I have not one, not two, not three, not even four, I have 5 sweaters in progress. I am really trying to focus, I am, and I'm going to try to get at least two of them done for the 'transitional period' coming up in spring - tho if the weather stays like this that transitional period will be over by the end of march and it will be summer by mid-may, but we can hope for an extended spring. The silly thing about having so many sweaters in progress is that they are all at about the same stage - about half way done - if would just FOCUS I would have two actual sweaters by know instead of 5 half done ones.
Usually, once I tip the halfway point I get a bit more determined, so hopefully I will have a few that will at least look like SOMETHING in a few weeks.
We have decided to put our house on the market and look for something a bit more long term - which sounds odd, but we are currently in a condo in a large, old row home where we live and we want to go to our own row home in a quieter, more neighborhoody part of the city. We would like a bit more space, some storage, an outside area to call our own and in a perfect world - parking. We shall see.
In the meantime, however, what that means is that we have to make our current place look like no one lives there. So we have rented a storage unit, and a uhaul for next weekend, and we will be spending the upcoming week packing up half of our belongings to get put away for the duration. I know that in this market it's necessary, but it doesn't make me happy. I am looking at it by thinking that we are just getting a head start on our packing, it's work we would have done anyway - right? Right.
I am finding it tricky to find places to stash a lot of my knitting paraphernalia, but it's working out. And in the process I'm sorting and culling, so that's good too.
See how hard I am trying to convince myself that this isn't a giant pain in the butt??? It's work, but I am very good at spin, especially when it's my own brain I'm trying to convince - I know my own motivation and trigger points very well, and besides that - the short time table, 1 week from today, means that it will all be over a week. And if I don't think about the HOURS I will be spending inbetween now and then making all of that happen, it seems completely reasonable.
I am also continuing to learn about my camera. I have slowed a bit, I feel like I have the basic functions down, and I'm starting the class in just under a month, so I'm just getting used to using it and playing with the settings.
A few weeks ago we took Pixie to the park and I spent some time trying capture her in sharp focus against a blurry background. It didn't quite work, but her head is in focus at least.
See how fuzzy she is? She is a double coated dog, not in the normal sort of way, but in the wire-haired way, which means that her coat needs to be stripped when it starts falling out - which means, in case you aren't familiar with all of this - that you have to pull it out. It's not as hard and awful as it seems, for the most part she doesn't mind, but she's definitely not a fan of the process. We do it once a year, but I understand for show dogs it's done every few months.
Again, this is me playing with the camera, the focus is on her head, so it blurs out the further away you get - I was learning how to move the focal point.
Remember, how fuzzy she is, and now look at this next picture.
Doesn't she just look hysterically naked? And teeny-tiny, the fur adds 10 pounds to her at least, and when it comes off, you can see the itty-bitty 17 lb ball of cuteness that she is underneath.
And one more picture for the road.
I was trying to understand the f-stop/shutterspeed relationship and get that whole burry waterfall effect happening, which I did, but in the process I overexposed the flowers. Still, I'm learning.
It's a lot easier to accept a screw up in a photograph than in knitting, I have to say. Bad photo? *shrug* Just hit delete, adjust something, maybe reference the book to see what you're doing wrong and try again.
Bad sweater? *cry* *wail* *swear that you did everything right and there's no logical reason the sweater is 5 inches longer than it should be* *try various ways of making the sweater shorter, up to and including half felting it in the process* *cry again* *jam the sweater in the bottom of a drawer and forget the whole thing ever happened*
Yep. I figure if you can learn how to knit, and actually knit a garment that fits you, that means that learning almost anything else is fairly easy in comparison. Not that I can necessarily be GOOD at photography, but since I'm just trying not to suck, I think I can befairly confident at my level of success.
Good luck with the move. Ours was disruptive and stressful beyond belief, but I am so happy that we did it.
Posted by: Connie | March 12, 2012 at 09:46 AM
Your photography is really coming along. Very Nice! Also Miss Pixie is adorable naked! :D
Posted by: Heather | March 16, 2012 at 08:20 PM
I am loving those photos! Especially the one of Pixie running, and that last shot (those are my favorite kind of orchids). I know what you mean, though, about photography being even lower-consequence than knitting, especially in the digital age - so easy, and no wasted film!! (Not to mention the instant feedback on how you're doing, instead of waiting for the film to be developed.)
Posted by: Jocelyn | March 19, 2012 at 12:02 PM