Sunday Sundry 1-8-12

You know, sometimes I get to thinking about a Sunday Sundry post and I'm at a loss for words.  So this evening, I'm going to focus on some randomness in photo form from the past few weeks.  Some are things I haven't mentioned but have meant to.  Others are just of a moment I thought to take a picture.  Maybe the light was right, maybe it was wrong, but something made me pick up my camera and shoot.

There was Pyrex under the Christmas tree, from hubby!

Apropos of nothing, we watched Crazy Stupid Love last weekend, and, whoa, does Ryan Gosling have some crazy, stupid abs, or what?  Very funny movie, though. Steve Carell and Emma Stone really cracked me up.

This past week, I put away the Christmas decorations, except for a couple little things that will stay up a while longer.

(Sometimes the crop feature in Picasa makes a really cool auto-selection.  How does it know?)

I was delighted to receive a beautiful holiday wall hanging for Christmas from my buddy Michelle at The Gypsy Quilter!

She did such pretty quilting on it, right down to the holly leaves and berries border.  I love looking at it and marveling how she saw to quilt it.  The curved lines really work well with the angular nature of the blocks.

I am working on finishing up the the scrappy string ring (dresden plate) from Friday, making the sample block into a wall hanging.  I did straight line quilting, mostly, but FMQ'd a spiral in the center circle—a very wonky spiral.  I'm debating whether to unpick it and try again, or just leave it as is (leaning toward the latter).  In a year, when I look back on it, perhaps I will feel like I have made some good progress in my FMQ skills.

Speaking of which, the first quilting exercise for the Free-Motion Quilt Challenge is up at SoCalGal.  Time to make some sandwiches (quilt sandwiches, of course) and get to practicing.  Work on that wonky wobble.

Tonight's dinner prep work.  In real life, the shadow was not so obvious.

Raw materials, awaiting inspiration.  Another lovely Christmas gift from a friend, including the pin:

The sky was pretty at sunset the other day.  My hand, not so steady.

View from my back window. 
I moved the camera, but I kind of like the effect.

Try, try again.

Those are a few sights from here at Chez P.  I'll leave you with a sound heard in my sewing room today.  I sometimes get tired of my usual music rotation, so today I closed my eyes and ran my hand along a row of older CDs, telling myself that no matter what it was that I picked, I would play it.  It happened to be Sting, circa 1999.  Not bad, considering it could just as easily have been Backstreet Boys.  When it came to this song, I remembered why I'd bought it; I like Sting's funky side!

Favorite Things Friday - Photo/Light

This is my favorite thing this week:

A photo of two vintage milk glass mixing bowls picked up on last week's antique mall excursion.  

It's not Pyrex!  I'm pretty sure they're both Fire King bowls.  The bowl on the right is the hand-painted Fruits pattern by Gay Fad Studios.  I bought this for my sister to add to her collection.  Because I'm an excellent enabler like that.  The one on the left is the Swiss Chalet (or Swiss Alpine) pattern that matches the Stetson Marcrest dinnerware of the same name.

What I like about the photo of the two bowls, other than the pretty subject matter, is the way the light through the window makes them look illuminated from the inside while making a cool shadow on the wood.

I love the light this time of year.  I thought about making that my favorite thing this week, but a title of, "The light of the earth by the sun in the northern hemisphere, specifically the Upper Midwest, near the time of the summer solstice," seemed a bit cumbersome (and geeky). 

Another thing I like about the photo is that it uses the macro setting on my camera, and that function is pretty darn awesome.  I have a modest point-and-shoot digital camera and pretty dicey photo skilz, which leaves some things to be desired when it comes to taking pictures.  But whatever magic happens with the macro setting is, well, magical.  I wish I knew what all the camera acronyms mean so I could tell you more, but it may as well be hieroglyphics.  It says Carl Zeiss on the front of the lens thingie (a technical term), and I remember from the review I read before I bought the camera that that was a very good thing in optics.  Other than that, I have no idea. I'm lucky I know where the macro button is located.  It's a little tulip icon, I know that.

The macro setting works nicely on Pyrex too.

Oh, come on.  You didn't think I'd show you Fire King and not detour down the Pyrex path too, did you?

It's all about balance, you see.

So to recap:  Fire King mixing bowls photo = a favorite.  Macro lens on modest camera = awesome.  Sunlight at solstice = incredible.  Pyrex = always a winner in my book.




Happy Friday!

Freeze Frame

A few years ago, I bought what I thought was a decent point-and-shoot digital camera, a Sony Cybershot. They made a big deal about it having a Carl Zeiss lens, which was supposed to be the cat's pajamas. Or something.

All I knew is I wanted a decent camera I didn't have to fiddle with. Took it on vacation to Arizona shortly after I got it, and it seemed to take good outdoor pics. See those red rocks? Point, shoot, done, beautiful.

Then I started taking quilt pictures indoors, and to say I was less than impressed would be an understatement. Blurry McBlurry-pants. Fuzzy DeFuzzmeister. Darthy Van Darko.

Now I fully allow that it may be my mad picture taking skilz, or the lack thereof. I thought I had a steady hand. Mr. Sony Cybershot, however, calls me a liar, repeatedly. I've tried holding my breath, bracing myself on something, etc. Oy, it can be exhausting to get a clear shot.

Sony does provide software that is somewhat useful in covering for mistakes. The sharpen tool, for instance. I hit that mofo like a rat for a food pellet at the end of a maze. Thirty-five percent sharpness seems to be the magic number. Does that mean my hands shake 35 percent more in my late 40s than they did when I was 20-something? It's a conspiracy to make me feel doddery, I tell ya.

So I bought this little tripod recently, and I just don't know. It may be a total POC (piece of crap). See it "standing" there? Why is it leaning toward one side already and I haven't even mounted the camera? And when I do, it becomes top heavy and wants to fall over. So sometimes I have to hold the tripod, which, you know, sort of defeats the purpose.

Some of these pics were taken with the tripod, some with me holding the tripod, some where I'm bracing against the faucet, and some with just me doing what I always do--trying not to dance with the camera. All of these are straight out of camera, no sharpening or retouching.

Can you tell which is a tripod shot?



If you guess correctly, you may win a prize. And it may rhyme with "tie rod."

(This green California Pottery tray came from the antique mall a couple weeks ago. It's by Roselane of Pasadena, in their "Chinese Modern" line, popular in the mid-1940s. Four bucks--what a deal!)

What kind of camera do you use (and do you like it)? Do you use a tripod, or does your camera have any kind of image stabilization?