The Maryland Renaissance Festival!

The Maryland Renaissance Festival was wonderful yesterday.

It was also way beyond warm and into danger-to-life-and-limb territory.

A lot of walking can be a problem for me, but yesterday I didn't do much walking because of the heat.

It was so good to see Malaia and John again! They are both so much fun! They showed up in Renaissance garb, and Holly was determined to do the same, even though she arrived wearing shorts.

Everett, Jeff and Ashton were welcome additions to the group, too.

After looking around a bit, she found and bought this outfit. Very Pirate. She later bought a tri-corn hat to complete the look.

I was afraid that I would be having so much fun that I would forget to take any photos. Well, I remembered, but I didn't take many photos, and that's always a mistake. One of the major secrets of really great photography is to take lots and lots of photos. Some of them will be exceptional just out of shear happenstance.

I didn't take enough photos of Malaia and John, and this is the poor result:


Well, we'll be going back to the Renfair again before the end of the season. I know. Holly bought me a two day ticket, so I still have it left for the next trip.

I bought a few pieces of really beautiful rocks (amethyst and fluorite) and a cup from the Dancing Pig.

This has a rounded bottom on the inside, and that means it's useful for scooping out small items stored in it. Oh, and it has a star on it. I love stars.

I finished the mittens (which only required blocking--I'll do some garter stitch at the cuff next time instead of going right into stockinet stitch) and the boot toppers witch also required a bit of steam in spite of having a garter stitch border.

Here's a photo of two of the mittens. Since they're ambidextrous, I always make three so that when you lose one, you still have a pair.

I haven't gotten around to taking a photo of the boot toppers yet. When I finish the scarf, I plan to take a photo of them all together.

On Monday evening, (early), the SciFi Channel will start rerunning the entire Lost series. I know so many people who love that series, and who swear it's science fiction, so here's my chance to find out.

I watched two or three episodes from somewhere in the middle, and didn't get it, and didn't see anything to suggest that it was SF. So now I can find out if I was wrong. They'll be showing the two hour pilot, and two more episodes, so I can get a good, big dose of it.

You may notice that they'll also be showing Charlie Jade later (early Tuesday morning). I had heard a few good things about it, but it's very muddled. The plot seems to mill around in a circle most of the time.

John Ellis is bugging me to finish this post and get it out so he can see the photos.

I hope you all got the chance to see the big announcement on his blog yesterday. If not, check it out here.

I hope your weekend was as much fun as mine!

Pennsic is Over, but the Ravelympics Goes On...

Well, Pennsic is officially over. There's just enough time today to pack stuff into the vehicle and get on the road before you have to be off the site.

And the trip home isn't always fun.

One year, we were so disorganized, that it took us most of the day to get ourselves packed and on the road. After a week out in the ragweed (to witch I'm allergic), I carried/moved/dragged a lot more stuff then I should have that day, and went to sleep in the back of the van.

Steve woke me up and told me that I would have to drive home because he was tired. Then he climbed into the back of the van, leaving me half asleep, disoriented, and whining "But where are we?" in the middle of a snow/sleet storm.

Well we were somewhere near Breezewood, but all I could do was drive out of the parking lot he had stopped in (after I tried to clear the snow/sleet off the windows) and keep driving until I saw enough road signs that I could guess where I was and figure out how to get home. There wasn't much visibility with the precipitation, and it was almost dark when we left Pennsic, so it wasn't really easy. 

So, this is the one day of Pennsic where I can feel smug because I don't have to drag an entire encampment home in a six or seven hour trip. Especially when I look out the window at what the weather's doing. It's not overcast. Overcast is bright and cheerful compared to the day outside my window. It's raining, and it looks like it's going to develop into a storm any time, now.

Ooooh! Lightening! Yep, a storm for sure.

Well, so much for my plans to go to the grocery store.

But the Ravelympics is really just getting under way.

The wimple is up to a point where all the shoulder decreasing is done. I have pulled the needle tips off the Options needles in the wimple, and put stoppers on the cable. I'm going to have to go somewhere on the bus sometime this week, and it'll be a good project to take with me for the half hour ride (each way) to anywhere nearby.

In the meantime, I've picked up stitches around the bottom of the hood, and I'm knitting a band around it which will eventually have a button at one end and (when I get to the other end) will have a button loop knit into it.

Here is the hood with the stitches picked up.

This is something I should've swatched for, but couldn't really without reknitting the whole hood, which isn't something I was willing to do. 

So, I've ripped out the band twice, and I'm about to have a third try at it.

If I get too frustrated, I may go back to the wimple for a bit.

There are going to be two ribs from a 2x2 rib running around the bottom of the hood, and one rib is going to circle back and continue into the other rib at the end, making a buttonloop.

I bought some really beautiful buttons, but I've lost some of them since then. I have found some more on the internet, and I plan to buy them, but it's possible that when the Ravelympics deadline arrives, the buttons may not have. So, the sweater may not have all it's buttons at the end.

