and ‘being on duty’ all day long. To that end I have prepared a separate room for this boy to use as his bedroom. I am told that sometimes the Japanese exchange students prefer to sleep in more crowded, shared quarters with their host sibling(s). However I think at the end of the day my son needs some quiet time, as he does right now, to read in bed alone and to have lights off when he is ready for it. We’ll see how that pans out.
It is interesting to hear reactions that some people have when they hear that we are going to have a foreign exchange student in our home. Some say they would never open their home or give their time in this way. I don’t have a problem with using my time in this way or sharing our life with a child, my biggest worry is the ability to communicate and if the child’s personality will be compatible with our family.

I can’t help but assume that many positive things will come from this experience. I don’t know what interests or doors this may open for my boys but you never know. Maybe it will result in them being more interested to learn a foreign language, for example, that is the type of thing I am hoping they take away from this, as well of course, as learning about another culture and realizing that people are people and we more alike than different even when living across the world from each other and even living with different cultural beliefs. I hope the core common foundation of kindness and friendship will be established between us.

We are so excited about this opportunity!

Note About Blogging This Experience

For privacy reasons I don’t plan to blog about the details of the hosting experience while it is happening, nor will I share photographs of the Japanese foreign exchange student. I do not plan to mention this hosting experience again until it is over and then MAYBE I will blog some general information or some thoughts that don’t directly relate to the student that we hosted in our home after it is over though. I plan to maintain confidentiality and privacy out of respect for the student. Depending on how it goes my blogging may also occur less often as we prepare for this experience, as well during that time.

Technorati Tags: hosting a foreign exchange student, homeschooling.

Back to the Real World

2008-07-19T20:41:00.001-04:00

I have just emerged from Boy Scout resident camp where I spent seven days and six nights volunteering, helping to oversee over 35 Scouts, eight of whom were spending their first time away from home at a camp. (One even said this is the first time in his entire life he's gone seven days without watching a screen of some kind. For the record he survived.)

What happens at camp stays at camp and for confidentiality reasons I can't blog the many stories, no matter how tempting or how great they are to tell. I'll say I have enough material for at least three comedy movies or books. Boy Scout camp is a wealth of raw material for writers or screen play writers, I now know.

I am still in the bubble of living without electricity and living in the woods.

I had set some blog posts to automatically publish while I was camping so that is why my blog posts were published earlier this week.

I had time to think about some big things while away. Some decisions were made. Some shifts in priorities are being made right now. I might share those on the blog in the future.

I need to readjust to my normal life and get on with the next thing on the schedule. I'm going to be busy for the next two weeks, away from the computer for the most part, so my blogging may be spotty.

I hope all of my blog readers are having a fantastic summer so far!

Hooray! New Art Journal Book is Out!

2008-07-08T16:59:00.001-04:00

I'm doing a happy dance after UPS visited with a delivery of "1000 Artist Journal Pages: personal pages and inspiration" by Dawn DeVries Sokol. This book was just published this month by Quarry Books.

If you make Amazon purchases and link through from my blog I thank you. That revenue partially paid for this book.

All I can say about this right now is that the shape is square, it is paperback with glossy pages, almost like a coffee table book. It is laid out just like "1000 Artist Trading Cards" with the scans on the page with a numerical reference and the name of the artist. No other text clutters the pages.

I can't wait to sit down and look through and study the pages of other people's art journals!

Two Yummy Yarns

2008-07-05T22:04:00.003-04:00

My biggest splurge so far was these two skeins of wool yarn purchased at Uncommon Threads in York, Pennsylvania while on vacation down there last week.

These are malabrigio aquarella wool yarns from Uraguay. I will not be using these to felt with because they are too nice. I also spent $14 on each skein (yikes) and don't want to waste this yarn.

Third Knitting Project in Process

2008-07-05T21:48:00.005-04:00

I began my third knitted project while away on vacation last week.

I am using Reynolds Lopi wool yarn which I purchased at The Needle Shop in Westport, Connecticut.

If you look closely you can see that the blue wool has threads of red and light blue and green in it. Even my husband noticed that and thought it was cool.

I casted on 45 stitches on a #13 needle. I am still so new to knitting that I only know the knit stitch so this bag is being done all in the garter stitch. (See I am getting the knitting terminology down!)

Here is the piece after one skein of yarn was completed. This photo was taken on the dashboard while driving down the highway (I was a passenger, don't worry).

I think my stitches are coming out pretty even now.

Right now I've knitted 2.5 skeins onto this project. All this work was done while away on vacation in "in between times" like when I was a passenger in the car or waiting for a meal to be served at a restaurant. Knitting in public elicited a few comments from wait staff. I was told knitting is not really done in Pennsylvania. I think the owners of Uncommon Threads in York which I patronized while in PA would disagree with that.

This bag will be machine felted (fulled) when completed.

I plan to use just this one color and sew it into a rectangle shaped handbag with a flap going over the front. I am making this pattern up myself. I know it is very simple. My goal with this is to use just one yarn so the gauge will be the same and so it will remain in a good straight rectangle shape. I think I will use a button as a closure. I am undecided as to what kind of handle this will have, if I will knit it or if it will be purchased and made of bamboo or wood.

Second Knitting Project in Process

2008-07-05T21:38:00.005-04:00

Here is my second knitted project which was supposed to be a handbag but is now a tote bag. This was knitted with wool yarn then machine felted (fulled).

Here is a photo of the knitted project before I hand sewed the three edges together to form a tote bag shape. Note the huge size. This actually fit around my waist at the small end and flared outward like a mini skirt! My husband said I should keep it as a shawl and my boys wanted to keep it as a lap blanket.

This was supposed to be a rectangle. Between accidental increases and the different gauges of the yarns this ended up uneven.

Here is the bag after it was machine felted (which I did last night). I plan to buy handles at a local yarn shop and attach them. This is about 8 inches at the bottom and flares out for the top/open end.

Here is a close up of the felted area. Is this not yummy?

I also realized that two of the yarns were too nice to have felted. I feel they were wasted by felting them. One was a fantastic hand painted wool from a farm in Vermont with luscious colors. The other was a super chunky yarn with green and gold colors, the uniqueness of that yarn was lost in the felting process. Lesson learned.

First Knitted Project

2008-07-05T21:33:00.004-04:00

Here is the bag that I knitted. This is my first knitting attempt.

Here is the bag before it was assembled and without the strap.

Here is the bag after it was sewn together. It is very imperfect so I'm a bit shy about sharing this project.

I machine felted it last night and will share that photo soon. I had trouble getting it to felt and I might machine felt it more before snapping that photo.

Reclaiming Yarn From a Thrift Store Sweater

2008-07-05T09:30:00.000-04:00

I am interested in reclaiming yarn from some sweaters I already own but don’t want to wear and am interested in reclaiming yarn from thrift store sweaters, to save money and yes, for the green living efforts too.

While in Pennsylvania we were having a laid-back driving around day and I spotted a huge Salvation Army store. I know of none of these near my home. I also know my local Goodwill sells sweaters for $10-12 which is not such a great bargain in my opinion. So I went in to the Salvation Army in Pennsylvania, and hit the jackpot on sweaters. Most were $2.99 with a few at $3.99. I bought only wool sweaters. I found many beautiful and ‘like new’ sweaters in cotton too, but I didn’t have plans to use them in the near future so I didn’t buy those.

I might machine felt (full) the sweaters as is, cut them, and then cut and sew them together in a new shape. I might unravel the sweaters to reclaim the yarn and to knit the yarn into something new. I need to investigate this more to examine my options.

At the time I bought the sweaters, I had no idea how to reclaim yarn from a sweater and did a Google search. This excellent tutorial came up, on the blog Chaotic Crafter. Chaotic Crafter reclaims all types of yarn, not just wool and not just cotton, to use to knit new projects. I wanted to share this with you in case you are interested in doing this.

Reclaiming Yarn from a Thift Store Sweater post at Chaotic Crafter

Technorati Tags: reclaiming yarn, reclaiming yarn from a sweater, green crafting, knitting, machine felting.

Home Again, Home Again Jiggity Jig

2008-07-04T09:34:00.002-04:00

We are home!

Our family was in Pennsylvania for six days. Before leaving I had written some blog posts for my main blog, The Thinking Mother, and used Blogger’s new posting function to set up my blog posts to publish while I was away. That function is great, I inputted the time and date to publish the post and when that time arrives, it gets published! Presto!

Our family had never taken a trip to Pennsylvania before.

