The Workroom

Day 22 - A Workroom Floor Well Used

I have started a small photo project documenting the things in my father's world. I am not sure what I will do with the photos or even if most of them will ever see the light of day. Only time will tell.

My dad had a very well used workroom. The floor tells many tales of paint and furniture stripper and electrical work and the occasional sump pump flood. The concrete is worn smooth from 42 years of use. If something needed to be repaired or replaced or altered, it all began in the workroom.

 

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Day 134–Morning Light

It looked so inviting…..but it was oh so chilly.

Day 131–I Needed Orange

I dyed fiber for the first time yesterday…..now that is all I can think about. I realized that I didn’t have enough orange yarn selections for my Blanket of Never Ending Mitered Squares (big blanket, fingering yarn, small squares. Idiot). But I didn’t want to actually go out and buy yarn just for that. It seemed out of the spirit of the reason for the project, to use UP the massive amount of fingering weight yarn that I have because of my sock knitting obsession.

And then I got to thinking about the fact that I had some KnitPicks Bare, fingering weight, that I had used for a pair of socks for Shoe Queen. Hmmmmmmm.

And so the Fruit Stripes yarn was born.

And this stuff DOES smell like Fruit Stripes gum because I dyed it using KoolAide. Which begs the question, if you can dye fiber with the stuff then why would you EVER actually drink it.

By the way, I am using Flickr A LOT more now that they have changed everything around, given more storage space and changed the interface. It is awesome for displaying photos in the way I like to see them. I will still be posting the photos here (because you would all yell at me otherwise) but I will also be posting them, and more of my other work, over there. Go find me….

Deb Quigg

Day 130–Pine

At OCK there was never a time when I couldn’t look out any window and see something that would grab my attention and have me going for Big Bertha to take a photo.

But now I live in a much more urban/suburban environment. My garage shares a wall with the neighbor’s garage. I can look into my neighbor’s windows as I walk Max. It is definitely different. That doesn’t mean bad, just different. And I am working to train my eye to see the beauty and the unusual in my new home.

There is a pine tree that is outside the Family room window. It isn’t a beautiful thing. It is one of those spindly kind of pine trees that more resemble Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree than anything else. But I was standing on my little patio and all of a sudden I looked and the sun was shining at just a certain way through the branches and I was struck.

I am sure that my new neighbors, if they were watching and I bet some were cuz they love to gossip, would have been shooting phone calls back and forth to talk about the crazy new neighbor who stood there for a really long time just looking at the tree before taking pictures.

Can you IMAGINE what they are going to say when I start taking neighborhood photo walks?

I played A LOT with the shadows, highlights and contrast with this picture and then I also made it black and white. For some reason it speaks to me.

Day 129–Sweater Swatch

I hate to swatch. But I do it because I know that the consequences for NOT swatching, especially with a sweater, are not something that I want to have to deal with.

For those who do not knit, a swatch is a small piece of knitted fabric, worked with the size needles and yarn that you are going to use for the big project. You work this small piece so that when you work the whole garment it will be the size that it is intended to be. I am not Stephanie Pearl-McPhee so I cannot whip up a sweater in a weekend (Have you SEEN the speed at which she knits? It is phenomenal). It takes MANY hours for me to make a sweater. I want it to fit when I am done.

I will admit that there are times when I do not swatch.

I do not swatch before knitting a hat or a scarf.

I do not swatch when I am going to knit a pair of socks. I am an experienced sock knitter and I can usually tell if a pattern is going to fit before I start. There has been the occasional misfire but not often. I am not going to swatch a sock.

I do not swatch when I am working lace. It is lace. It usually has holes in it that I have put there deliberately. I am not going to swatch lace.

But a sweater?

That I swatch. Even though I hate to do it, I do it because the consequences for not doing it is spending MANY hours knitting a garment that, when you are finished, doesn’t fit correctly. That is not good. That is very discouraging. I knit to have zen not to have frustration and sweaters that do not fit.

But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Although I do like the picture of the swatch.

Day 128–A Wisp of Smoke

I blew out the candle and immediately became fascinated by the smoke. That meant that I needed to then go and get the tripod, play with lenses and then light and blow out the candle multiple times.

All on a Saturday morning.

Good thing Sylvia, the neighbor next door, had her blinds down because otherwise she might have thought that I was a bit on the strange side.

I am continuing on with my 365 Project as we can see but obviously, since this is only photo #128 and we are almost 3/4 of the way through 2013 then I haven’t be consistent.

It has been that kind of year.

But I am just going to post as I can and then starting in 2014 we will see if I can do it again. Next year, as far as I know, I will not have a wedding to work on or an unexpected (but very welcome) house sale and move.

Also, I am toying with putting all the 365 photos up on Flickr. And I would have done it today but……Flickr is having some, shall we say, difficulties with their uploader at the moment. And I am just tired of fussing. I will let you know when I move everything over. Their new interface is awesome and makes viewing photos all the better.

Day 127–The Links of Childhood Survival

Just ordinary Discovery Toy links you are thinking to yourself. A fun toy to play with. An educational toy.

No, these are the links that saved my traveling sanity and the progeny’s lives.

You know when you take a long car trip (which we did a lot when the progeny were younger) and your children constantly ask you…..

When are we going to get there? (for the TEN THOUSANDTH TIME)

And you think that if you actually have to answer that question ONE. MORE. TIME. you are going to jump right into the back seat and bring some well deserved justice into your life.

Well, with three progeny that question was asked A LOT. And I was just about at my parental breaking point when it occurred to me that they just needed something visual to tell them. Something that I could just hold up and they could figure it out themselves without me having to use my angry words.

