Waskely Wabbit Holes

When I find myself distracted by a single thought that turns into an lengthy adventure (be it virtual, or in real life) I call it running down a rabbit hole.  In spite of our return to a regulated school schedule (or perhaps because of?) I found myself meandering down more than one rabbit hole in the past few weeks.

Project updates:

I have not taken as many notes as I thought I would on my garden this year, but I have drawn the general conclusion that I should stick with small variety tomatoes, and summer squash, and call it good.  I would rather have enough vegetables ripe at once to make a meal than one tomato, a tiny squash, and the beginning nubs of an eggplant.

Plus, if I stick to the basics of two plants, I have more space to try varieties and still have enough standards.  This is an indigo apple tomato, the vine only produced a few, but they were quite colorful to grow.

Rabbit Hole 1:  Missing Scissors

Having realized that there are situations where I could really use a project in my hands to make use of the time I'm spending when I'm somewhere I would rather not be, or someplace with a lot of waiting time on my hands... I decided to pull out a few ornament embroidery projects.  What should have been a quick 5 minute grab-and-pack turned into an hours long (not all at once, but stretched over a few days) search, because although I had two pair of embroidery scissors in my large tote, I wanted my blue handled embroidery scissors to carry in my purse with my portable projects.  I *just* reorganized my craft room last year, and it was really frustrating me to have "misplaced" my favorite and oldest embroidery scissors.  It was when I realized that my entire mini-sewing kit was missing that I had my breakthrough... clearly I left the mini sewing kit - with the scissors - with a recent project.

Another half an hour of searching finally revealed the sewing kit in my Zentangle drawer, which didn't make sense until I remembered that I had been embroidering Zentangle patterns on towels two years ago, and I packed the project in the tangle drawer instead of the sewing area.

Rabbit Hole #2:

G very innocently said to me one night "Hey mom, do you have that video of my first dance recital?"

It only took me about 10 minutes to find the low-quality versions of the videos backed up on my old external hard drive, then another 10 minutes to find the DVD's of all the dance recitals, but that lead me to thinking about the original tapes.  I still have our old camcorder in the closet so that I can "someday" do a digital backup of our tapes.  I decided to look at the tapes in the camcorder case, that's when I realized they were not *in* the camcorder case.  (the memory I had of tapes in the case were of the blank tapes I used to keep with the camera when we used it for recording)    After searching all our movie storage areas I made myself a cup of tea and sat down, and thought... where did I used to keep the Hi8 tapes?  On the shelf with the CD's... we don't have the CD's out anymore because we use digital streaming for music... so the CD's are in those clear boxes in the attic... which is where the tapes were as well!  That portion of the rabbit hole was a relatively short journey...

...but then I spent some time researching how to transfer the tapes to my computer.  I took this photo of the camcorder plugs for a discussion with a friend, who was able to point me in the directly of an inexpensive video capture device, which I now own, and have tested, and it works.

Not that I have time to transfer my movies to digital at the moment, but at least I have the technology.  Hopefully I'll get around to getting this done before the technology changes again.

Rabbit Hole #3

Halloween Costume.  

I needed some brown fabric from my fabric stash, which lead to me realizing that my fat quarters and felt were split among too many boxes of fabric, and I had also held onto some baby flannel for more than 16 years without using it, and if I ever make another baby quilt I'm likely to buy fresh fabric anyway...

...so I spent some time over last weekend sorting and purging my fabric stash, and getting it down to the point where it fits in my existing boxes, with a little room to spare.

In between the rabbit holes, I pulled my big tote out and set back to work on my bird quilt.  My 4 bluebird squares are done, I'm now working on the intricate Bobwhites.

A teeny tiny preview of my Halloween costume.  I have made great progress on the design and most of the cutting was completed last night.  

I will do a full write up of the process with photos of the end result once it is complete.

Rabbit Hole #4

Film photography.

We are considering a vacation out of the country, which means I'll probably not want to pack my Graflex due to it's size and weight, which lead me to poke around online for a light weight medium format pinhole camera.  Holga used to make one, but as they are discontinued the cost of a new "collecters" item is outrageous.  I did notice online that some people made mods to convert regular Holgas to pinhole, and I have an extra Holga with a broken shutter, so I briefly considered that option... only to set it aside because that old Holga doesn't have a tripod thread.  So then I looked at my newer Holga to see if it had a tripod thread...

...which is when I discovered I loaded film in it about 5 years ago and haven't finished the roll.  So... another camera to toss in my bag for the next outing.

As to the lightweight pinhole option... I will likely bring the 35mm panoramic pinhole, and I'll see if the new 120 panoramic camera (which is currently in production) might be light enough to carry.  If it feels too heavy for international travel then I might look into the Diana pinhole, or something from the Schlaboratory.  

On film photography...

My E-6 came back slightly underexposed, but still totally usable.  I'm hoping to get another outing in this week that should give me more varied subjects to shoot at a leisurely pace.