The reason for the trip was a family camping trip with the Boy Scout Troop, to visit Gettysburg. The first full day the Troop hiked. To be honest it started of horribly, as we began the hike at 2pm in 95 degree, sunny and very humid weather. It was very oppressive weather and outdoors is the last place that most people wanted to be. Our small group got lost, making the trip longer than planned. The new visitor center’s location made the hike a mile longer than it was with the data we planned the trip with, meaning we found out after we got there that the hike would be longer (in full sun walking on pavement). Before the hike was over, people ran out of water, their faces were red, everyone was soaked with sweat, it was bad to say the least and we are lucky no one had heat exhaustion. The next day was supposed to be a ten mile, six hour hike, forget that. Our family (and a number of others) backed out of it at the last minute. Instead our family did a four hour auto tour using a wonderful audio CD published by the History Channel (given to us by a friend). We heard great stories told by a very good narrator and historian while driving to the sites. We got out when we wanted to. It was ‘the way to go’ if you ask me. The camping was brutal due to heat and humidity and the noisy campground (our site was next to the flush toilets) and many campers ignored the 9pm ‘quiet time’, instead being very noisy until midnight (going to and from the bathroom, washing pots and even taking showers up to midnight). So our family bagged out of camping the third night and checked into the hotel a day earlier than planned.

So the second part of the trip was near Hershey. We spent two days at Hershey Park and it was great. My husband had been there as a child and I’d never been there before. It was a fantastic time, our kids had a ball. My eight year old was a bit young for some of the roller coasters and too old for the kiddie rides but there was still plenty for him to do. My ten year old was tall enough to go on all the rides in the park, even the scariest coaster, and a brand new coaster called Fahrenheit. By chance we happened to get the first car so we had the best seat! Hershey Park also has a huge water park included in the admission price which was a great way to cool off and have different fun than standing on line for thrill rides.

We also spent a day driving around seeing the sights and doing a little shopping, visiting a local yarn shop and trying some locally made ice cream at a farm. We tried to do some factory tours but that proved more difficult and impossible. If you ever plan to do that you should plan ahead (more than we did) and stick to a strict schedule or you will miss the tours (like we did). All the tours we tried to take were not ongoing throughout the day (unlike other tours we’ve taken in other states).

As for me, since I was the rider not the driver I got some stuff done. I read the first half of “From Crayons to Condoms: the Ugly Truth about American Public Schools” on the way home. I plan to blog that separately but for now I will say that what I do for homeschooling and what I have based the educational plan for my children on is way different than what is happening in schools today. What is going on today is light years apart and very different than what I experienced in the 1970s and 1980s. This book is a compilation of letters written by educators, students and parents about what is begin taught in public schools, including naming curriculums, books and other educational programs with short opening and closing statements by the authors. I am really shocked by what I am reading, this is a new look at what is going on that is very different than what has been said in the past by educational reformers such as John Holt and John Taylor Gatto. Concrete examples are given to illustrate vague claims and catch phrases such as “dumbed down”, “indoctrination”, “anti-Christian”, “new age”, and “self-esteem promotion”. I have not read the part yet where they outline what parents of publically schooled children can do to try to make changes in their own school systems.

Prior to reading that book, I spent every spare minute knitting. I worked on a handle in wool yarn for a bag that I plan to machine felt (full) until I ran out of yarn prematurely. I then began work on a new bag and knitted up nearly two full skeins of a new wool bag that will be machine felted (fulled). I think I have the Continental knit stitch down well and I’m making even stitches and nice rows. I need help learning the Continental purl stitch as I was not able to teach myself from the book I own while on the road. I also feel ready to do something different and more complicated. My sons are asking me to make them a knitted hat in camo colors. I want to learn to make socks. I’d like to make mittens too.

I hope to blog more about some of our educational and fun experiences in the last week in separate blog posts. I also found some great books about the Civil War at the Gettysburg visitor center’s gift shop and will blog book reviews of those in the future.

I Want to Make This Felted Bag

2008-06-26T18:30:00.003-04:00

I want to make this booga bag!

I found this by inputting my new yarn stash today in my Ravelry account. Then I clicked through to see what finished projects other Ravelry members had shared. One felted bag made with a yarn I just purchased was this bag. This pattern is available for free.

I don't own the right needles. This will have to wait until I buy new needles.

Inspired, Ideas & Limited by Time

2008-06-19T18:35:00.003-04:00

I feel so inspired to do many different projects.

I have lots of ideas.

I have limited time. I know this is true for everyone.

Lately I feel so busy with appointments, prepping for them then unpacking and winding down from them. I feel like I have no spare time for just relaxing and doing crafty things.

I have managed to knit each evening after being very busy all day long. I get into bed in my PJs, put the TV on, "watch" a show while I knit. The kids are with me for one show then off to bed they go. Then I usually watch another show and knit a bit more.

I then read a little while before shutting off the light and going to sleep.

It is kind of frustrating to have tons of ideas and feel like I have no time to do these in.

I have been putting a lot of pressure on myself to keep up with the laundry and keep the house looking decent. The recent weeding, about six hours worth last week, also took up some of my time. We have also planted our container garden on the deck. I am planting seeds and have planted tomatoes in the raised bed in the yard. I am sure the deer will eat that but my husband insists on trying.

So many creative juices are flowing through me, and I feel stifled. The knitting though shows me the progress is being made. The kids can't believe how big this wool bag is getting, which will be fulled (machine felted).

Oh, and I am doing my first postal letterbox ring. I should take the time to blog the photos but for now I'll share that I did create two handmade books with a new method learned from a book. I also designed and carved two original rubber stamps. I sent my book out with one stamp. So far two people's books and their stamp has arrived. When those come I take the stamp in theirs and stamp it into my second book that stays home with me. I take my stamp that stays here with me and put it in their book. I then send their stamp and book off to the next person in line. I wonder when the next book will arrive??

I am behind in doing one ATC swap for May. I have the idea for how to do it and I hope to do that soon. I need to make one ATC for a swap for June. I already have the idea for what to do for that. I just quit off of the swaps so when June is done I am finished.

Make It From Scratch Blog Carnival Has Been Published

2008-06-17T08:13:00.001-04:00

The Make It From Scratch blog carnival was published today at Our Red House. Check it out and get inspired to make something from scratch.

Lots of Bees

2008-06-14T03:00:00.000-04:00

How many different kinds of bees are here?

Can you identify them?

(Double click on the photo to view it larger.)

Photo taken in my front yard, June 2008.

Technorati Tags: bees, nature study.

Knitting Project One in Progress

2008-06-13T03:00:00.000-04:00

Here is my first knitted project. It will be sewn into a small bag then fulled (washing machine felted). Due to shrinkage it may end up just big enough to hold a cell phone.

I was struggling with tension and it started off with too-tight stitches. Due to the fulling that will be done none of the stitches will be seen in the finished product. Therefore my imperfections will not be evident!

Small Town Living

2008-06-12T08:04:00.001-04:00

Small town living is great.

Even on days when I have to wait for service at the post office because the sole clerk is out to lunch.

I can only assume the other postal workers are on vacation.

Knitting Error Confirmed

2008-06-12T07:07:00.003-04:00

I mentioned in my last blog post that I was worried I was doing the Continental knit stitch incorrectly. Yesterday at homeschool park day I verified this with my friend who also knits Continental stitch.

I was going from left to right instead of the other way around. My friend says that if I continue doing just the knit stitch for this project it will be fine. However since the twist is wrong if I was trying to combine purl with knit then a disaster would ensue.

The new plan is to finish off this bag which will be machine felted (aka “fulled”). Then I will re-train my hands and mind to do the Continental stitch the proper way. The book that is helping me with this fulling is "Not Your Mama's Felting" by Amy Swensen.

Well my friend said my rows are straight and that I’m doing well for a beginner. That is nice to know!

My boys are surprised that the knitting is getting so large. I am using up balls of yarn given to me by a friend. I am on color #4 now. The bag will be striped. The stripes are uneven as I am just using all the yarn I own of each color then changing to the next color. Well I am starting each on a new row so I do have scraps left over; I didn’t go right to the very end.

I finally had my husband download the photos from my camera so hopefully soon I’ll have the time to upload some photos here soon.

My Progress with Knitting

2008-06-07T18:18:00.003-04:00

I thought I'd give an update on my knitting.

I chose one color of wool yarn, given to me by a friend I met through the local homeschooling chat group and who also is a reader of my blog. Using the gifted metal knitting needles (#8 I think), I started to make a rectangle. The idea was to make a felted little bag without even using a pattern. I figured the felting process would hide any errors I made.

I really struggled because I was knitting very tightly. I am trying to understand
'the right tension'. I have loosened up.

Using logic I did increases to make it wider then decreases to make it narrower at other points.

I did some shopping for books on knitting and could not find any in local stores that seemed like they could teach me the things I needed to know. It seemed so many were too sparse on directions and techniques but heavy on projects. In one tempting book they used nearly every size knitting needle and all different kinds of yarn. For some simple looking projects I would need several different sets of needles. I wanted something to do with just one set of knitting needles and maybe one skein of yarn!

