Rowan Deli and the Endless Border

OK, I've been working on this post on and off for weeks, but never got the photos or managed to post it. In fact, I just updated it again because the date showed Nov 30 - the date I started it! If you've read this already nothing new below this point...

Since it's turned out long, I'll provide a quick list for those of you with a lot of blog reading to do:

• cracked tooth (bad)
• root canal (bad)
• jaw infection (bad)
• temporary crown (painful, but good after)
• bought a house (good)
• selling this house (good, but very stressful)
• puppy kindergarten every week (good - she's a fantastic dog)
• kid sick (bad, thankfully brief)
• charity and classroom events (good)
• slipped on wet pavement while running - very bloody and bent nose and bruised hip (bad)
• nose not broken (good)
• Christmas (very good)
• me and my nose not in any Christmas photos (good)
• In-laws (good)
• kids out of school for over two weeks (honestly?)

So, here's the long version:

Wow, this month has become surprising! Had a very nice family Thanksgiving (seems so long ago doesn't it?) except for that pain in my tooth. Pain got better. Pain got worse. Cracked tooth. Root Canal. Pain got worse. Infection in jaw. Temporary crown. Antibiotics. Enough said.

So, what does one do while seeing in the dentists' chairs? Well, edging is a good option. Miles and miles of edging.

Love this little pattern. Very easy, but continuously amusing. Good thing as I need about 75" of it!

This is what my space looks like right now. Why? December 1st, the day after the root canal, I went to see Harry Potter with a friend to take my mind off my mouth. Didn't know about the infection at that time, so I was accepting my intense pain as par for the course. Wanted to forget that all I'd eaten for two days was soup. And that soup was going to be my lunch afterward. Harry came through. But only for a few hours. Afterward, on a whim, I drove by a new home development near here that had advertised a builder's closeout. We decided to help them meet their year-end goals and close next Friday. Yep, from first look to close in five weeks! We start moving next weekend. We'll live here at least until the end of February so the house shows better, but I'm packing up all the mountains of stuff that will not add to the impression of spaciousness. Renting one u-haul just for yarn (joking folks, just joking).

Now to sell this house. Yeah, I'm not one for doing things in order. Heck, I'm making Deli's edging and I've not even cast on the sleeves. What can I say, I'm a maverick (of the boring suburban housewife variety), and mavericks are known to be nutcases. (There's an obscure Tom Cruise joke/reference there, sorry.)

Last few weeks have been consumed by choosing flooring (the only thing left to be chosen, this was a home where the initial buyer fell out), interviewing and hiring a real estate agent for this house, securing financing for the new house (also known as borrowing from Peter to pay Paul), organizing the contracts and all the other reams of documentation involved with buying a new build and cleaning and packing to show this mid-Jan. Oh, and Christmas and visiting relatives. That was fantastic. We needed a break for a few days.

No knitting - not a stitch, has been done since mid-Dec. My fingers are literally itching, more from cleaning supplies than emotional need mind you, but I do want to dive back into my projects after the house is brought to show-ready. I need to pick some projects and set them aside so I can keep knitting. Feels just like picking projects for travel - you know you'll forget one you really want.

For lack of more knitting content I'll share this response I wrote to answer a question about my photography. I've received lots of really nice feedback from readers about the photos on this blog, so I want to share. I've never studied photography and use the auto features on my camera, so there's nothing technical here. I'll start with another shot of the yummy Rowan Cashcotton.

My technique is pretty simple. First, whenever possible photograph yarn close-up in natural light to show off texture and capture the natural colors. Assuming you have a digital camera, take lots of photos fast, changing the angle, lighting direction, distance etc with each shot. Sometimes just a flick of the yarn can change the whole photo. Whenever possible use the AV setting, or whichever setting on your camera that turns off the auto flash, but keeps auto focus, etc. Use a tripod or set the camera on a solid surface to eliminate movement while the shutter is open. In medium to low natural light it will stay open too long to be a handheld shot, but the colors will be richer. On the shot above I didn't do that and there's a touch of blur. Sorry. But at least I'm posting!

Don’t think too hard because you can’t see what’s best on the camera display – just take them and move on. Just do your best fashion photographer impression by dancing around the object with the camera at all angles saying "Yes darling! That's beautiful darling! Oooh, how sexy you are!" ('cause we all know just how sexy fiber can be).

Download all the photos without bothering to review them on the camera, then use Explorer or some other tool to do a slideshow. Quickly kill the obvious duds on the first go around - bad is bad and they won't look better - ever. After a couple of rounds you’ll have narrowed it down to the best one for each pose, or at least the top three. At this point I crop if required. Then I go back again and flip quickly between the top contenders and one will almost always jump forward as the best. The whole job's done in just a few minutes. I love that for the blog I don't have to maintain a print ratio (4x6 etc), so if there's something distracting off to one side I just crop it out.

I scrapbook too, and IMHO one of the biggest hurtles people have is that they love their subjects so much they aren't looking at the technical qualities of the photos. Of course sometimes all you have is a cruddy photo of someone or something you love - well certainly keep it - I've got plenty of those myself. But often people can't give up any of the photos and end up weakening their layouts with way too many bland or redundant pics. I'm pretty ruthless on the front end (right after downloading) with deleting bad or redundant photos so I don't print them or let them suck up disk space. I've found that once I've printed a photo it's almost impossible to throw it away. I suspect I'm not unique in that.

