christmas cthulhu

christmas cthulhu
Originally uploaded by cignoh

i knit a cthulhu doll for j for christmas this year. it's from creepy cute crochet, which lanaconqueso showed me, and i ended up buying, despite the fact that i'm trying not to buy anymore craft books until i make at least one thing from each of the books that i own. i'm not that good at crocheting, so he is a little misshapen in parts, and his wings aren't really wing-shaped, but that's ok, it makes him one of a kind, i guess.

to photograph him, i experimented with a makeshift light tent with some success, but i'd like to work with it more. i was getting double shadows on the ground, plus, i couldn't get good shaping, which i guess is part of what happens if your subject is evenly lit from all sides. also, the top of my setup is open and exposed, which i think isn't supposed to be.

also, i mentioned this in a comment on sukogirl's flower washcloth post, but am saying it again in case not everyone saw---amy noticed that we have hit our 100th post---yay! happy holidays to everyone, and may the new year bring more creating, posting, and happiness for all!

Orange flower washcloth

Flower Cloth
Originally uploaded by sukogirl

I decided to knit a lot of my x-mas presents this year. Here is a flower washcloth from Weekend Knitting. I think it would be neat to learn how to make soap. Has anyone done this before?

First Baby Quilt

first baby quilt Originally uploaded by sukogirl

yeah, I've finally tried quilting and found that I really enjoy it. I took a Quilting 101 class at the Creativ Festival in Toronto. This was a machine quilting class that showed us the basics of cutting out the pieces and sewing them up. I had to refer to online tutorials on finishing the quilt. I found that fabric (color/pattern) choice is very tricky. I really liked these two pieces of fabric, and I thought it would be okay together, but the completed piece is a little drab looking.

photo backlog

it's been FOREVER since i posted, i'll try to be better about it. i don't really have anything crafty to document, but i had been trying to keep up with my photo.a.day project for the last 5 months. i hadn't been posting those either, but last night, i caught up from sept. 7. here are some samples:

july: photography workshop continued, shooting 'red' things
august: alligator clip and korean melon
september: art gallery patron and parking lot light
october: international rose garden in portland, OR
november: pomegranate seeds, toddler eating pomegranate seeds

i missed a few days here and there and am trying to come up with a way to make up the photos, does anyone have an ideas? i thought about trying to think of something significant that happened that day (although i may not remember)---either to myself or something that happened in the world, and trying to recreate or take a photo that is reminiscent of it. or maybe picking a theme like letters of the alphabet or numbers or colors (either a single color or different ones), etc.

knitting backlog

I worked on several knitting projects this summer/fall that I finally photographed. zigzag & linked rib were some good stash-busting projects from the book "knitting new scarves" that I got for my birthday. brioche cable was just because I wanted a blue scarf :). And lastly, a co-worker of mine had a baby so I had to make a hat. They subsequently took photos of him posed next to a bunch of real pumpkins :).

Recyclebin Art

recyclebin Originally uploaded by adelie

Hi Everyone!

My name is Joanna and this is my first post, after a long period of observation and procrastination. I love what you all have been posting, and I hope you will find this one interesting.

We bought these IKEA plastic bins to organize our obsessive recycling lifestyle here in Switzerland. Since all three were exactly the same and plain, we needed a way to distinguish one from the other, so I decided to give each bin a characteristic look. I could have just painted 'PAPER', 'BOTTLES & CANS', and 'PLASTIC BAGS', but in case we use the bins for other purposes in the future, I wanted to keep the theme generic. Hence the three different paintings.

Cherry blossoms

I painted the sky background and the branch, then glued on the flowers which are actually the Japanese textile cutouts. We use this one for storing all our plastic bags.

Poppies

This was a spontaneous inspiration from a trip to Provence. This one is for all types of paper.

Cats

This one is special because the painting shows all six cats that we had at one point in our house attic. One cold winter, the mother cat took a refuge in our attic, and soon after we discovered that she gave birth to five kittens! Now the mother and the three others (Pumpkin, Mustard, Dusty) have either passed away or gone missing in action. We currently have two friendly cats (Green eyes and Halloween), and an extra stray cat whom we call Totoro. This bin is used for all the bottles, cans, and aluminums.

my first quilt finished

First, apologies for the long absense from itb!! I don't normally post so many pictures, but I'm proud of this one. I finished my first quilt yesterday. I learned heaps on this project. I learned about using a walking foot, how to make a quilt sandwich and that hand sewing bias takes ages but the result is worth it!

The quilt sandwich:

Details:

The overall result:

And the Winner Is...

Congratulations to ITB's own Sukogirl! You are the winner of the long anticipated Toy Box Giveaway!

I am happy to send a finally finished Toy Box out into the world. This project really got the best of me over and over again. The objects I was working with do not match my general aesthetic and the greatest challenge was to incorporate all of the items in a way that looked like I had created this piece.

This morning I finished Toy Box by completing the back. The back of the box had so many reincarnations - but I am so happy with this final choice. As a former librarian, I love to catalog EVERYTHING. I started cataloging the items I include in my boxes, when I created my very first box Small Objects of Importance during Thing-A-Day 2.

As I noted in the accompanying post: I am fascinated with the act of cataloging items and with the look of specimens and exhibits. There is something interesting about objects being defined without emotion but being held as important enough to preserve them and sometimes to display them. I decided to include a list of factual titles for each one of the objects, but I added no more information. I leave it to the viewer to make their own story, or to research an item’s significance Well, sukogirl, I hope you or someone you know enjoys Toy Box - just email me with your mailing address and I will figure out how to package up this fragile item so it has a safe journey from the craftarium to you!

Progress Report

After a couple hours of tedious work, the toy box finally looks like something I would make and be happy to send out into the world.