Just a couple of days ago I found a book at A.C. Moore and bought it using a 50% off coupon. What I was looking for was a book with very clear diagrams of how to do the stiches and various techniques like changing the color of the yarn. I finally found the right book for me. It is called "A-Z of Knitting: The Ultimate Guide for Beginner to Advanced Knitter" by Sue Gardner. The whole book is on technique and stiches. There are NO patterns or projects. Each technique has full color photographs in many steps to clearly show what is going on. The written instructions are clear too. This is just what I wanted.

Note also I had trouble shopping for a book about knitting on Amazon becuase I couldn't see the inside of the book to check the diagrams.

Using the book I taught myself to bind off. I did that to finish the piece that is going to be the little bag. I need to get a needle that will take yarn, because I don't think I own one, I know I didn't buy one, and after that I will sew up the sides and then the little bag will be felted in my washing machine.

The book I am using for felting information about washing machine felting, and directions on how to do it is: "Not Your Mama's Felting" by Amy Swenson.

At the same time I began a second project. Using size 13 bamboo needles I cast on 100 stitches of a very thick wool yarn. This will be a larger bag of some kind.

I am just doing the knit stitch for both projects. I figure, one thing at a time.

I keep having the feeling that I am doing something wrong. According to the new book, I was doing one step backwards. I am having trouble moving the needle in the opposite way to do it like the book says. The weird thing is that the finished stitches look identical when done with either method. Next up I think I'll see if I can find a You Tube video of the Continental knit stitch to see what others say about how to do this correctly.

I have been knitting mostly in bed at night. I take it with me when I know I have to sit and wait, like in the doctor's waiting room, while sitting vigil with my dying grandmother or waiting for a carpool.

At this point I am enjoying this. I still feel very much like a beginner. The idea of following a pattern scares me to death.

I have a new appreciation for hand knit sweaters and complicated projects. I am feeling that so many of the usable items are very difficult to do. I am not rushing to push myself to do harder projects right now. Slow and steady is my pace for knitting.

My older son is begging for me to make him a blanket but honestly that may take me a full year!

I also tried to teach him to knit but it got frustrating and I gave up. One problem with that is that I don't know enough about the right way to knit to know if he is doing it right. I don't know enough about fixing errors if he makes a mistake.

Blogging Sporadic

2008-06-05T16:55:00.000-04:00

My blogging has been and will be sporadic for a little while due to:

Grandmother getting Hospice care, setting up the care

Sitting vigil with my grandmother sans computer and Internet

Me being tired from lack of sleep

Grieving for the loss of my grandmother, processing emotions

Helping my children cope with a second grandparent's death in the last seven months

Helping make burial plans

Trying to keep up with normal life stuff

Trying to catch up on things already put off due to all of this

If I am sent links to article I may blog them but don't expect deep thoughts from me for a while as I'm just too strung out.

I'm behind on reading emails too, in case you are trying to reach me...

Surprise Meeting

2008-06-03T08:00:00.000-04:00

I hate it when God does this. I am speaking of when a person thinks they have something to be upset about God gives them something to shake them up and to rearrange the priorities and to deal with something bigger and more important. Suddenly the old issue that we saw that felt so bothersome and looked like a mountain is now perceived as just a mole hill.

Last evening while still in the bad mood about something I got a phone call that really shocked me. My father said that Hospice called had just phoned him to schedule an urgent meeting about my grandmother that will take place this morning. The surprise is no one told us she was dying.

Based on the end of life care and Hospice experience with my father-in-law six months ago I know that the hospice agency here does not step in until it is close to the end and they also need a doctor's order to even have that meeting with the family.

I know my grandmother has not been well and has been much more sleepy. In the last month while sick with two acute, what are technically considered minor infections, she suddenly needed more help as she was sleeping more and more weak, they said, due to the infections which knocked her energy levels down. She has had care 24/7 all that time. She didn't phone me on my birthday as she was too out of it and that was not a good sign. Still, no one has said at any point along the way that she is dying!

Presently my grandmother is living alone in her own home. For a long time that is what she has wanted but about six months ago she got lonely she said she wished someone could be there for companionship on a 24/7 basis. Well as I said in the last month she has had hired help there 24/7 and the last time I saw her, about ten days ago she said she is very happy in her home with companionship and it is just what she wants. (The financial cost is basically equal to a nursing home stay and that is not something that she can afford for years!) My grandmother was hoping she'd never have to return to a nursing home. My grandmother has been asking to die for years and always said she wanted to die in her own home. She has a DNR order and a special order that if 911 is called the paramedics are not supposed to take her out of the house (I never even knew that existed, but it is on a bracelet she wears now).

Last week her doctor was on vacation and no one would speak to my father about her for an update on her condition (long-time CHF plus the two minor infections). Last night during the office's evening hours, after the Hospice call, I begged him to call the doctor's office to ask about this and he was told the doctor went home and no one else would talk to him. I know on the one hand they say American medicine is so great but in times like this it seems like the communication part at least is not so wonderful. And if the communication is not there then the entire care can be perceived as not good. It is too bad so many doctors fail on the communication part, office staff could help to make this smoother instead of just being even more of a blockade and hindrance, which is a shame.

It is important to me that in the senior years, people are allowed to live with dignity. I wish that all elderly people and also the dying (of all ages) continued to have their wishes considered instead of sometimes other situations such as family doing what they perfer or intentionally going against the desire of the patient. I feel today regarding my paternal grandmother that she is getting what she wants, being in her own home with 24/7 care, and for that I am happy. I don't know how much longer that will be possible or when/if the money will run out and if she will have to go to a nursing home and enroll onto Medicaid and have the state take her home to help defray those costs.

I decided to get the straight story I will attend this morning's meeting. I feel sorry for myself and afraid to hear news that my grandmother's heart may be completely and truly failing at this point but I keep telling myself that this is not about me, it is about her and trying to focus on getting her the care that is right and best and what she wants also. I feel like I need to pull courage out from somewhere. Prayer is helping, I'm leaning on God this morning.

(Note: this is a case where blogging something is kind of a form of therapy. I'm not looking for attention. I am just sharing from the heart. Writing this out helps me process the situation and relieves stress. I don't usually share this type of personal information on my blog, a lot goes on in my life that I never blog about!)

Link to a Lomo Rant

2008-05-31T19:40:00.002-04:00

I learned some interesting things in this article including that I don't have to buy a Lomo pinhole camera but can convert a cheap ($1-2) plastic 35 mm camera to a pinhole myself.

I have been stumbling upon those plastic 35 mm cameras with no batteries at thrift shops and Goodwill ranging from 50 cents to $4. I find Goodwill overprices, selling those for $3-$4 and as a comparision, selling a Kodak Instamatic for $7. Does anyone really want a Kodak Instamatic that takes 110 film for $7? On the good side I came across a Canon (film) SLR, a zoom that goes to 210mm and a flash in a case for $25 at a Goodwill the other day. (I didn't buy it as I still have my old Minolta from the 1980s and I inherited two manual SLRs and also two Minolta Maxxim's.)

Lomo Rant

Behind on Posting

2008-05-29T07:32:00.002-04:00

I am behind on posting due to busyness.

I have been creating.

What needs to be blogged in more detail:

1. I have purchased a Diana camera from eBay.

2. I have shot one roll of film on the Diana and sent it for processing which is another story in and of itself. I'm waiting for it to come back.

3. Where does a person get gaffer's tape?

4. I have purchased a Nickelodeon Action Blaster toy camera.

5. I used my never used but bought new about 15 years ago camera which is a no name version of the Lomo Action Sampler.

6. I shot half a roll with the "Action Sampler".

7. I bought an Agfa Clack on eBay from a UK seller.

8. I bought a box of antique cameras from a tag sale including a rare form of the Brownie and some Polaroids.

9. I learned of the Polaroid film change. They are still being made by Fuji now.

10. I bought some Polaroid 669 film locally.

11. I shot some photos with my Polaroid Colorpack II and my Polaroid Colorpack IV.

12. The best camera I own for a Polaroid was the one I got for FREE.

13. I just finished reading Michelle Bates' book on toy cameras which I will do a book review on.

14. I shot half a roll (roll #2) with my Lomo Fisheye camera.

15. I decided the Diana was more appealing to me than the Holga for now. I am starting with the Diana and will see how the photos turn out. Later on if I feel I need more cameras I'll buy a new Holga.

16. I am more tempted with the full fisheye circle of the Holga Fisheye lens than the Lomo Fisheye camera that I own right now.

All those things deserve their own blog posts!! If I only had the time!!

Trying To Knit

2008-05-17T17:30:00.003-04:00

Summary of recent events:

KNITTING ATTEMPTS

Monday, daytime: A homeschool mom taught me to knit, gave me a pair of knitting needles and some wool yarn. I could do it when I was there. The plan is to make an easy felted bag. The reason for felting it is so that the messy stitches will not show in the final product.