And if there was some math and counting involved all the better.

So when we would start out on our trip I would make sure that I had with me a chain, made of these links, with enough links to represent the number of hours that it would take us to get to our destination.

And when they would ask the dreaded question, I would just hold up the chain for them to count the links. No words were necessary on my part. With each hour that passed I would take a link off so that the count was correct.

When are we getting there?

Hold up the chain.

When are we getting there?

Hold up the chain.

And that is how I retained my sanity and the progeny retained their lives.

It was a good system.

Day 126–Butterfly

Yes, I know I said that this project might be dead for the time being….

But you guys know that sometimes I lie about these things.

I was out in the back garden taking pictures to remember it by (longer post coming I think) when this fellow kindly posed on various flowers before gently flitting away.

Day 125–Parents!

While at Hinkley Reservation photographing Michelle and Greg’s wedding party I happened, as I was standing in the middle of the stream that runs under the bridge, to look over at a group of high school kids standing at one end of the bridge, obviously dressed up for prom.

And then I noticed the parents on the bank. All taking photos…

And not a camera among them. Only cell phones.

It just struck me as funny.

Day 124–Cedar Wax Wing

I didn’t know what this bird was at first. I just had never had one at the feeder. But then I realized that it was a Cedar Wax Wing. Quickly and quietly grabbed Big Bertha and managed to snap one picture before he flew off.

Day 123–Grundewald the Garden Gnome

Everyone has met Grundewald. He lives in the garden and “mysteriously” moves around from place to place.

Ok, FINE! LaurenLeap and I take turns moving him around. It isn’t quite as fun when there aren’t that many things growing in the garden and it is easy to see him.

But when the tomatoes are tall and full of lovely red globes of goodness?

Well Grundewald hides quite easily.

Day 122–Watching the Future

For the last 30 minutes of HHBL’s baseball game yesterday there was a group of High School students intently watching their elders duel to the end.

Day 121–Oak Puffs

I don’t know why. I don’t know when it happened. But I have been fascinated with these things for as long as I can remember.

Evidently they come off the oak trees and are caused by a fungus or other stress. I see just a few every Spring. They make me smile.

And of course to get the picture I had to lay prone on my driveway, camera to my face.

Thank goodness the neighbors are used to my odd photographic behavior.

Day 120–The Editing Never Ends

I am firmly in the camp that it is always better, when having shot a wedding, to put all the pictures onto your computer and then wait at least 7-10 days before even looking at them.

I am liking what I am seeing.

Of course, my eyes may fall out and my head explode before I am all done with them. I am a slow and methodical, dare I say obsessive, editor.

And I haven’t even CRACKED the file of photos that Erica took.

Egads.

Day 119–Trust in Me

First of all, tell me what movie the title of this post came from.

I was walking down the driveway this afternoon, schlepping two bags of garbage to the can waiting at the curb, trying to get them there before the garbage man came down the street (he still hasn’t arrived by the way), when I was viciously attacked by this snake.

Hmmmmm?

You don’t believe me?

Ok, FINE! I was carrying the bags down the driveway, minding my own business when I noticed the snake sort of half on and half off of the driveway. At first I thought that it might be dead since it didn’t move as I approached. But when I leaned down to check….

He moved his head to look at me.

I shrieked! Then looked around to make sure that they neighbors hadn’t heard my cry of terror.

He weaved his head back and forth.

I put down the bags of garbage, told the snake to stay there and walked back to the house to get Big Bertha.

I came back but the snake obviously didn’t want to do what I told him. He was making a break for it at a very slow pace. Slow enough that I was able to take eight or so pictures before he had had enough and told me to go away.

Rude!

This is a picture I am definitely going to have to play with some more.

Day 118–America’s Game

Yesterday was a beautiful, if chilly, day for baseball. Especially as they won the game.

Day 117–Frost 1:Tomato 0

Let me start out by saying that this is NOT a tomato plant that resides in the garden that LaurenLeap and I tend. No, this sorry specimen resides, or should I say resided in the garden plot across the grass covered aisle from us.

We had a Frost/Freeze warning last night. LaurenLeap went out and covered everything late in the day and I went out this morning and uncovered again. We lost three plants that we weren’t all that sure about anyways so no big loss for us. But we took the time to cover our plants, as did others in the garden. Maybe the plot owner just didn’t hear about the warning and didn’t know to cover the plants? If so, it is going to be a big wrench when they go out to their plot and see a frost wasteland.

Also, LaurenLeap and I know that even thought you really, really want to plant tomatoes in May…… you do not.

This is the reason why.

We live in Zone 5. Zone 5 gets frost occasionally even in late May. Not often but occasionally.

And what is really, really sad. This isn’t the only tomato plant that the plot owner lost. He/she lost ALL of them, 18+ of them, because they didn’t get out there and take a few minutes and cover them up.

Tomato sadness.

Day 116- Shorn of Dignity

Oh my poor puppy. He finally allowed me to take a full picture of him in all his shorn glory.

Without all his hair he almost looks like he has more than his fair share of poodle if truth be told. I may have to rethink what his antecedents might have been.

Day 115–Circles

HHBL and I spent several days last week in Nashville. I was fascinated by the abundance of iron railings that defined each of the balconies on all of the rooms.

My circles don’t line up quite as I wanted them but I can live with it.

Day 114–Shrooms

These little beauties were popping their heads up in the middle of a bed of spinach at the garden.

They are no longer in the garden as I ruthlessly ripped them out and discarded them. But of course I took a number of pictures of them before I visited shroomaggedon on them.