With no kids in the house, I’ve been doin’ stuff. Photography stuff. Cooking stuff. Sewing stuff.
Photography has been mostly on the back burner since getting back from vacation, partly because of the weather and partly sequential houseguests. Add recent demands of the new job, and taking pictures slumped even further in priority.
While it clearly wasn’t going to take any awards, I thought the old trailer had potential. Sort of. Unfortunately it doesn’t look too auspicious in the original version.
The camper/trailer photo was taken few weeks ago. The past couple of weeks have had glorious skies and sprinkley-rainy-windy conditions.
I love the cool weather, even if it wreaks havoc with our bodies.
After work this week I wasn’t up to driving anywhere, not even a mile down the road. But at G’s urging, I hobbled into the yard and pointed a camera at the clouds. The result shown at left is among several surprisingly pretty skyscapes.
With Photoshop it’s easy to erase the power lines, and to crop the picture so there’s no car bumper. Rebalancing the light to soften those shadows was more tricky and time-consuming. Swapping skies, fortunately, is easy with Photoshop. It involves a couple of clicks and a good sky picture at your disposal.
Here’s why I snap photos of boring old trailers.
Still not a blue-ribbon shot, but I’m happier with the Frankenstein version.
And with the clouds moving in, we’ve hauled our butts out and taking photos again as time permits.
I might finally cut one of my saree/sari collection and make something with it.
I only buy silk or cotton. At least, the listings called them “silk” and “cotton”. After many, many years of sewing, I have a pretty good sense of what fabric I’m dealing with, especially silk. Silk has a distinct sheen, a distinct fee, and a unique smell when wet.
From the minute I got it, I was virtually certain the dark blue saree with elaborate silver embroidery – the one I adored – was NOT silk, no matter what the seller claimed.
A few days ago I found a video telling how to test. YouTube is my friend!
Bleach dissolves silk (and wool, if you ever want to test that) in a matter of minutes. It’s amazing how quickly and completely it works.
The results are in.
My other “silk” saree is indeed 100% silk, other than the embroidery. It’s kind of cool to see just the embroidery threads left of the test piece (shown in the photo right.)
I like the (real) silk one too, fortunately. It’s a dark purple paisley print. shown at the top of the post. I love purple and I love purple.
And thanks to another recently-discovered technique (thanks again to YouTube), I’m confident I can turn it into something good.
I’d been a little hesitant, because while I love silk – it’s a pain in the butt to work with for sewing. It’s tough to cut and tough to sew – it slips and slides like crazy. But the new technique should hopefully reduce the slippery problem.
I’d planned to clean up and go somewhere else with it, but I’m exhausted, in pain, and multitasking. As I’ve been writing, I’ve also been listening to Ryan Hall Y’All on YouTube. Given the conditions in the Midwest have gone from bad, to really bad, to HOLY TOLEDO THERE ARE TORNADOES EVERYWHERE AND THEY’RE ALL PDS WARNED. The tornado warnings literally are coming in so fast, for so many locations, that they overlap one another. It’s not quite 10pm Arizona time, just before midnight in the affected areas. There were two confirmed tornadoes on the ground in Jonesboro, Arkansas.
I’m gonna wrap this up for tonight. This storm system will impact people I work with remotely, and I’m heartsick for everybody in the affected areas. Thankfully none of my kids are in the tornado-warned areas, though earlier today Iowa was getting hit with what might have been a derecho.
I was happy to read your latest. Hope bad weather stays away from your location. It’s “pretend” Spring here. Lovely days, warmer tempertures with the feeling that snow is hiding right around the corner.
Thanks, Terri! We rarely have dangerous weather here, other than the extreme heat in summer. Rarely a tornado (and when they do pop up it’s usually an EF-0 or EF-1). No real hurricanes, either, though we’ve gotten the leftover rains a couple of times. Our worst is generally a downburst, which can cause damage — or bad dust storms, which are dangerous to drivers but not much else.
But with three of my four kids now living in Iowa, I do keep an eye on weather in the Midwest.