Monday, nighttime: Could not knit. Gave up.

Tuesday: Watching videos on knittinghelp.com, not working. Watched videos on YouTube.com to learn to cast on. I thought it was working. Knitted about 45 minutes. It looked horrid. Ripped it out. Went to sleep.

Wednesday: Busy and feeling discouraged. Didn't touch the knitting needles.

Thursday: Watched videos again. I think I got the cast on. I think I got the continental stitch. Knitted while waiting for kids to arrive from carpool. Later that night, it looked horrid. Ripped it all out.

Friday: Tried casting on again by the YouTube directions. Not working. Bought a book on knitting and felting. Read the book's ridiculously short directions. Realized I had been doing something very wrong after seeing the videos. Started all over again. I think it is working.

Saturday (today): Looked at my work and found some odd tangles and a mess. Don't know how to fix it. Ripped it out. While kids playing in a Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament, using the book, I casted on and did three rows. It looked horrid. Ripped it out. Casted on again and did four rows. There are things very wrong happening. I gave up and put it away. Read a magazine to pass the time (Somerset Studio May-June 2008 issue).

Not sure if there is any hope for me at this point. I think I should hang out with a knitter and knit for a while and if I make an error they can help me right then and there.

Homeschool mom friend recommends me to go to weekly Knit and Bitch gatherings that are held one town over. Not sure I have time to make it at those exact times.

I really want to learn to do this. Really I do.

Doing a Lomo Happy Dance—Scored My First Lomo Camera for $5

2008-05-14T09:43:00.004-04:00

Last week after finishing reading one book about plastic cameras, I decided to explore some thrift shops to see if I could find some old plastic junky cameras, preferably a Diana or a Holga (one can have high hopes). The idea was hatched on the morning that we had to go to another city that I usually never go to, for a doctor’s appointment. I wanted to check a Goodwill up there and see if there were any other thrift shops in that city. I barely know anything about that city and have only been there three times in my life (despite living in Connecticut my entire life).

I did a search online and found that Google maps does a search to tell you the names, addresses and phone numbers of all businesses in a category and it lays out the points on a map. I took down some phone numbers to input into my new car navigation system (which I am still learning to use).

The trip was botched though. The navigation system didn’t think that some of the phone numbers existed, so I couldn’t find my way to them with just the phone number. I should have written down the street address. (This is yet another shortcoming of this navigation system.) Then I put in two destinations after the doctor’s visit was over and the Goodwill was supposedly ½ mile away (fantastic). Somehow though it didn’t direct me there but a roundabout, longer way to the other one that was three miles away. I asked it to route me from one to the other (seems pretty easy doesn’t it). I got annoyed when I realized I had somehow gone by the first stop without the system telling me I had. This was traffic-y driving and it was hard enough to keep my eyes on the road and get into the right lanes so I could not look at every sign in the wall-to-wall strip malls I was driving past. Frustrated, before getting to the farther away store and I declared the journey over when I was going by the on-ramp to the highway so just jumped on it to head home.

On the ride home I was disappointed because I really wanted to see if anyone had any toy cameras. So when closer to home I stopped in the Goodwill which is one town away from me (not using the navigation, just using my brain, thank you). I had never looked at cameras there before and did find them in the back, thrown onto a shelf. I didn’t find anything except some digital cameras and some battery operated automatic 35mm cameras, so I headed out. I stopped at the glass cases by the cash register which are kept locked. I peered in and saw to my surprise, a Lomography box, it was a fisheye camera! JACKPOT!

I have wanted a fisheye camera forever as I just think they are fun! I asked to see it and it was in perfect looking condition with all of the booklets and directions intact. The box was just ripped when the person tried to open it the incorrect way. It was $5. I bought it on the spot and held it like treasure while I waited in the long line to pay.

Upon getting home I read the directions and realized they’d never been read before, they were way too crisp. When I went to load the film in (which I already had on hand from past uses of 35 mm film), I discovered the silica gel packet inside and realized the camera had never been used! This is a special edition camera made for Urban Outfitters and the original price sticker says it was $38. It is all white including the very edges of the barrel (is that what it is called?) and pretty cool looking.

I went outside and began snapping shots. I had a homeschool meeting to go to and so had to stop playing with it (darn). I almost took some shots while at the coffee shop but I figured the ladies would think I was off my rocker for playing with a fisheye plastic camera so I didn’t do it. (If they read this blog they’ll find out about it though.)

The next day I took it to the homeschool park day with me and snapped more shots. I finished the 24 exposure roll by dinnertime and ran to the drug store to get it developed. I couldn’t wait to see how they came out!

Here I am with a self-portrait, taken in my driveway, the day I bought the camera. (I now know I should have used the flash even though it was sunny outside, becaues the sun was behind me.)

Things learned about the Lomography Fisheye Camera:

1. No matter how bright it is indoors, you do need the flash.

2. My camera leaves odd black shapes in the corners when the flash is used. This might be my shadow; I’m not sure, as it is only on the left side.

3. It works best in bright sun.

4. Even when the sun is overhead (at 1:30pm or 2:00pm) when I try to take a shot looking straight forward or slightly up the sun is in the shot.

5. Even when close to the subject in the center of the shot, (3 feet) the thing appears far away. In photos of my son riding his bike he looks 10 feet or more away when he was so close to me that he almost was going to hit me.

6. You can get very close in, such as 1-2 inches and the shot comes out.

7. Close-up’s of faces get distorted.

8. There is a fine line between getting a very close shot that has enough light versus using the flash and having the close thing overexposed and whited-out.

9. My white camera sometimes leaves a white ring around the fisheye. I see that the regular Lomography fisheye camera has a black area (barrel?) around the lens which leaves a sharp black outline around the circle of the fisheye. The black looks better. Note the black camera is sold by Lomography.com and goes for $50.

10. The flash is malfunctioning. Sometimes when it is on and the light is on, it does not go off. Sometimes when the flash is shut off, the light is still on and the flash does go off when I don’t want it to. Other times no light is on and the flash goes off anyway. I am confused!! Even with a $38 camera I expect the flash to be working right. This tells me then that the Lomographic Society is overcharging for their cameras which truly in the end are as some call them “crappy plastic cameras”.

11. The top and bottom of the circle are cut off. If you desire a true round fisheye, they do sell a fisheye adaptor lens for the Holga camera.

12. The viewfinder is ‘normal’ and you don’t really know how your image will come out, which things are included or not included in your shot. You have to just aim and shoot and what comes out in the end is a total surprise.

Already wishing for more…

1. My camera is the first generation of fisheye camera that Lomo made. You cannot do a double or multiple exposures. There is a new model “Fisheye No. 2” which has a lot more features such as allowing for multiple exposures, having a shoe for a second flash that can be used for longer exposures, has a true fisheye viewfinder, and comes with one pack of film for $70.

2. Lomo also sell an additional product that makes the camera waterproof for underwater shots!

3. They sell a special cutter to quickly and smoothly cut the circle shape out.
I am already thinking that I should start using this camera not just for fooling around but such as for taking shots when doing tourist-y things. How fun would it be to have more typical tourist photos but done in fisheye view?

Links
Fisheye microsite at Lomography.com

Fisheye Camera exclusive edition for Urban Outfitters (the one I now own)

Technorati Tags: Lomography Fisheye camera, Lomography Fisheye camera no. 2, toy camera, plastic camera,

Great Photos of Disneyland with Toy Camera

2008-05-10T19:39:00.002-04:00

Check out these fantastic photographs made with a toy camera at Disneyland on Pollywog Productions blog.

Zen and the Art of Knitting: Book Review by ChristineMM

2008-05-10T05:50:00.001-04:00

Title: Zen and the Art of Knitting
Author: Bernadette Murphy
Format: softcover book
Publication: Adams Media Corporation 2002
ISBN: 1580626548
Retail price: $10.95

I stumbled upon “Zen and the Art of Knitting” at a used book fundraiser sale and thought it looked like an interesting read for the quarter that it cost me. I have been drawn to learn to knit as a way to keep my hands busy and for the love of making things from scratch. At the time I read this I was not yet a knitter.

Each chapter in this small book is a stand alone essay. This is easy reading, relaxing reading, the type that is perfect to read before going to sleep and is light yet interesting enough for airplane or beach reading.

First I will address the fact that this is not a book about Buddhism, something that others assumed about the book, which was the reason that one Christian knitter refused to be interviewed and featured in the book. The author practices no religion, although her aunt is a nun.