You can see the buttons here.

All the buttons down the front will be the same size, but I think the one that's going to be right at my neck may do better with one of the slightly smaller ones I bought at the same time. I'm glad I thought to buy some smaller ones. And I'm glad I was able to find them on the internet. They look so pretty with the yarn! 

I'm starting to love everything about this sweater!

Tomorrow and Tuesday, around 5 or 6 in the afternoon/evening, there will be the two-part episode of Stargate SG-1 called Mobius on the SciFi Channel. It's very good. And if you look at the schedule, you may notice that Charlie Jade is on every Monday night (actually, Tuesday morning).

The Sarah Connor Chronicles is back in reruns on Monday night, too!

I need to get back to another stab at the band around the bottom of the hood, so wish me luck!

Have a great evening!

Knitting a Hood

Doctor Who is on daytime TV on SciFi today! I want to finish this post and get back to it!

I finished up the yarn on the hood, but it's still not finished. I'll have to get out and buy some more to finish it. I thought for sure it'd only need one more skein, but then again the first skein was from stash, so it probably wasn't a full skein. I'm glad I chose no dyelot yarn! The hood I'm working on now is navy, but it'll look like this hood that I made for a friend.



The pattern is available.

So, I'm making a third sock out of the Marionberry Risata. I'll order some more as soon as I can afford it, and make three more, then I'll have three pairs of them.

I have to go. I want to get back to Doctor Who (and get some of the mess the universe has created for me straightened out).

****************************

Addition:

Don't forget to record Charlie Jade tonight/tomorrow morning!

I just got an email from an astrologer that says I'm in line for 3 miracles.

About time!

Start of the Tour de Fleece

I haven't gotten off to a really good start on the Tour de Fleece, but things have gotten underway.

So far, I have managed to get my wheel set up in the living room in a location where it can stay. This will make it so much easier to achieve my goal of doing some spinning every day (or at least almost every day). I finished filling up the bobbin to a point where it was level with the bit I had been spinning, and start on the next level of building up the bobbin. 


See how the yarn is built up level on the right? Well, I filled in that section and started on another level last night.

This is a project I started a while ago, and am continuing, so I have a photo of the first bobbin that is partially filled, and here it is:



The bobbin on the top is the one with fiber for this project, and the bag shows the rest of the fiber. There is a total of four ounces of merino wool for this color of the project.

If I finish this, I will start on a fuchsia color merino I have for the same project. I'll need two more colors of fiber, and the background will be done in  black commercial yarn.

I just checked the schedule on the SciFi Channel and discovered that SciFi hasn't totally eliminated Charlie Jade, they just moved it. It will be on tonight (actually tomorrow morning) at 3:00 am.

Lots of stuff to do today, so I gotta go.

And the Verdict Is...

Bronchitis, Acute

Sinusitis, Acute

Otitis Extreme, Acute

Or: bronchitis, sinus infection, and a bad earache. They didn't mention the throat that looks like raw meat, or the headache, muscle aches, joint pain or the rest of it.

They made me wear a mask because I was coughing, and the doctor said he noticed immediately how swollen my face was over the affected sinus (in spite of the mask).

When I expressed my concern to the doctor that I might have Strep throat, he said "Oh, it doesn't matter. What I'm prescribing will kill anything."

I woke up about 3:30 this morning and thought the side of my head was going to explode. As the doctor expressed it, "Your ear is very swollen." The problem with that is that it's got no space to swell up. Hence, PAIN!

I came home with a pile of medicine, which I'm taking, and I'm going back to bed.

I am told I will feel much better in a couple of days.

My bank account is $100 poorer, though.

The SciFi Channel has taken Charlie Jade off it's schedule for tonight and the foreseeable future. I hope you've had a chance to see Jake 2.0 all day, and then there's Doctor Who tonight.

I hope your weekend is better than mine is shaping up to be.

Happy first day of Summer!

The Weekend Was a Blast!

The weekend was truly a blast!

When Holly dropped me off at home yesterday, I was totally tired out.

I took a nap and woke up with my sinuses clogged, post-nasal drip that was attempting to drown me, a sore throat, ache-all-over feeling and just plain misery.

Although I had to stay awake for a while until I could breath without drowning, I got about half the sleep I needed last night and feel much better than I did in the middle of the night. Still nowhere near OK, though. It has all the hallmarks of strep throat.

So, I'm going back to sleep, and I plan to get well soon.

I'll be back to tell you about the weekend, and picking a camera for close ups.

SciFi will be having two especially good days this week during the day. Thursday, there will be Doctor Who, and on Friday, they'll be showing Jake 2.0. Then, on Friday evening, they'll be showing Charlie Jade and a new episode of Doctor Who.

I hope you're having a better Monday than I am.

Dynamite Photography

I woke up today, and the phone rang.

It was Holly, letting me know a few things: She had just arrived at the airport in Detroit safely (she's staying with Malaia and John this weekend for John's going-away party). And that she had found the camera that she'd lost.

