Dog Days and Square Holes

Well, it look like too many of my fellow group members have chosen to move over to Wordpress, instead of here. So I am bailing too! For anyone who still wants to follow my blog, you can find the new me, Archiegrrl, at http://archncrafts.wordpress.com/ . See you there!

new blog blues

Why is there no way to search for other bloggers on here?  I'm not sure how to get in touch with my old friends and old groups from Vox, if they are even on here yet.  I feel like posting here is the equivalent to talking to myself in an empty room.

Any ideas, people?  If you are out there?

Looks like my old blog host, Vox, is closing down. So all my posts have been transferred here. I'll see how I like it here, or if I want to start a new blog elsewhere. I'll let you know where I am permanently once I figure it out! *smile*

Felting question

So I have gotten eco/heath conscious and switched to stainless steel water bottles.  Only I don't have neoprene cozies for mine, so the liquid inside warms to room temperature quickly.  I would very much like to knit myself a felted water bottle cozy, but I'm not sure how to guarantee I get the sizing right.

 

I have only felted a few propjects previously, mostly little stuffed toys where the size of the end product wasn't crucial.  I would ordinarily make sure to felt from a pattern, since I assume the pattern author would have the shrink factor calculated into their pattern.  I already have some issues with matching the gauge on knitting projects -- I often think I am knitting to gauge, and then discover differently when the final product is complete -- so I know that this may take a few attempts, since it is impossible to unravel and start again once something is felted.  I also assume that the tension of the original knitting will affect the degree of shrinkage during the felting process, and I know that felting occurs along a scale, and you can stop the process before complete shrinkage has been achieved.  A lot of factors to work with, I understand.

 

ALL that said, does anyone have a rule of thumb for how much extra length/width you need to build into a felting project?  Is there one at all?  Or are felted patterns somehow made with an intuitive understanding of about how much something will shrink based on past experience alone?

 

Thanks!

Photo Quest 100: 5 Best Photos

1.  Post your best five photos or less if you want.

I'll try to post them in chronological order.

 

Sm buddha

    a.  What were you thinking when you took the photo?

This little guy was sitting on the rock next to the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen when I went there on spring break in 2004.  This is actually the second shot I took; the first had other bits of the harbor in the background.  But for this one, I wanted this lovely golden Buddha with just earth and water around him.

    b.  What were you trying to accomplish?

Catch the sense of serenity and beauty surrounding this small statue.

    c.  Did you do any post processing on the photo..if so what was it?

Yes, I lightened the shot a little, and added a touch of saturation; that's pretty much my rule for making any photo better.  *smile*

    d.  What would you have done differently  if you had a do over?

Nothing, I don't think.

    e.  Why is this your favorite photo?

I just love the complete serenity of the scene.  I had this as my laptop wallpaper for years.

 

Tus salt mines 010 sm

    a.  What were you thinking when you took the photo?

Just about how beautiful the view in this part of Kyrgyzstan was.

    b.  What were you trying to accomplish?

I had just come from a trip into a salt mine (Tuz) that had been converted into a health resort, and then we stopped on this ridgetop.  The cemetery in the valley below us and the light on the foothills was just too beautiful to resist.

    c.  Did you do any post processing on the photo..if so what was it?

I used the same formula as above.  And I may have cropped the original a little bit.

    d.  What would you have done differently  if you had a do over?

I can't think of much.

    e.  Why is this your favorite photo?

It captures the essence of the Kyrgyz landscape, those snow-capped mountains and bare valleys.  I use it a lot when I am giving powerpoint presentations about Kyrgyzstan.

 

 

Shyrdak festival 012 sm

    a.  What were you thinking when you took the photo?

This is from the same trip to Kyrgyzstan, but a few weeks later.  I was trying to document the process of making an ala-kiis, which is a carpet made from a single piece of felt with the design worked into the felt as it is made.  But I also wanted a shot of the women I had been working with on my thesis project.

    b.  What were you trying to accomplish?