Murphy uses knitting as a way to center and calm herself, as a meditative activity. Knitting helps Murphy slow down, sit down, and think. I found that so interesting because the first knitters I was exposed to in my adulthood were mothers whose toddlers or preschoolers were no longer clamoring to be in their arms, they wanted something to do with their hands. I had been around so many mothers, mainly through La Leche League, who, after being so busy caring for babies and children, could not bear to sit still in administrative meetings or lectures—so they knitted while they listened and talked. Now I find myself in situations where just sitting still and listening is unbearable and I clamor for something to do with my hands. Not always wanting to take notes, doodle or sketch while others watch, I’d feel more comfortable knitting, I think.

On the idea of knitting to keep the hands busy versus knitting to slow us down, I found this passage from page 174 intersting. When interviewing a knitter named Lizbeth Upitis, Lizbeth says,

"...the tools of knitting provide this mental health break while fitting within the Western mentality of production, the idea that we must always be productive? She says she found her way to meditation through knitting. "Idle hands are devil's work," she quotes the old saying. "Meditation is a valid part of my life; it's not selfish. But it's taken me a long time to realize that."

In the book Murphy interviews knitters about what they do and why. Although some knit for crafting pleasure, others knit to meditate and others knit their way through recovering from injuries or illness, as a sort of therapy for the mind while the body heals. One doctor knits as a way to reduce on-the-job stress, specifically that caused by the death of a patient. There is talk about tapping into a different level of consciousness in various places in the book. What I wanted the author to realize is what is being described is the ‘flow experience’. For more information on that, read the books by Mihaly Csikszentmihal.

Murphy interviews her aunt, a nun, who knits items to be used by those living in poverty, so the aspect of knitting for others as an act of charity is touched upon. Another interview is with a Jewish woman. A Buddhist is interviewed as well. As you can see the author was trying to research how people of different faiths feel their knitting intersects with their religious and/or spiritual life.

She also has a chapter about a Waldorf handcraft teacher who discuses the Waldorf education outlook on handcrafts and working with natural fibers and anthro views on wool yarn and natural materials being real while acrylic yarns are not real and help teach the child to know the difference between the real and not real. I do need to state that the statement about acrylic yarn not being natural is not true as it is made from petroleum and petroleum byproducts which are all natural materials. A more accurate way to describe the difference between acrylic yarns and the wool yarn used in the Waldorf schools would have been more honest and appreciated by at least this reader.

A fun chapter explored the reason that Clare Crespo began making her now famous three dimensional crocheted representations of food items, sold as sculptural art pieces.

More serious, deeper thoughts are touched upon throughout the book as well. I found the discussion of knitting and feminism interesting to ponder as well. A knitter named Karen shares that when she began knitting it was product based, knitting to have a finished product and that after she entered her 40s knitting became more spiritual and less product focused.

"That's the difficult thing, sometimes: getting women to just give in to the process of knitting and not focus so much on the product." She relates this to the larger issue of the women's movement. "A lot of women between forty-five and sixty were taught that they can do it all. Women's lib, entering the workforce and so on. They think it's self-indulgent to do something simply because you want to do it. They're project-motivated, making huge committments and trying to do everything perfectly."

In a nutshell this is an entertaining read for anyone who has an interest in knitting. The book is a combination of deep thoughts and ponderings written in a light way that makes for fast and easy reading, but to get the most pleasure out of this book, I advise reading it slowly one chapter per sitting to savor it.

Technorati Tags: Zen and the Art of Knitting, Zen and the Art of Knitting book review, knitting.

My ATC: Listen

2008-05-09T18:26:00.002-04:00

ATC by ChristineMM, created May 9, 2008 for thematic prompt "LISTEN".

Technique: Collage of used postage stamps on recycled cardboard. White gesso painted on top then wiped off. Selected areas to remove even more gesso from to highlight the images. Passage also written by ChristineMM, in word processor, printed on paper then made into a packing tape transfer and adhered to the front of the ATC with Golden Acrylic Gel Medium soft gloss.

Technorati Tags: ATC mixed media collage, ATC , ATC postage stamp.

The Toycam Handbook: Book Review by ChristineMM

2008-05-08T13:08:00.000-04:00

Book Review by ChristineMM

Title: The Toycam Handbook
Author: The members of ToyCamera.com
ISBN: 9781411663817
Publication: self published through Lulu.com
Price: $31.03

Summary Statement: Provides the Basics on Using Toy Cameras with Camera Lists and Prices Too

This book is a compilation of contributions of members of the discussion forums at ToyCamera.com. Without ever meeting face to face, this book was compiled and is printed on demand by Lulu.com. Before I get into comments on the book I wanted to share that unique and very cool fact. You have to love the way the Internet is not just connecting people but is now resulting in books being produced!

The book is divided into three main parts.

The first section of the book is a guide to toy cameras. About 30 cameras are described on two page spreads including multiple color images of the cameras and two examples of the photos they produce. The information on each camera provides a bit of history and an indication of the rarity and price you will probably have to pay to buy one. It is helpful to know if you have found a treasure at the thrift shop or not. Twenty more cameras, some new and still in production such as some of the Lomography cameras are shown with full color photographs of the camera, with just a small amount of information.

The second section of the book provides all kinds of useful information. As a beginner to playing with toy cameras I found all my questions answered. Basic questions such as the types of films, how much they cost and where to find them and get them developed is covered. How to modify different cameras is discussed such as converting a 120 film camera to accept 35 mm film, converting the cameras to a pinhole camera or using a zone plate. More advanced techniques are also covered such as developing your own photographs. Also mentioned is having the film developed then scanning the negatives in order to work with the images digitally or to have them printed off after digital conversion.

Lastly, there are interviews with 15 toy camera photographers who are members of ToyCamera.com who discuss why they love toy cameras, which is their favorite and some of their favorite techniques and interesting good stuff like that.

After reading this book I realized some of the differences in the different vintage toy cameras and decided which I think I’d like to use. I feel more capable of jumping into toy photography now. I know what to keep my eyes peeled for in thrift shops and at tag sales and I know what price ranges are typical before bidding on some cameras on eBay.

This book left me feeling capable and that anyone can have fun and produce good photographs using toy cameras, you just have to ‘go for it’—go get a toy camera, get out there and take some photos and get to know your camera. This hobby is accessible to all.

Some "Toy Cameras":

Technorati Tags: The Toycam Handbook, The Toycam Handbook book review, toy camera guide, toy camera, lomography.

Pondering Photography

2008-05-01T13:05:00.003-04:00

May is here and that means Mother’s Day and my birthday. That makes two occasions for which a present may be received from my husband. I’m long overdue for something substantial. These won’t be holidays that presents are skipped, not this year.

I like my digital automatic focus camera with zoom lens. I carry it with me everywhere I go and I take lots of photos. However after taking literally thousands of photos I want something more. I miss my old SLR which allowed me to focus the camera. I miss the out of focus things in a photograph; I am tired of everything being in focus all the time. I am sick of having problems trying to take a photo of something close up and struggling with the automatic focus when it focuses on something other than the main object. I am sick of the slower shutter and the slow recovery time that makes me miss things that my children are doing or animals or other creatures.

I was thinking of getting a good digital SLR camera, probably one of the Canon EOS Rebels. I am overwhelmed by the choices. I don’t ‘get’ digital SLRs. I tried to do some research online but can’t find the answers to my questions. And I will admit that if a camera has a lot of books published just on how to use it makes me worry. I don’t want a camera that I have to read a whole book to learn how to take a decent shot.

Which brings me back to thinking about my old film camera. I still own my film SLR (a Minolta). I have different telescopic lenses for it, a macro lens, and a 28 mm (wider than normal) lens. I just inherited some more film cameras: a Konica SLR. A Minolta SLR. A Minolta Maxxim 7000 and a Minolta Maxxim xTi. I also have multiple lenses for those cameras, flash units, and a number of other accessories, and all the owner's manuals too.

Thinking back to artsy photos from old cameras, I have been reading about using an old Polaroid Land Camera, the SX-70 to make interesting transferred images with. I just inherited a camera case, a flash unit, and an instruction manual for one of those but not the camera. My husband informs me when he was a child he accidentally broke it. Those cameras are selling used on eBay for over $100 (wow). I have just inherited a Polaroid Spectrum camera with one unused film cartridge. I don’t know if I can do the transfers with that film type and with that camera. That is something else I tried to investigate on the Internet but so far can’t find the answer. I bought a book on Polaroid Transfers and can’t find the answer in there, yet. I have not had time to read that book cover to cover, so maybe the answer is buried somewhere in there.

Through an alternative art magazine, Teesha Moore’s Art & Life, about two years ago, I learned about lomography’s site (technically it is called the Lomographic Society). Teesha’s husband Tracey is into lomography and he wrote the article. The article taught me that artsy people are using old and new plastic toy cameras to make interesting photographs with. I have been pondering the idea of jumping into that hobby of ‘lomography’. I should mention in case you don’t know that the Lomography site also provides web space for members to upload photos (they call that a Lomohome). There are many ways to view and search for photos such as searching by city name and type of camera or type of image. There is a message board for networking and chatting and they also have a big conference for members to attend and meet up.