Robin gave her a tiny, but  wonderful camera for Christmas. I love that camera. It's easy to use, and had a great zoom mechanism, and tiny, so you can carry it around with you all the time. 

But she lost it (she thought).

So, she went out and bought another similar one and discovered that Robin, being the fabulous photographer and wonderful boyfriend he is, had chosen an excellent camera, and that she didn't like the new one she'd bought to replace it anywhere near as well. 

So, she finally broke down and bought a duplicate of the one Robin bought her and had it shipped to Malaia so that she could use it while there. She planned to sell the replacement camera to her sister, Heather, who liked it.

So, now she's got two identical cameras, except one has never been used and is new in the box.

I thought about buying it from her when the IRS ever gets it together and gives me the money they said I should get. I like it a lot better than my tiny, carry-everywhere camera.

So, it got me thinking about camera gear as soon as I woke up.

If you hate photography, you can stop reading here.

I love photography, and would love to have a good camera again just for my own enjoyment. But aside from that, I plan to make and sell some things over the internet and you need good photos for that. Not high resolution, but taken with a camera that has the extra abilities of a more expensive camera. I'm also collecting knitting patterns which I plan to publish in a book, and for that I do need good, high quality, high resolution photos.

But while I was mulling all this over, I thought I'd put all my photo gear selections together in one section of my Amazon store for others who are wondering what gear to buy.

Good gear can make it so easy to take stunning photos, and the wrong gear can make it almost impossible to produce anything but junk.

I have three cameras listed. They're very similar. All have long lenses. That means that you can get a close-up without actually having to walk up closer.

I read an article by a camera expert with advice on how to take good photos for people who know nothing about cameras. He gave two rules: Walk up close. Walk up even closer. I couldn't agree more. If you watch most amateurs take a photo, they'll look through the viewfinder, and then turn around and walk further back and then take the picture. Exactly the reverse of what they should be doing. Having a long lens makes it easy to "walk up close" without having to move. You can take a portrait without having to get up in the person's face. You can take a good photo at the jousting matches at the Renaissance festival or football game.  With a long enough lens and a tripod, you can take photos of the moon that actually show the moon! 

To use the lens at it's longest length, you'll have to practice holding it steady, but the stability built into these cameras will make it much easier.

And the control for the zoom is the best I've ever used. I usually hate the zoom controls and would rather have a manual control. But Canon has made it easy to zoom quickly to almost where you want to be, and then slow down for precise framing. It's great!

These cameras all have swing-out LCD finders, too. That means if you want to take photos of a parade, but you're stuck in the back of the crowd, you can swing out the finder, swivel it a bit, and hold your camera over the heads of the people in front, and still be able to see what you're taking a picture of. You can also position it so that you can take a photo of yourself and see how you're framed in the photo while you're doing it.

The next important thing you'll need is the adapters so that you can put filters on your camera, plus the filters.

You'll do more to improve your photos with filters than anything else. Much more bang for the buck than any other photography gear you can buy.

I've chosen a selection of filters that create effects that can easily be seen through the lenses of the cameras I'm recommending so you'll be able to get just the shot you want the first time. 

First of all, they're all Cokin filters. Cokin has  a special filter system that has many advantages. The Cokin adapter holds square, flat filters that can be slid into place much more quickly and easily than screwing in conventional filters (and easier on the wrists). You can slide the filters to one side, and move a center spot filter (for example) off center to get the best picture composition. And if you buy a different camera that needs different size lenses, you just buy a new adapter rather than have to buy all the filters over again. They also have some of the most fabulous filters. Ones that are almost impossible to find elsewhere.

I've chosen several varieties of center spot filters. Pick your favorites from the selection. There are also fog filters to blur part of your photo. And star filters. Don't forget the star filters. They make photos with point light sources in them into magical vistas. I plan to add more, too. They'll all be the easy, spectacular filters.

And then, there are the flashes. Two of the cameras don't have hot shoes, so you can't use a traditional flash with them. I have two good traditional flashes for the S5, but they won't work on the S2 or S3. Don't forget diffusers! But even if you get an S5, you'll probably want a slave flash.

A slave is a flash that goes off as soon as there is a bright flash of light. That means you can use your on-camera flash to trigger a remotely-placed slave without having to connect them with cables and other cumbersome stuff. For instance, at a party, leave a slave somewhere pointing at the ceiling. Then when you take a photo, the slave will provide ambient lighting for the background of your photos while the on-camera flash will light the subject.

Feel free to ask questions about this in the comments.

Maybe I should write a book about this.

Don't forget: tomorrow is SciFi day! The Doctor Who episode, Blink at 5 am, Firefly during the day (including Jaynestown, Trash and The Messenger), the premier of Charlie Jade in early evening, followed by the all-new Doctor Who episode, The Doctor's Daughter. 

Check your local listings and set your DVRs!

Have a day packed with great science fiction TV tomorrow!