Happy Holidays. For my friends celebrating Christmas, I hope yours was wonderful. For my friends celebration Hanukkah right now, enjoy. Happy New Year to everyone!

Comments

[Terry in SF]

Well I'm glad you came out of that nasty fall reasonably ok - hope you're doing ok w. it. Do miss the knitting but gosh, you have been a busy person. Thanks for giving us a peek into your photography - which is really good by the way. Take care and a wonderful 2006 to you and the knitting!

[Emma.]

Great post. Well worth the wait.
Happy New Year to you too !

[Laura]

So glad you are back, Nancy! My one, long-ago brush with root canal was my worst experience with pain,ever. Natural childbirth was a breeze in comparison (for a much superior outcome too!).

Great tips on the photography.Thank you for being such a generous blogger. I wish you lots of leisure time to knit (and share) in 2006.

[Moni]

Wow! what a month for you! congrats on the new house! how exciting! Thanks for the photo tips..I will have to keep them im mind.

[Ruthanne (in Seattle)]

So glad that you are back Nancy. Great post in catching us all up! I hope you have some time to knit (and post) early in the new year. Happy new home!!

[Jess]

Glad you are back - sorry to hear about all your 'bads' this past month, but at least there were some 'goods' in there too ;o)

I just had two dental implants done (the first stage only - so far - however it's the most involved of all the stages) and one is infected so I'm feeling my own 'jaw infection' pain right now. It sucks.

Thanks for the photography tips.

Happy New Year!

[Jackie]

WOW - where to begin...Hooray for you all on the house, good luck with the selling, boo for the tooth, but yay for the new crown, boo for the bad fall, but yay for no new back pain as a result (I am assuming here!). Happy New Year, Nancy!!!

[evangeline]

ditto on everyone else's comments and yeah, figured you've been a tad busy, thx for posting! :D

[chica]

Your blog just amazes me. Orchids, knitting, photography! Sorry to hear about your dental woes! Happy New Year to you and yours!

[juliet]

Crumbs you have been busy!!! I have spent most of the last couple of weeks behaving like a slug after a 2 week bout of flu, though I have managed most of a RYC Thistle in 4 days (very simple knit and on 4.5mm so not v fast really, but speedy for someone who dithers as much as me). If you can tell me the secret to buying a house I'd love to know - we bought this one 13 years ago and despite 3 offspring and only 2 bedrooms the husband doesn't see the need to move to more space. Good luck with the moving and self-mending (it all sounds really painful). Apart from that a belated happy hogmanay and good luck with the new year.

[Stephanie]

I am glad you are back on line. Have been checking in and am always disappointed when you haven't posted. I wanted to let you know that I have started on Rocktorp in a lovely foresty green Cash Iro and a brown/grey/tan SilkGarden. It looks fab, but progressing very slowly I'm finding. (Had to whip up one of the Angelsberg hats from the other CTH book just to feel like I was getting somewhere with something!) It was 126 degrees in Sydney this week ... why am I knitting wool??? Anyhow, hope that all your turmoil is over and that your new house has some lovely stash spaces. Happy New Year!

[Stacie]

I am sooooooooo sorry about your teeth problems. That is awful! I hope you have a wonderful tooth pain free new year!

[Cassie]

Well, considering all the excitement, not posting for a while seems more than reasonable. Good luck on selling the house, finishing the miles of edging, and everything else you set out to do in the new year.

[shawn b]

Glad to see you posted! Hope this finds you a little less sore and healing. Love the knitting...one day darn it. All I can do still is the crochet chain stitch. I need Brenda for a visit I think. Congrats on the new house. One day on that route too darn it all. I'm a bad scrapper. I love all my photos. I'm trying to get better about taking off two many of the "same like" photos on my CDs. But like you, I feel the need to scrap everything I print out and certainly can't throw them away. ha ha! I do try to make piles and send the extras to grandparents for them to deal with. Miss you girl. Get moved and then have all us IGs over for a long weekend. Happy New Year!

[stephanie]

Whew! Intense time for you eh?
Thank heaven for the numbing effects of miles of edging.

[Julie Rappe]

Hey again. I wrote to you a few weeks back to ask about the colors in your Charlotte shawl and I did finally find them--felt like a real moron when I did--right under my nose.

I just love your Blog and have been back many times soaking up all the lovely photos. What an inspiration you are. (I mentioned that in my own blog) Amazing how much we like the same things, do the same things, even like the same colors. Like you I've met so many wonderful people on the internet via knitting, ebay, message boards. The world becomes a bit cozier.

I hope by now you are fully recovered from your fall and dental work--is there anything worse than a root canal? Ugh. Here's to 2006, lots of yarn, lots of knitting, lots of scrapbooking (yeah, I do that too)and health and happiness. I've got a brand new digital camera I'm learning to use. Very fancy. A bit more to it than my last one. Take care. Thanks for sharing your life. -Julie :o)

[Terry]

Dropping by to see if anything new posted - hope you are well and, more so - I think your fans miss ya (at least me!).

[Teresa C]

From one Terry to the next, I am dropping by for the same reason. Wondering where the heck you are! Hope the house stuff is going well and hope to see some action around here as soon as you are able!

[cece]

So missing my daily knitting fix!! Hope to see you back soon

[Julia]

knock, knock, knck. Halloooo, anybody there? Hmmm, guess they moved. She did say she had a lot to do. Yeah, but that was December. Man, it's almost Easter. Wonder if she plans on coming back? dunno. will check back later.