My knittiversary!

It's been almost exactly one year since my wonderful co-worker, Kim, taught me how to knit. It's somewhat unbelievable to me that this time last year, I was working on my first garter stitch scarf, which was crooked and somewhat triangular...although I was very proud of it! Today I cast on a cabled v-neck top, which will be my knittiversary sweater.

So, here's a quick thank you to my teacher and knitting mentor, Kim. She's the person that I go to when I'm trying to knit on my lunch break and don't have a stitch marker or cable needle, when I want to share my new yarn purchase (or when I want to see what yummy yarn she just bought), when I'm looking for a new pattern and want to look through her pattern books. She's entirely responsible for creating this little knitting monster and I wouldn't have had it any other way! =)

A little new and different

While at my husband's DJ gig on Sunday, I had my camera with me (doing my duty as wifey/official photographer) and came across a decorative lighting fixture on the wall of the bar we were in. It was pretty on it's own but I decided that it was also the perfect subject for some experimental, abstract photography.


What did I do to create this? I turned off the flash and adjusted the shutter speed to about 1 second, then zoomed in from a wide angle with my lens while on an open shutter to create a wonderfully abstract picture. I had so much fun playing with different camera movements on the open shutter that I have a whole bunch of abstract photographs that I am now compelled to continue adding to!

Getting back to being crafty

Now all the wedding business is mostly done with (still have thank you cards to organize), I can get back to being crafty once again!

Last week on ravelry, I saw a post for someone destashing some vintage Paton's Pebblespun yarn. As I'm always on the look out for yarn for my charity knitting endeavors, I got in touch with her and she sent it to me, with a bonus skein of yummy Manos Del Uraguay yarn. I immediately felt the need to knit it up but wasn't sure what I could do with only 138 yards of yarn.

With ravelry being the wonderful knitting resource that it is I found the Instant Gratification Scarf pattern which, as it turns out, is perfect for a low yardage project and it only took me two hours to do! I think this will probably be a pattern that I use many many times in the future as it's so quick and pretty - perfect for last minute gifts or just a quick project for that partial skein of left over yarn that's been sitting around.


Here's a quick description of how to do a twisted drop stitch:

1) Insert needle into stitch on the left needle as if to knit.
2) Wrap yarn around both needles.
3) Wrap yarn once more around the right needle only.
4) Pull yarn through both loops (the first wrap, and the original stitch).
5) Ta da! One twisted drop stitch.

Happy New Year from me!

2008 finally arrived and I haven't had a chance to pop onto my blog between my parents being in town and taking care of wedding related things. However, I'm back!

I am happy to say that I am now officially a "Mrs" and settling into married life has been a joy! It's amazing how much still needs to be done though - most specifically filtering through about 1500 wedding photos. The family member that took the photographs did a wonderful job but the post-production is my responsibility. It's amazing how tough it is to look through that many images, pick the ones that you like, made adjustments to lighting and exposure, crop, edit out any problems that are in the background etc. It's a labor of love though and now that I've done about 220 photos, I'm feeling like I'm definitely getting somewhere with it. I give it another couple of weeks before I'm 100% happy with everything though!

For now, here's a preview. =)