Knitting the Blues

Ten On Tuesday

Whoa!  Been a long time since I participated in Ten on Tuesday, and I almost passed on it today, not so much because the topic doesn't get the juices flowing, but just because.  Then I decided that since I am trying to get in the habit of a post now and then that I would go ahead with the ready made topic.  Easy-peasy, right?  Hmmmm.....  I'll let you know.

Ten Things I Hate About Vacation.

1. Decision.  What to bring, what to wear, what to knit, what to knit after that, where to hide more yarn in the bag, how to transport the tea and the water heater.....  And of course, no matter how I plan it I always overpack.  I mean, you never know what you will be in the mood to wear, right?  So then I get there and not wanting to use up something I might want to wear later I end up wearing the same couple of things most of the time and bring home unworn garments.  All that space that could have held tea.
2. Packing, different than deciding.  How many bags to bring, how to fit it all in.  Thank goodness I have moved past the years when I was packing for four.  Now it is just me (although I am constantly being asked if I have room for one extra thing).
3. Leaving.  Oy!  I cannot sleep the night before leaving for fear that I will oversleep and miss the plane, ride, bus, train, whatever.  Then I am in a cranky mood to start.
4. That time spent between home and there.  I don't exactly hate it, but it isn't usually easy, and for me, with my health issues, it can be downright uncomfortable and agonizing.  That can sometimes be enough to keep me home altogether.
5. Getting there.  Moving in, checking it out, unpacking and just getting used to the new surroundings and energy of a place.
6. OKAY:  This is not HATE exactly, or at all, but Pete.  We are different travelers.  I like a day or two to get acclimated to a place, he hits the ground running.  Case in point:  We arrive in Maui in the evening, tired after 20 hours of travel, bodies still in a different time zone, and he has scheduled a snorkeling/boat trip for the morning of the next day, while the beach and the pool sound really good.  The third day would have been better for me, but I try to go along.
7. You can almost never get a decent cup of tea anywhere.
8. Leaving.  Just when I get used to a place.....
9. Coming home.  But I like that part, too.  Back to the familiar stuff.  Feels like a new place.
10. I guess I just don't hate vacation enough to come up with ten thing.  Sorry.

Eighty-four.  There you have it.  Is this a habit yet?  Don't know.

Let There Be White Light!

You know when you have a yarn in your stash that you bought just because you loved it and then it sits there, wallowing away, because 1) if you knit it you won't have it any more and b) (heh) you are worried that you will knit the wrong thing with it and it will be gone forever?   Maybe you should have left it on the shelf until you find the perfect project, then it won't be sitting there taunting you with its prettiness, but sometimes it is a yarn that is either hard to come by or isn't readily replaceable, not a mass produced brand or color.  (Even still, maybe I should be stocking up on those yarns, too.  Remember Rowan Magpie?  Everybody loved it and yet POOF!  Gone!  And I never did get all the colors I wanted.  Anyway-back to this yarn.)  Well, as you probably have guessed, I have some of that yarn and a few months ago I found a sweater that might be worthy of it.  The yarn is Koigu KPPPM in two colors.  The sweater is Tempest (ravelry link).  After mulling it over for a while I pulled the Koigu out and decided to photgraph it and write a blog post about how thinking it all over.  That was back in October or something.  I took the photos and was so disappointed in them that the post never happened and while I kept thinking about it (every day) I let other things take precedence.  See, the thing about Koigu is the color and the depth of colors in one colorway and the thing about blogging them is the photography and how it never shows it well.  At least not when I take the pics.

Can you see the difference in these colorways?  Can you see the green in the blue or the blues in the greens or the subtle periwinkley purple in each of them?  How could you in that picture?  And I tried all over my house to find a spot that would reflect enough white light to capture the prettiness of this combination.

When the opportunity came up to take a short workshop on photographing for the internet I jumped on it.  While I still do not get most of photography, like depth of field, aperture, or ISO adjustments, I did get to try a white box.  How cool!  You see, not only does the amount of light matter, but the quality of the color of the light.  White light reflects colors so much better, so when you take a picture in a room with green walls the light reflected is green and has an effect on the color of the photo.  Now, most of our cameras have adjustments for that, but they aren't perfect.  In a white box with white lights you have less to fight.  It provides a light that simulates a bright, overcast day, which is preferred.  So I learned.   So I came home and made one!   I got the instructions to make one just like the one we used in the class.  With a box, box cutter, white tracing paper, tape, and a piece of poster board I came up with a passable box.  My tracing paper has a bit of a yellow tinge to it so I want to replace it with white vellum and I am using OttLites, but I would like to get some inexpensive spot lights.  I think as long as you use day-white light bulbs you can use any lamp.  While I can't claim a miraculous change in my photos, I'll give you a little idea of the difference.

   

So, can you see it?  That the blue has greens in there and the green has some purply blues in there?  Can you see how I think they would stripe well together and how I wanted to buy them and knit them together and why I didn't wait to buy them, because it is Koigu and may never show up again?  It is time to see what I learn from the swatching......

Seven.  You can make a white box, too!  Here is a bit of a better one, I might try this one as well.  Where will I store all of this stuff?