I wanted to catch the communal nature of carpet making in Kyrgyzstan, as well as a bit of the feeling of the shyrdak festival that the NGO I was working with was holding.

    c.  Did you do any post processing on the photo..if so what was it?

The day was quite grey and gloomy, so I think I tweaked the color and lighting quite a bit to make the colors pop.

    d.  What would you have done differently  if you had a do over?

I might have waited until the background was clear of passers by, or al least waited until the woman in blue was in a different point in the composition.

    e.  Why is this your favorite photo?

I am not very good at taking photos of people, but I think the composition of this shot, with the shyrdak dominating the lower portion of the shot and the perspective, really draws your eye into the scene, and to the work the women are doing.

 

 

DSCN1490

    a.  What were you thinking when you took the photo?

I was enjoying the local plant life while taking my dogs for a walk near our new house in Utah.

    b.  What were you trying to accomplish?

Just to show the beauty and variety of somehting as simple as bunchgrasses.

    c.  Did you do any post processing on the photo..if so what was it?

I probably did my usual tweak of light and color, but it may have been bright enough to first time to not need it.

    d.  What would you have done differently  if you had a do over?

I might try crouching lower for a different perspective, or have made sure the bright green bush wasn't right behind the bent grass seed.

    e.  Why is this your favorite photo?

Because I like the simplicity of the golden grasses and green juniper against a blue autumn sky.

 

 

aspen and pine

    a.  What were you thinking when you took the photo?

I wanted to show the beauty of this little spot within a fall aspen grove.

    b.  What were you trying to accomplish?

To capture the repeated rhythm of the twisted tree trunks, and the color of the light coming in through the aspen leaves.

    c.  Did you do any post processing on the photo..if so what was it?

Probably the same as above, but I don't remember if the color needed any help.  I also may have cropped the shot to get tighter in to the aspen trees.

    d.  What would you have done differently  if you had a do over?

I might try a closer shot of a single tree trunk, with the rest in the background.

    e.  Why is this your favorite photo?

I love the color and texture contrasts between the aspens and the evergreens.  Also, it takes me back to the sense of finding a hidden, magical spot.

A How-To Guide

How to not be racist/sexist/bigoted:

It's simple.  Do not blame an entire class of people for the faults of some, even a majority, of the people who fall into that category. 

 

Sexist: Women can't drive.

Not Sexist: That woman who just made a left-hand turn from the far-right lane can't drive.

 

Racist:  Illegal Mexican immigrants don't pay taxes and burden our social benefit systems, therefore we should hunt down and deport of all the illegal Mexican immigrants.

Not Racist: We should target anyone not paying their fair share of taxes, no matter where they come from.

 

Bigoted: Islam is a violent religion because all terrorists are Islamists.

Not Bigoted: The people who think that the Koran supports violence against non-Muslims are a minority of the world's Muslim population, and they are twisted and wrong.

 

I know, it's harder to manage.  You need some greys for your pallette, not just black and white.  And it takes a lot more words, and more careful thinking, to get your point across.  But it is important, I promise you.  Because no matter how many bad female drivers you see on the road, I am a woman, and I am not a bad driver.  And my friend Ikram, who is Muslim, is not a terrorist.  And some of those people who don't press 1 for English are American citizens who are living the same immigrant American dream your grandfather did. 

I'm just saying.

 

Book Review

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Stieg Larsson

It's been a while since I wrote a book review, since it's been a while since I read something other than one of Pratchett's Diskworld books.  I had heard about this book on NPR, seen that they were making a movie of it already, and decided, when I saw it on sale at Costco, to snap it up.  I honestly had no idea what the book was about, other than a character who was highly dysfunctional and was supposed to be based on a grown-up Pippi Longstockings.

Wow.

That's not a completely unadulterated, "I loved this book more than life itself" wow.  It's more of a, I had no idea what I was getting myself into wow.  But I think it was worth the trip.

It turned out, this was a detective thriller.  Not my favorite genre.  But I enjoyed it all the same, if only because the writing itself was quite lucid.  And partly because the gender dynamics were very different from the thrillers I have read in the past.