Ebey's Landing, Velvia 50, Graflex Pinhole

Rapidfire 6 Week Update

I've had this needling feeling in the back of my mind reminding me that I was behind on blogging, but I didn't realize it has been over a month.  I wondered how I could have possibly fallen that far behind, then I scanned back through my photos for my recap and realize I truly have been quite busy, and I've accomplished quite a lot over the last 6 or so weeks.  So here is a rapid fire update:

Cherry Creek Falls - pinhole shot

In early June, D and I participated in a couple of weekly step challenges, so we opted for hikes instead of trips to the gym.  One hike brought us to Cherry Creek Falls, where we paused for about an hour so that I could grab some pinhole shots of the falls.  My original goal for this year had been to collect enough color images to do my 2018 calendar in pinhole shots, however as the summer is now halfway through, I have my doubts that I'll have 12 good images to use for this year, so I'm contemplating another theme for 2018, and perhaps 2019 will be pinhole.  It all depends on what kind of outings I can get in before October.

LOTR and embroidery

I've been taking advantage of the longer days to be outside in the yard for as long as I can, which leaves me less time for evening crafting before I'm too wiped and need to go to sleep.  When I do sneak in an evening or two, I have fun with it.

ALL THE POTS.

Around the end of June we finally finished planting all the plants.  For now.

Lake Union Panoramic Pinhole

I made it to the June meetup with my pinhole photography group, which took place around Lake Union in Seattle.  It turned out to be the hottest day we've had this year (and is still the record thus far for the summer) and I found that my whole "I don't feel like shooting much in 95 degree heat" feeling is as strong in the states as it is in Jamaica, so I didn't shoot the volume that I thought I might, but I'm pleased with the images I did grab.  I finished up the roll from my panoramic pinhole camera, and my fisheye plastic camera (which had 9 year old film in it!) and ran my first roll of E6 through my Graflex pinhole.  With the help of a new app I found that calculates reciprocity failure I managed to get my first roll of E6 exposed correctly!

THE FOUNTAINS ARE DONE!

4 YEARS, so many changes, so many new ideas, so many "oh, look what the fountain store has in stock now!" moments.... I have a difficult time finding the words to describe how elated I am that they are DONE.

Embroidery on the deck

In honor of my mom's birthday, I parked myself out on the deck to work on my bird quilt (from the pattern I inherited from her mom, using the thread I inherited from my mom)  It was a lovely evening.

Photo Editing - this is from Kauai in January 2017

Due to having to drive G around to various things this summer, I've had some "sit in the coffee shop with your laptop" time, which I've been using to catch up on photo editing.  I'm nearly through with our winter trip to Kauai, which will almost bring me up to speed with all my DSLR because I've hardly shot anything this year outside of birds in my yard.

The garden is coming along nicely

Most of the vegetable starts that I bought from the local super-fancy-expensive nursery either wilted away or have simply been stunted.  The big plants you see are all from other plant stores... so next year I won't bother with the super-fancy place at all.  

A view from the back side of the garden

It might be difficult to see, but I have three laser-cut hummingbird sculptures on the wall of my garden... I bought these in the summer of 2012 and have been waiting to find the right home for them ever since.  The pots in this shot are home to three of my tomato plants that I started from seeds and thought would not survive, but these guys just didn't give up... so here they are, caught up to my other starts in height and starting to show signs of bearing fruit.  

Plant markers

I had the idea for these plant markers back in May, and didn't finish them until last week.  Unfortunately the hot glue didn't hold on the markers that were hit directly by the sprinklers, so perhaps next year I'll figure out something that lasts longer.

In scrapbooking, I just have one or two photos to add to my 2011 digital album, and my 2012 photos are nearly all edited.  I just got back to the 2004 ephemera album last night, where I'm working my way through a set of vacation photos from late October of that year.

These are the highlights of how I've spent my crafting time over the last month and a half, in between end-of-school-year events, hosting out-of-town family over holidays, and helping to teach G to drive. I've also enjoyed some much needed meditative down-time in my yard, fitting in yoga in the mornings and lots of sipping coffee while bird watching.  Sometimes I get more than birds in the yard... like this morning's visitor...

Most mornings I sit on my porch with my coffee in one hand, and my camera with the big zoom lens in the other.  As a result, most of my photo shooting this summer has just been of wildlife in my own back yard.  With the combination of busy week-day schedules and a great desire to just... *be*... in the yard, we've had relatively few excursions outside of this immediate view this summer.  On the one hand that means I probably will not fulfill my goal of having a large enough variety of pinhole photos to create a calendar this year, but on the other hand I'm hoping this means I might catch up on editing and posting to flickr, and if I don't collect enough images by the fall then I'll be well armed to come up with a different theme using my digital shots this time around.

Project Updates in Gardening, Stitching, Scrapbooking

My blogging has waned as the weather turned for the better this spring.  The sunshine and promise of warmer temperatures has been inspiring me to keep my desk time to a minimum so that I can maximize time outside to wrap up the largest parts of our now 4 year long yard renovation.  I'm happy to report that I met my goal of getting my properly built vegetable garden area in place as of Mother's Day Weekend.  