The fantastic photographs by Angela Cartwright I found out are usually made with photographs from a vintage Holga camera. In her book which I read cover to cover recently, “Mixed Emulsions” all of my favorite images were made with her Holga. The Holga’s images are with 120 film and produce 3x3 inch photographs. You have to buy the film from specialty Internet sites and unless you are going to develop the film yourself you have to pay about $10 per roll and send them through the mail to get developed.

The Holga is just one of what people are calling toy cameras. It is a plastic camera that sold for dirt cheap back in the 1960s when it was invented. The light leaks in the body, the defects in the plastic lenses and other quirks make the images surprising because they don’t look like ‘real life’. The images can wind up looking blurred or having light streaks on them. Some parts can be in focus while others are not. I love the idea of taking a photograph and finding the surprise when the developed film is seen. I actually loved that part of all the film photography that I used to do.

Lomography is selling new copies of the old Holga’s and new Diana cameras too. I just read a review with comparison photos and I think the vintage Diana makes better photographs than the new one. So now I am on the lookout for a vintage, working Diana. I spent some time checking completed auctions on eBay. I see some noted the camera was tested and works. Now I worry that a camera without that statement might not work at all—especially those marked “sold as is” ----it would really stink to buy one for about $50-65 and have it not work.

But first, before I even peeked at eBay, I began making rounds to local thrift shops when I was near some. After many trips with nothing being found, I bought six in one day. All were either 50 cents or $1. All are not battery operated which allows for multiple exposures or overlapping images across two negatives. Two are Diana knock-off’s, two are 35 mm panoramic cameras and two are 35 mm basic cameras. I have also kept my eyes peeled for a Polaroid SX-70, the Holga and the Diana but so far have not found any.

I also own a new camera I bought almost 20 years ago but never used. It takes 4 images in a grid pattern all separated by some fractions of a second, and it has no flash. I paid $10 for that in a mail order catalog back then. That is similar to the new Lomo Action Sampler without flash, which sells for $40 new. So you can compare the old prices to the new cameras developed to meet this new trend. Just as the old Diana’s sold for $1, now the new Diana sells for $60.

I decided before I buy a new or a vintage used camera I need to know a little bit more. I have been trying to read websites but am not getting much information. So using my Amazon commissions from my blog’s Amazon Associates account I bought “Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity” by Michelle Bates. This discusses toy camera photography and then it moves on to tips for using the Holga. It arrived yesterday so I began reading it immediately and already learned that the professional artists usually develop their own black and white and color films and some create custom made frames for their images. Now this end of the extreme has me wondering if lab developing is even worthwhile.

For the record I am stating publically I am not pondering getting into developing my own film. I did learn to do that in a Photography 100 class in college but I just don’t want to ‘go there’ mostly so that I am not exposed to the chemicals and also because our home does not have proper ventilation. So I reject that part of what some photographers are doing with printmaking from their toy cameras.

I am awaiting delivery of another book that discusses the many toy cameras on the market, called "The Toycam Handbook". That book from what I can tell explains what all the different toy cameras are like. It has galleries of photographs as well.

Today out of curiosity I checked while at Wal Mart and they did have a few toy film cameras. One was a soft jelly plastic Barbie camera with a roll of film and a battery for $13. Another was a Disney princess camera with film and battery for $13. They were sold out on the Fisher Price toy camera. Note they each took a battery so it is not hand wound so double exposures are not possible. They also had flashes. I didn’t buy any. Starting at $20 there were low pixel toy digital cameras as well. At least with the film cameras the quality of the print is higher.

I then thought if that is all that we need then why not use disposable cameras. A four pack of a cheap brand with flash sold for $8.88. If one wants to modify the disposable camera to make the lens do something funkier, they can. Here is one set of directions for modifying a disposable camera.

I don’t quite know what to do. I’m not sure if a $450 really good digital SLR is what I really want. I want to do funky fun photos. Toy cameras, especially the Holga or a Diana would do the trick—but then I am saddled with the cost of film and developing (total would be about $20 per roll for both things from what I found on the Internet). I have one more book on toy cameras on its way to me.

I think I will hold off from buying a new expensive digital SLR for now (even if I end up not having a gift on Mother’s Day or my birthday), and I will read up more on toy cameras. I’ll keep checking at thrift shops for a Holga or a Diana (I’m not holding my breath). In the mean time I guess I can fool around with the cameras I already own that take 35 mm film and get that developed at Costco.

Oh and last month on Freecycle I was the happy recipient of some 120 film and some 35 mm film. I figured that I could use that in my experiments.

I’m also going to see if I can find a local camera shop so a human can explain the in’s and out’s and the pro’s and con’s of digital SLRs. There are not many around me so that may involve a 45 or 60 minute drive (not very convenient). However I do feel like I’m getting ripped off to buy the camera from the local shop when the difference between their price and Amazon’s price is $150 (on the model I’m looking at).

And lasty while I ponder this I could spend hours and hours on the Internet viewing images taken by photographers with Holga, Diana and other plastic and toy cameras. Between the Lomo site and Flickr I could just scroll and scroll and scroll and never get around to actually making my own photographs!

Links

Lomographic Society (Lomography) (You can buy new Lomo cameras on this site.)

Toy Camera.com

Light Leaks magazine of low technology photography (link from this home page)

article: Reloading and Adapting Single-Use (Disposable) Cameras By Howard Wells

One example of a double exposed photograph from the lomography site

Gallery of winners of the 2007 Krappy Kamera competition (New York City)

Holga camera Wikipedia page

Diana camera Wikipedia page

Angela Cartwright’s Art webpage

Holga info and links on LitFoto site

Amazon sells new Lomography cameras also and sometimes less expensive than on the Lomography site:

Technorati Tags: toy cameras, plastic cameras, Lomography, Holga, Diana camera.

More Felted Creations

2008-04-28T20:49:00.006-04:00

Here are more needle felted creations that I made in March and April 2008.

1. Easter Egg about 1.5 inches in length

2. Easter Egg about 3 inches in length.

3. Robot about 7 inches tall

4. Race Car about 7 inches long. I could not think of what to make with this hot pink roving! I especially like the racing flames on the sides.

Hilarious Pointed Party Hat Photo

2008-04-28T20:47:00.001-04:00

If you are as sick of seeing pointed party hat photos as I am you must go look at this photo. It most likely is a temporary webpage.

Light Leaks magazine preview issue cover shot

Struggling to Learn New Craft Skills

2008-04-23T10:18:00.003-04:00

I have a few things going on that are making me realize the difference between an art and a craft. What is happening is that me and my children are struggling to learn how to use the tools of some different ‘crafts’. The bottom line is that when you do certain things that require that you use certain tools and that you use them in just a certain way in order to get your ‘finished product’ to come out ‘right’ then to me that is a craft.

Even when I have a unique idea which I consider a creative artistic skill, it cannot come to fruition with out a certain level of skill and mastery of the tools for certain types of work.

When I see a finished piece of artwork or craftwork that a person designed and conceived all on their own I consider that person an artist. The more I learn about mastering certain types of craftwork the more I realized that there is both the element of the mastery of using the tools and the artistic and creative idea in and of itself. I admire not just the finished stained glass window’s design but I admire the fine soldering work as well, from seeing my mother struggle and get angry with the soldering part of the stained glass works she used to make. The more I learn about certain types of work the more I realize which kinds of things are difficult to do. A stained glass maker can identify a design which has a successfully executed difficult shape or size of a piece (it make take many botched cuts before they finally got the glass to cut correctly as they wanted it). This is why those who know about making certain arts and crafts especially those with hands on experience at trying those crafts, can more deeply appreciate well-executed pieces of finished art. A person who is ignorant about the basic skills cannot appreciate as fully what that finished piece represents.

Part of making an artistic well-made finished product with a craft is mastering the actual tools and using them correctly. With a craft if you don’t have good tools, or if you are using the tools incorrectly or you are not yet skilled with using those tools, then the finished product will look bad, not just in an artistic way I mean, but it just won’t be right. I was so frustrated with my first (and only) stained glass making attempt because after all the work of cutting I realized two pieces didn’t fit well enough together to actually use them in the piece! With a craft you need your raw material, true but you need the tools to make those materials into something other than what they are in their raw state. You may have your vision of the artistic rendering of the finished product, such as if you designed your own pattern for knitted socks, but if you cannot master the working of the tools then this finished product will not come to fruition. Period.

The learning to use the new tools takes patience. Sometimes people get hung up in that learning process and give up. Being frustrated with using the tools is not a direct reflection on the person’s creativity or artistic talent, it is purely an issue with the tools and has to do with skill and lack of mastery of those tools.

