New photography tricks

ishbel shawl
Originally uploaded by elletrain

So, I got a quick lesson in taking beautiful knitting pics from Pinky the other day. I showed him Jared Flood's pictures on brooklyntweed.blogspot.com and asked how he got that beautiful glow and detail in his knitting photography. So, I'm still working on how to arrange my knitting to get the best out of it, but at least I have some higher quality pictures of my work now.

It's really fun to be able to use Pinky's lovely fancy camera to take these shots. I've been just using my iPhone, which is super convenient because I can email my photos directly to Flickr, BUT it sure is nice to have some proper photos up now. Thanks for boyfriends who are photographers and have shmancy cameras!

I'm excited to get better at taking these and hope to do a nice photo shoot to catalogue all of my yarn someday, too. It would be so lovely to have beautiful pictures of all the yarn in my stash up on Ravelry, so when I need to find something to knit, I have a great record of what I have. It's all in various boxes in my craft room right now and hard to see without having to pull out a lot of items. I put it on my To Do list just now!

On another note, Happy 4th of July to everyone. I hope you have friends and family to celebrate this lovely day with. We truly are so blessed to live in a country where we're allowed to thrive and grow and develop our interests and hobbies. I can't imagine a life without crafting and knitting. I know there are places where people don't have the luxury to do such things. Thanks to our founding fathers, our veterans, and our troops and our fellow citizens for making life in this country so rich and full. Now for fireworks!!!

Cute Miss Mattie-girl

Cute Miss Mattie-girl
Originally uploaded by elletrain

Just had to blog about my sweet Mattie-girl. We took this photo the other day. She got a haircut last week for the summer and she looks so cute. She's such a cuddler and so loving and this is a mini-tribute to her awesomeness! I wish everyone could have a dog as great at Mattie, but alas, she's mine ;)

Ishbel shawl

Ishbel shawl
Originally uploaded by elletrain

So, I finally finished the shawl this week. Such a fun little triangle to knit. I wound up doing the large size, but it's still a nice smallish size as far as shawls go. I love that I can wear it like this in the front. It's a little more updated I think.

I am now really taken by lace. I'm finishing up the Hemlock Ring Blanket this week and am going to start a Shetland Triangle out of Koigu next. Lace is so much fun to do and so rewarding. I think it's also what has gotten me out of my knitting slump. Yay!

Pinky isn't used to me being on full speed ahead knitting mode. I haven't really been this into it since we started dating. I am a little slow in the design world lately, even though I have had a few projects. I guess I got ramped up from those few designs and it's carried over into my knitting. I'm really glad to be back in the game now. Especially since I seemed to have quadrupled my yarn stash in the last year. I love being able to go upstairs and find yarn for a new project I want to knit. I'm very lucky. Not that I won't buy any in the near future, I'm sure I will, but it is very convenient to go upstairs to get my supplies. Plus, I sure do miss my favorite yarn store ever, Angel Hair...

It really isn't the same without that shop. I "grew up" as a knitter there, made one of my loveliest best friends in the world there, met my dearies Charisse and Izzy there, and of course fell madly in love with knitting. I have quite a bit of free time here and there now since I work at home and how I wish I had a place like Angel Hair to go now. I don't mind knitting at home by myself, but it's so fun to knit with others that love it as much as you do. I could go to Hendersonville or Brentwood to the other shops and they are nice, but they are pretty far and it's hard to pop over just for an hour or so. It's more of a half-day trip.

So, that's more than I intended to say today, but I find myself really longing for our lovely Angel Hair today. You are STILL missed and will always be loved!!!