I had a tomato garden last year, which sort of tapered off from the boardwalk/patio path down to the yard below.  D finished building up a retaining wall for me on the far side of the garden earlier in the spring, so that by May 13th I was able to amend the soil and put my vegetable plants in the ground.

Tomato, cucumber, snap peas, eggplant, jalapeno, strawberries, and several squash is how we started.

Over the last couple weeks, while the plants stretched their roots in their new home, I worked on tidying up the final details of the surrounding area while also completing some larger projects involving the water feature and planting several pots around the yard.

My original intention had been to put at least some of my herbs into the garden space, however we overbought veggie starts, and I'm also not sure of which end of the garden I want to put perennials, so for now the perennials will stay in pots around the yard.

Herbs and strawberries on the left form an arch around the sprinkler control boxes, which covers the boxes but leaves easy access.  This weekend I'll be adding the drip lines to the pots.  The garden box against the brick wall houses our lettuce and fennel... I've been calling this the salad bar.  I might consider moving the strawberries into this box if we decide to put the lettuce in the big garden next year.

About 3 weeks of growth in the garden, the strawberry pot is protected from birds with a pop-up bird net, the tomato, cucumber, and snap peas have supports to grow, and my decorative rock and lavender is in place along the wall.

All this extra time in the garden has left my hands tired by the end of the day, so my embroidery has slowed.  I have completed two of my 4 Eastern Bluebird blocks, and am close to finishing block#3.  

As the yard work turns from projects to maintenance, I should have more time in the evenings to get in some stitching.

In the world of scrapbooking... my project room has been overlayed with short projects and supplies which need to be straightened and put away before I can get back to progressing on my ephemera albums. My digital scrapbook for 2011 is nearly complete (I need only to pull one still photo from a video clip and then spell-check the whole album and it will be done)  I've begun collecting and organizing the digital photos for the 2012 album.  The process is a little slower for this year because I  began shooting more film in 2012, and including photos from those cameras involves a bit of digging through and organizing old scans.  My current plan is to proceed with the standard annual albums until I am "caught up", then go back and do the vacation albums.  I should have more consistent blocks of time this summer to work on them, as I plan to find a cozy coffee shop where I can plug away at it while G is in her driving school.

April arrived quickly

There have been no new developments of the anonymous package, outside of crossing names off the list of who might have sent it.  

In photography news, I've taken some time to begin editing images from my last trip.  I'm applying the lessons I learned from the landscape editing class and the difference is amazing.  I'm also replaying the class in the background while I edit these, because the instructor used some interesting selection techniques that I can't quite remember, so I'm listening for those while I edit.  

Here is a shot from the field in Kipu Ranch where scenes from the Jurassic Park movies were filmed.

Additional photo news, I'm scheduled to attend the next pinhole photography meetup.  Fingers are crossed that the weather cooperates and that I don't end up with another migraine.  The meetup includes some hiking, so my plan is to load up my hiking camera bag with gear and wear it with me on my semi-daily walks through the woods.

I set my bird quilt aside a couple weeks ago to do a quick embroidery side project...

I turned 42 this year, so I made myself a Douglas Adams towel in honor of the year.

... with the towel complete, I went back to the birds. I'm nearly done with the last American Goldfinch, and I'll post a shot of the 4 of them when completed.

With spring comes gardening.  I've started tomato seeds indoors again this year, 9 each of 8 varieties.  Last year we started them a few weeks late and didn't transplant them on time.  This year I'm using a "gardening week by week" book, which bases the weeks on the last frost date for the area.  According to that book I'm only about 6 days late with the seed starting, and I also chose some 'early girl' plants, so fingers are crossed I'll get ripe tomatoes before August.

The first seedling emerged 6 days after planting - this was March 25th

By the end of day 6, several more plants crept out.

They have now all sprouted and most have their first set of "true" leaves, so I'll be pruning the extras back within the next couple days.

In other crafting news, another brief side project came about this past weekend.  G's band is off to Disneyland for some music workshops and park fun, so I had the idea that she and her friends should make custom mouse ears.  Saturday night I made a prototype:

I was going for Moana, but I didn't have a hibiscus flower on hand so it looks more Lion King.  Either way, it is fun to wear :)

The girls had a blast tearing apart branches of silk flowers and going to town with the hot-glue gun.  I made the pink ears for my friend who is a chaperone on the trip.

I had hoped to get back to scrapbooking on Sunday while the girls made the ears, but I ended up spending the entire crafting time helping with cutting out ears and covering them with fabrics.  I am impressed, however, that even after the 4 hour crafting extravaganza, I cleaned up the ENTIRE mess - including all the strewn fabrics - and got my craft room back in order before going to bed. I now have bags of leaves leftover from the flower branches which can be used for future projects... I'm already thinking of using them to decopage Easter eggs this year.

We are currently on spring break, which means no school schedule for me to deal with, and fewer dinner worries since G is off at Disney, so I'm hoping to return to Scrapbooking the ephemera albums in the evenings this week.