Monday, February 26, 2007

Photogenic snow

It's just about gone, but lots of people captured Baltimore's snow.

Troy, who took that first photo offered some advice for snow photographers: Bracket your shots. The snow can trick your light meter, so take one shot as your light meter indicates, but also some underexposed and overexposed. (Some cameras have a setting to do this automatically.)

Check out Troy's snow photo set.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Snow-day pizza

My mom would always make pizza on snow days, and it's snowing in Baltimore. I don't have the day off and didn't have time to make it, but here's a pizza dough recipe.

I have never used this recipe, but it looks like it will work. It says to use water between 95 and 115 degrees, but I think that's too hot . I would go for something that feels lukewarm. Otherwise, you could kill the yeast.

Another snow day favorite was fried dough (or Italian doughnuts) made with some of the extra pizza dough.

Art -- Creating and collecting

The New York Times Magazine makes a case for photography as this century's painting in a profile of Jeff Wall, "Where Jeff Wall has Taken the Photograph."

"One thing that Wall knew for certain when he took up the profession in the
late 1970s is that he would not become a photojournalistic hunter. Educated as
an art historian, he aspired instead to make photographs that could be
constructed and experienced the way paintings are."

Photography seems so accessible as a viewer and as a creator because we consider that there's an element of luck (in addition to patience and having a good eye). But where Jeff Wall has taken the photograph is to a place where the artist's vision is as important as it is in other artistic media. He does not see the picture in front of him; he creates it.

The Times Magazine also features the home (and contemporary art collection) of philanthropist Constance Caplan. The article doesn't say where in Baltimore this is, but I think it's way north, by Lake Roland, possibly in Baltimore County.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

I'd like s'more


Some people don't like s'mores, but I do, so I made some s'more brownies. Mine didn't toast up as well as the Food Network's. But I had people waiting for me on the street below. Besides, the Food Network probably made their "toasted marshmallows" out of toasted mashed potatoes or something for their photo shoot. Potato brownies, yum!

Monday, February 19, 2007

Too bad the ground's still frozen


My carrot seeds arrived on my desk yesterday, so now all I need is the last frost and some other seeds and to start some tomato plants, and then it will be time to get outside.

I've been wanting to plant some basil inside because I have huge south-facing windows that make parts of the apartment greenhouse-like, but casual attempts to find potting soil have proved fruitless.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Inspiration

Need some photo ideas? Thanks, Photogamer!

This is like the Day Before Christmas pool on Flickr only more specific.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

I got lots of good ideas at the end of the day

I found all the good Valentine's Day crafts too late, so all I had were my modified cards (because the prototype had been revealed) and some orange cranberry muffins.

And I didn't take photos of any of it, because I am a planner like that.

The cards were like the original, only I cut some squares of transluscent red paper and tied it on top with ribbon (fed through two holes this time -- yay) so they opened at the top.

The muffins looked mostly like muffins.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Embrace your knitting mistakes

Let's say a scarf has 400 rows of 20 stitches each. That's 8,000 stitches. If you're a beginnner (like me), you're probably learning a new technique with each scarf. (My first scarf I learned how to just do a knit stitch. My second, I'm learning how to make stripes.) So it makes sense that by the time you get to your second 4,000 stitches, you will have figured out quite a bit about what works for you concerning your new technique. Who cares if you're not perfect from stitch one?

It's easy to think that if you struggle with your first row, you're going to struggle until the end of your project, so you better get that first row just right. But that's not true, and you'll drive yourself crazy and learn to hate knitting if you think that way.

Instead, remember that you're getting better -- and knitting is getting easier -- with every stitch. It's only supposed to be fun.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Cards


It's really smart of me to post a photo of the cards I'm making, because then it will totally be a surprise to my friends when they get them. I used a tutorial on The Sampler to tea stain the card stock. Before staining, I copied by hand something like the template from there, but you're supposed to just print it out. I didn't feel like getting out my printer, though.

Then I glued the card stock to some red paper (a little smoother than construction paper), punched a hole near the top and tied some ribbon through the hole.

I also experimented with tea-staining some envelopes, but I forgot that maybe I shouldn't get the envelope glue wet. I'm sure it could be done, carefully, but the envelope might be a little thin to survive the tea well.

This is just the prototype. Next time I'm going to draw straight lines to cut along instead of just cutting freehand. And I'm going to punch two holes instead of one for the ribbon.

All new

This is going to be a projects blog now, because I made a scarf and painted some furniture, and that makes me an expert. But I'm leaving all the old stuff up because I don't want an empty blog and because why deny my history?