Weaving with a Loom

Right now my son is trying to weave using a Brio (brand) loom. This was lent to us by our church as part of a children’s art show. It sounded like a great idea. However they didn’t give us the instruction book. I had no way to know what the proper way to start a new piece is. We don’t know how to properly remove it from the loom in order to not have it unravel. I don’t know how to rethread the loom to make another piece. All they showed him was how to do just the weaving part (the easy part).

When using the loom last night the tension appeared wrong. Since we have no directions we don’t know how to fix this. I then moved a piece on the loom like you are supposed to and a piece of the wood snapped. Oh no. I then realized that some of the strings were tangled. Further inspection revealed that the way the loom was strung I believe was incorrect. The strings were bungled up more near the middle instead of being evenly spread out across the length of the span of it (this is how we received the loom). Having the string going on an angle caused too much tension on that outmost ‘rung’ or whatever it is called and caused the thin wood to snap.

I should mention too that I had spent time on the Internet twice now going all over trying to find directions for this Brio loom to no avail. I have found direction for different looms which are not at all the same as this one. I feel like we are the blind leading the blind here.

This Brio loom is quite nice and I see it sells for $40. It comes with a booklet and I am sure if I had that information we’d be in a much better situation right now.

Today I tried to rethread the loom. I had to dissect it to see how it was set up and now I have tried to re-string it (or whatever that process is called). This is very hard to do when one does not know what they are doing. This is when it was underscored for me that a person needs to understand how to use a tool like this—that is part of the ability to make the finished product; there is skill and knowledge of the tools involved here.

Beading (Jewelry Making)

Two weeks ago I strung my first necklace with beads. I was following directions in a book about how to make jewelry including the very important step of crimping the ends so that the thing doesn’t fall apart. I struggled with that. My son (the seven year old) made me a necklace. Then it fell apart making me realize I had crimped it wrong.

I spent time later reading books and watching YouTube videos about crimping and realized the tool I own that led me to believe it was an ‘all in one’ tool was not a crimping tool and so it didn’t do the task right. I hoped the finished pieces I had already made would be alright.

The next day another necklace I made fell apart right in my lap while I was in a public place. I gathered up the beads and tossed them into my pocketbook. This underscored to me that although I used creativity and an artistic eye while designing my own necklace, the fact that I used the tools incorrectly really screwed the whole thing up. The necklace was not functional, it was in pieces.

Later I went in search of a crimping tool only to find out while staring at the wall of jewelry findings that the tool needs certain sized crimping beads and the bead size depends on the size of the thread you use. Why this very basic information was not clearly stated in the three books I read ‘for beginners’ is beyond me. I learned this by reading many labels and by putting two and two together on my own.

Those are the times when I realize that having a local friend who does a craft or taking a workshop can be very useful. I will say though that I did take two workshops on beading which ended up being only a putting together of a pre-made kit not actually learning anything about me making a beaded item from scratch but that is a longer story that I may tell another time. I guess another lesson learned is when you pay and attend a workshop you should have a clear understanding of the goal and content of said workshop. Probably the two workshops were done to meet what the majority wanted, they wanted to just string the beads onto a necklace to have the finished product in their hands. Well I wanted to learn the basic skills of the task and to be able to do the entire process on my own (all the making of it plus the designing of a unique creation).

Soldering

The second project is that for a long time I have wanted to learn to solder. I would like to make some of my own charms to use in jewelry pieces. I grew up watching my mother make stained glass windows and soldering but never looked at what she was actually doing. She liked to work alone and she hates teaching others so she never taught me any of these skills. (Well a few years ago she tried to teach me stained glass and that was SO HARD.) I have read three books about making metal things that use soldering. I still felt that I didn’t get it. I then discussed this with my mother yesterday and asked her to demonstrate it for me. Instead she explained it verbally in a way that I suddenly realized I had something very wrong. I kept having to ask her to explain in again and in a different way so I could fully understand what she was saying. I then verified that from reading the books I had the most important part of the process incorrect. I realized that part was never shown in photos in a step of soldering and that if I had tried it based on how I thought it was done from the book instructions I would have failed.

My mother told me the soldering iron we bought at Home Depot is junk. She lent me hers which is much larger and looks more industrial and heavy duty. I told her of some of the recommendations in my books about buying more expensive ones with thermostats on them and so on and she said that is nonsense. I said how the book said you need a metal stand to hold it and she shooed me a hunk of pine wood that she used for years and said it sufficed quite well. So much for needing expensive stuff that can only be bought from specialty companies. If a person has been soldering stained glass windows for years with a not super fancy soldering iron and a piece of cheap scrap wood then that is proof for me that not the best equipment on the market today is always necessary either. There are times when the best of the best equipment is needed and there are other times when being skilled with the tools is sometimes acceptable for making fine finished pieces. The best tools with weak skills is worthless also.

Knitting

Lastly the urge to knit persists in me. One reason I want to knit is that it will keep my hands and mind busy at times when it kills me to sit still. I would like to knit while a passenger in the car and while sitting in a boring meeting or even while listening to a conference speaker. I would like to knit while sitting on the side of the room for my son’s Boy Scout Troop meeting. I would like to knit while camping. I would like to knit while visiting relatives and having conversation with them. I’d like to knit while watching our nightly TV show with our family. I need something to do that is portable. I need something that is not very personal (journal writing or sketching in a sketch book is too personal to do in public or around family sometimes).

I looked at some knitting books last week as I had a 50% off coupon for Joanne’s and also A.C.. Moore and a 40% off coupon for Michael’s (they are all in a 1.5 mile range from each other so I can go do a craft run and use all the coupons to stock up on various supplies). I got overwhelmed by the knitting books as some projects used three different needle sizes. Other projects used even other needle sizes. I wanted to just buy one set of needles and do something from start to finish with that one set of needles. I guess then I’ll have to make a scarf, is that my only option?

I realized I should narrow down what kind of knitting I want to do. I was reading some felting books and was thinking about making a felted handbag like a friend of mine does. But two stores didn’t have the needle sizes I needed to do the projects in the book that the stores were selling. Groan. So I bought nothing.

My mother agreed to teach me to knit. I then realized though if I bought a book of a project she’d never done (like knitting socks using circular needles) then she could not help me. I figured then that maybe I should just have my mother teach me to knit in the way she knits and that I should start off doing just what she does. Once I have my general bearings I could buy a book with a different technique and teach myself that.

I also will share the fear that I felt when I looked at the list of the directions to knit what the book called a simple sock. A terror ran through me and I had that feeling that maybe I was not smart enough to handle doing that kind of work.

Thoughts on Skills

I saw a piece of soldered jewelry that was a real mess because the person was not skilled at soldering well. My son’s weaving is coming out terribly because the tension is not right on the loom, it started out wide and it very narrow further along. Those are both signs of the fact that a person can make a craft while they are not yet skilled in the craft itself. My point is that when working with certain crafts the mastering of the technique itself, just handling the tools and materials I mean, is something very different than having a unique creative idea and making art with it. Other artistic endeavors such as drawing doesn’t need complicated materials or tools but requires the skill of being able to draw. I guess then the eye and hand are the tools?

So you see in these three different craft projects the use of the tools themselves are a skill that has to be learned in order to make the project at all. While a craft such as weaving, making metal jewelry charms and knitting is art making—especially when the person designs their own unique creations out of raw materials (yarn, glass, metal, and homemade art collaged pieces)---the art piece cannot be made at all if the person is incapable of using the materials in the right way.

Other Thoughts on Crafts vs. Art Making

One last thought about ‘crafts’ is that to me a craft is sometimes something that requires certain materials that must be used and bought and that also has a preset finished product conceived by some other person. To make that craft you then follow strict instructions to create a project entirely conceived by a stranger. There is little room in there for creativity or uniqueness of the maker. The person who just follows that direction and uses preset materials is not freely expressing their artistic vision. A perfect example is the scrapbook kits that have everything you need to make pages and they give examples of finished pages and when a person makes an exact copy of someone else’s work. Another example is if you watch a craft TV show and exactly replicate something they made on the show.

On the other hand some crafts can allow for more open ended artistic creation. When our family used the Fabric Blo Pen kit it came with factory made stencils that we could use. We instead designed our own stencils and used other tools that I owned to do that part of the work. I already knew the process to make a new stencil and I already owned the special tools needed for that part of the job. We then used the fabric paint from the kit to make our finished product. I feel that more creativity was used as we used our unique ideas.

Knitting allows for more creative expression when the knitter picks out their own yarn instead of just copying what the directions say. If a knitter makes up her own patterns then that to me is very artistic.

Creating one’s own things from one’s own imagination takes creativity, desire and guts. It can be scary to create something totally unique.