I've written before about detective novels as the guy's equivalent of harlequin romances.  The detective gets laid a lot, but usually has no emotional entanglements with the women he sleeps with, who handily disappear when work gets too busy, and to top it off his conquests require absolutely no work on his part.  I have to say, that still perfectly describes the main male character in this book, Mikael Blomkvist.  But the woman who becomes his research assistant, Lisbeth Salander, is a very interesting and highly capable woman, unlike many of the women I've come across in detective novels.  I wouldn't say that I identify with her in any way, but the fact that she takes matters into her own hands and doesn't wait for anyone else to solve her problems for her makes her a very strong female figure, and the oddities of her character make her really intriguing. 

The two of them are nominally researching a biography of the Vanger family, the collective owners of a very wealthy corporation, while trying to parse out the disappearance of one of the younger members, Harriet Vanger, which took place 40 years prior.  I have to say, if the English translation had stuck with the original Swedish title, "Men Who Hate Women", I would have been better prepped for the plot.  There is an awful lot of violence against women, including a rape scene about halfway through that caught me completely by surprise.  However, most of it isn't particularly graphic or explicit, so you are disturbed but not haunted by the violence.  Not to mention, while Lisbeth, the girl who has the tattoo, is a main character, most of the story is told from Mikael's point of view.  So the focus of the novel was not on the tattooed girl, as the title would tend to suggest.

That said, I could feel the cold of a winter spent in a cabin in northern Sweden, felt that I had a glimpse into the mind of a very strange young woman, and didn't guess the main plot points in advance of them happening.  The oddest thing about the book, to me, is the kinds of food that are described throughout the book: thick rye bread sandwiches with mustard, pickled herring, and hard boiled egg as a midnight snack?  Ugh.  Swedish people eat strange food.  But they'd probably think something like peanut butter, honey and banana was odd, so to each their own, I guess.

So, if you are a fan of detective novels and thrillers, check this book out.  If you're not usually a fan but are open to trying something a little different, try it too.  I'm going to talk T into reading it, since he likes detective stories, and I may even make a point of finishing out the series to find out what happens to that tattooed girl.  Because by the end, I really do want to know what makes her tick.

Late bloomers

I wrote a post a while back about feeling, for years, that I was behind many of my friends when it came to all those grown-up milestones: getting married, buying a house, having a kid.  And now I have been married just over a month, and we just had our offer accepted on a house in North Salt Lake.  And I look around and realize how many of my friends are doing the exact same things, at the exact same time as me!  There has been a sudden rash of engagements -- sometimes for second marriages, but that's just fine -- and friends moving into new homes they just bought.  Suddenly I feel like I am part of that wave, instead of being left bobbing in the water while everyone else is rolling onto the shore.  It's a nice feeling, despite the stress of crashing onto the beach.  *smile*

home (soon)

Real art, for you!

A friend's aunt is an amazing artist, and she has recently put out two sets of greeting cards.  You can choose between the desert flowers set, or the Tuscon mountains set.  I know several of my friends live in and/or love the desert, or are just art lovers and supporters, so I thought I'd recommend them to everyone.  You can use the link below to get to her website and order!

 

http://thepicarolife.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-i-see.html#comment-form

 

All-8-photos

Photo Quest #99 -- Show me some bokeh!

I know, I have been a lurker and not much more on this group for quite a while.  I haven't had much time outside of work to engage in the Quests, and honestly, this one is no different.  But I decided to update my work computer's wallpaper today, and realized I had a bokeh photo on hand.  I have a tradition of putting barbed wire on my work computer -- we run across so much of it as we survey, and we actually spend some time looking at the type and age of barbed wire to help us date fences and the properties they delineate, that it's appropriate.  Anyway, we usually want everything in focus when we take photos to document sites, but I realized this was a less extreme bokeh background, and I thought it would be good to add to the Quest.  Enjoy!

Survey 029