The words are selections cut from a copy of Alice in Wonderland. I knew I wanted to add text from a classic children's story along the edges of my toy box, and Alice's fantastic story seemed like a perfect choice for my box about toys and play.

I spiced up the dull base of the box with some of my favorite instructions from childhood, "cut along the dotted line." Unsurprisingly, I loved to cut stuff up as a kid. I also did some coloring in on the bingo card (I still doodle by coloring in words and numbers on anything). I added some stars glitter glue too. Toy box still needs cleaning and touch-ups and probably some more work on the outside. Don't forget to visit my blog and post a comment for the 101st post if you want to be entered in my toy box giveaway.

isak 2

The same model as the last sculpture, but a different pose. I think his head's too big :P

scarves

I've been on a scarf kick lately. It started with these two birthday scarves, one for my neighbor and one for Greg's grandfather. The cool thing about the second photo is the spinning wheel in the background. That belonged Greg's aunt's great-grandmother, who brought it over from Norway.

Turn Off the TV

When I was a kid I did not watch much television. I had my few programs, but I never had to be encouraged to "go play outside" or "turn off the tv." This is sort of amazing. As a thirty year old, I constantly have to be reminded to "go play outside" or "turn off the tv." I watch sooooo much television - not all crappy television, but lots of it is pure candy. (That is why I have made no appearances here on ITB.) So what better way to break the tv cycle then work on a tribute to some of my favorite childhood toys. I got the idea a few weeks ago, when I unearthed from my grandmother's beach house dresser, my jacks. I loved to play jacks, something you cannot play growing up in an apartment that is not on the first floor. I could play them at the beach house though. And play jacks, I did. But the idea, like drilling sea shells, and making books for wee-one, fell to the wayside as I handled summer plan logistics and watched Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. Yesterday, I resolved to spend a good chunk of today working on my toy tribute, and I followed through. I am stepping away from it for the afternoon - it is still very much a work in progress. I have many more toys to fill the box AND unlike past cigar box projects, leaving any cigar box details seems wholly inappropriate, so I will be doing a lot of work to the outside of the box. That said, I thought that this project should find it's way in the world, so I am going to give it away. I just posted my 96th post on my blog, Lady Lulu's Braindump Hut and Craftarium. Comment on my 101st post and I will enter your name in a drawing and I will send this little box your way if I pull your name from my hat. I think this box will be charming for an adult or kid's room, don't you?

Needle holder

Needle holder
Originally uploaded by sukogirl

With a little hand holding, I finally managed to get my sewing machine up and running. It wasn't as difficult and intimidating as it looked. After practicing on some dish rags, I decided that my first project would be to make a hanging needle holder to organize my knitting and crochet needles. I didn't follow any particular pattern, just winged it. I backed the top fabric with canvas to give it a little support. I even played around with some of the "fancy" stitches.

drip drop

Originally uploaded by cignoh

today i tried to photograph water drops. i googled and read a little about doing it and loosely followed some of the techniques. i shot outside in bright sunlight holding a water bottle over the water and shooting in continuous mode. i didn't use a tripod. the water bottle didn't offer enough control, a dropper, as one of the articles suggests, would be a lot better. i don't know if i set my focus point carefully enough, so some of my drops were out of focus. i must have taken between 50-100 photos, of which only a few were useable/actually captured drops.

http://www.photosig.com/articles/1489/article
http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/how-to-photography-water-drops/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickwheeleroz/2440342279/

i would try it again maybe using colored lights, a tripod, or other things etc. for a different and possibly more precise effect.

here are more of my results.

word to the wordle

One blog that I've been reading a lot of recently is LifeHacker Australia. Here, I find lots of tips and tricks about the latest technology and ways to make life just a little easier. The topics are widespread - one minute you are learning how to tweak Firefox, the next your creating a bedside pocket to hold your stuff. It's all good. Today LifeHacker directed me to Wordle, an interactive text parser and generator that creates an image based on your text. The fun part is tweaking its font, colour and layout. I tried it with two text samples. the first was my resume. The second was the text and vows from my wedding ceremony.I had heaps of fun with and wanted to pass it along for my fellow bloggers to try.

photography workshop, crafty things, and more

haven't posted in a while, this is what i've been up to:

photography workshop
grafitti/piggie
crafty

from top to bottom, left to right:

i started taking a photography workshop at lunch once a week. last week (first week) we explored f-stops, and this week, we're working on shutter speed.

• shutter speed: i captured the fountain image using a fast shutter speed---i'll try to put up an example of the same fountain using a slow shutter speed so that the water looks soft and filmy.
• f-stops: for dof, i shot a series of varying f-stops. then i photographed a mcdonald's happy meal kung fu panda toy with bokeh. i'm collecting all of them and want to do portraits of each. here are the ones i have so far (along with other pics related to kung fu pandas and/or just to pandas).

next are miscellaneous photos i took as part of my photo a day project.

• la river graffiti: the first is part of a group that i took along the la river during lunch one day. more can be found here. i had a 50 mm lens which wasn't ideal, it was hard to convey a sense of the space and capture enough of the scene, i might try to go back sometime and shoot with a wider lens.
• microwave piggie: the second is a microwave splatter screen that robinde gave me. i liked that the entire image is white.

finally, here are a couple of crafty projects.

• constantine tshirt recon: one is an older tshirt reconstruction that i did, and the photo is part of my effort to document the things i've made. i took the portrait outside using the reflectors that i bought recently.
• baby mobile: the second is a baby mobile that a few of us made for our friend. we constructed the animals on our own (i made a piggie that i blogged before), then a few of us got together and constructed the mobile from hangers and yarn---we didn't want it to look tacky (handmade, not homemade, as my friend put it)---and were pretty happy with the results.