I personally enjoy working in a more organic manner with more of an intuitive flow. I like to have materials at my disposal and then to just begin working and creating. While I am in the flow I just make things, sometimes without putting thought into it, following my gut feelings. What the thing ends up being in the end is something that I had not planned out in advance. I can’t always plan things and then execute them to the end. This is why I like to draw and make collage. I just start in and get to work and stuff happens. This has been true also with my recent playing around with embroidery and needle felting with wool roving. I don’t like the craft kits with pre-planned work though of by other people as the most fun for me with creating is just diving in and me being in control of what is being created. I also do like to have some ideas ahead of time and try to make those come to fruition (with beading my own designed necklaces, with wanting to knit ).

Anyhow those are some thoughts on my mind today.

My Collage Status

Last note: I have not been working much with collage at all lately. The reason is I have been busy and have not even had time to haul the stuff out and use it at my kitchen table then no time to clean it up in time for three meals a day and homeschooling at the kitchen table. I make much more collage when we are not doing our homeschooling lessons (such as in summer) or when we are on a ‘break’ from it. I make more collage when I can leave the kitchen area messy. I’ve been on a kick to really keep my kitchen decluttered and clean and that includes having the art supplies stashed in the basement and closet (and some overflow on the unused dining room table). (No, I cannot use the fancy dining room table for making arts and crafts or homeschooling lessons or eating all three meals a day.)

This of course had led me to pine for my own workspace. I have been thinking of converting part of the fourth bedroom which is presently being used as a playroom into a studio for ME. Gasp! I also have tons of room in the unfinished basement and some desks and tables that I could use. However I find unfinished, poorly lit basements dark and gloomy places which I really don’t want to spend much time in let alone trying to create things in a space like that. I’m not really thinking much about that whole idea right now and am instead trying to learn the new crafts that I described above which are less messy and are easier to clean up and can be done in various places not just needing a big flat table space to work on.

Most of my creating since about Christmas 2007 has actually been done in my bedroom sitting in bed: the journal writing, the embroidery, the needle felting and the necklace making. I do not make collage or use adhesives in my bedroom or while sitting in my bed (yet). My drawing and sketching in my little sketch books has been done in public or while a passenger on a car or train.

Went to FilmSpeed 2008 Reception

2008-04-15T08:39:00.003-04:00

The other night our family attended the recepation at the photography art gallery to unveil the winners of the FilmSpeed 2008 competition.

What they did was this:

1. Gave an award to photographers who overall were the most creative, first, second and third place, and showed all the photos that person or team took

2. From all the other participants, they picked one winner in each single category

Our family attended plus my mother-in-law. We were surprised to see the onocology nurse who took care of my father-in-law during his Cancer treatment up to his passing. I think the nurse was very surprised to see us. My husband and mother-in-law were shocked to think the nurse had a photography hobby (why I do not know--no one knows what creative and artisitc endeavors people do when off duty from work).

The kids were a bit bored having glanced at the photos and then 'they were done'.

I received my packet of printed photos. I think a couple are fantastic to be honest.

If and when I can find the time I will manually scan these into the computer and will upload them to this blog along with the categories. That will probably not happen for two weeks or more though.

If the gallery does this again then I'd like to do it with an adult friend instead of with my children. It was just too cold and windy for a young child to have the expreience be 'all fun and games'. I was happy to see other kids enrolled into the competition, it was not just our family that involved a young child.

Younger Son’s First Attempt at Drawing Manga

2008-04-15T08:38:00.001-04:00

While at the library the other day I had a list of books I wanted to scout out. I sent my husband to mind the kids while they explored in the children’s department.

Younger son picked out two ‘how to draw comics’ books. He decided one was too advanced and put it back. He borrowed the other one.

Today while we were ‘doing nothing’ my younger son decided to work on the comics. He pulled out his sketchbook and a regular pencil and began drawing. The book has three steps. Step one is just like a mannekin drawing. Step two shows the clothing drawn over that basic human form. Step three is colored in and all finished.

After he struggled a bit and was angry that the finished thing didn’t look the same I pointed out the reason was he was not erasing the extra lines. I also made the executive decision to let him use the drawing pencils. I took them out of their storage place and explained the different hardness levels of the pencils. He experimented and decided he really liked the soft B pencil. I then showed him three different erasers and how they work better than a regular pink eraser. I also advised him to try to draw more lightly with the pencil in the first sketches so it is easier to erase. He is resisting this.

He drew three figures then gave up. He actually stumbled on the eyes. He asked me to draw them for him and I said no. I took the book and said, “They must have taught you do to these eyes somewhere in here” and he said “no”. Well of course there were four pages of eyes there to practice. I explained that it is typical to do nothing but practice drawing eyes over and over and over to get better at doing them. He didn’t believe me. He also said something to the effect that he chose to skip all the beginning steps and to started in the middle of the book

He declared that he is a ‘bad drawer’. This is my precocious child with giftedness traits who is also a perfectionist. I have a hard time boosting up his morale and trying to get him to lower his standards for himself, but I’m trying. In reality I think he did an excellent job at drawing these anime style people for a child who is 7.5 years old.

The book he is using is this one: “Manga Mania: How to Draw Japanese Comics” by Christopher Hart. While looking it over I decided the drawings of the females are a bit too sexy for my taste for my seven year old to be drawing. So far he is sticking to the boys and men. I also see that the robots and mechanical monsters are unbelievable and that will interest my older son for sure.

(A few months ago I bought, with resistance, my first ever “Dummies” book: “Manga for Dummies” which teaches how to draw manga and give a lot more info. I hope I can find the time to do a full review on that book which for us is worthy of owning.)

Technorati Tags: drawing manga, learning to draw.

Younger Son Drawing Comics

2008-04-14T19:20:00.000-04:00

On a day in March when we had free time my seven year old son saw a book "How to Draw Cartoons" by Syd Hoff lying around here somewhere. He picked it up and read it on his own.

He then went to get his sketchbook from the low-shelf area where I keep some of the child-safe art making supplies. He followed the directions and made these comics.

I love it when my children do self-initiated projects like this.

This is a very short book with simple instructions. I found this used at a library book sale for a very low price and I'm glad I had it on hand for my son to discover.

Grafitti-Like Art on T-Shirts Using Fabric Blo Pens

2008-04-12T08:15:00.000-04:00

I keep thinking of my word of the year “content” and I’m trying to be happy with what I already own and to use what we have rather than pining for things being sold in stores. I remembered this never-done craft item and one day when we were interrupted from our plans and had to go pick up my older son’s new reading glasses, the day was kind of shot, and we also felt burned out of doing our regular homeschooling lessons so we did this project: we made t-shirts using fabric ink applied with Blo Pens.

It was at least a year ago if not 18 months ago that I was at Michael’s Craft Shop and on my way to the restroom discovered they have a clearance aisle. My kids love Blo Pens (for use on paper) so the logo for Blo Pens caught my eye. The product was actually different ink to be used on fabric: Fabric Blo Pen. It was a kit that originally sold for $35 but was marked down to $7. I picked it up and shelved it all this time. We have just been too busy to use it.

Rather than even show my kids that the kit came with factory made stencils, I had them make their own. I explained what a stencil was as both seemed to have forgotten the meaning of the word.

Younger Son's Project

My younger son did his project first. He wanted a hand sign that means “rock on”. He said he could not draw it well, and being seven years old I realized that was true. He asked me to draw it. I explained I was not so great at drawing hands either. I then had an idea. Using our home computer printer/copy machine we placed his hand onto the glass and made a photocopy of his hand with the symbol.

Using a self-healing mat and an xacto knife we already owned, and regular old cardstock, I cut the stencil out. I do not let my children use xacto knives as that is just too dangerous.

Once the stencil was made we got to work. We chose to blow the pens with our mouths rather than with the foot pump. I used masking tape to adhere the stencil to the fabric. We first tested it out on a rag what was formerly a t-shirt. He applied the ink to his shirts. It worked. Hooray! We then moved on to doing t-shirts, some were his white undershirts we already owned and one was a new shirt I bought in hopes of making screen-printing images on (but have not done it yet). Our local A.C. Moore sells Hanes colored t-shirts for $2.50 on sale, a bargain if you ask me. So recently I bought a bunch of those to have on hand, and had pre-laundered them so they’d be ready when the spirit to create moved us.

Later I tested the idea of using two colors of ink and staggering the stencil to be out of alignment (a la Andy Warhol) and that looked good too.

Older Son's Project

Next my older son did his project. He decided to hand draw a robot. I did the stencil cutting. He made a shirt and I made one for myself.

To Wrap It Up

Once the designs are made I heat set them following the kit’s directions with an iron. I have laundered them since and the ink is bright and perfect!

Both of my kids loved this project. They have ideas to make many more designs. They are also talking about starting a t-shirt selling business and selling these shirts to their friends.

Technorati Tags: Fabric Blo Pen, t-shirt craft.