Headbands for Christmas }{ crochet pattern

I'm thinking this will be the last in a series of crochet and knitting posts I've been writing.

Following the headband and the scarf, today I'm sharing the pattern I used for the flowers I used in the girls' headbands for Christmas. It's a modified version of a flower pattern I learned a while back, but I can't remember where I got it from.

The pattern itself is simple and easy, but I wanted to share it because of the scalloped edges it creates. Making scalloped edges in crochet projects creates a cute little detail and it's so easy. The secret is to crochet some double or half double crochet stitches in the same stitch, then skip the next and slip stitch in the following stitch. Easy, right? You'll see what I mean in the pattern below.

In terms of yarn and hooks, I used an E hook and sport weight yarn, but that can be changed. Play around with different weights and hooks to find the results you like best.

CH = chain
DC = double crochet
SL = slip stitch

Pattern for base:

1. CH 17
2. Row 1: In 5th ch from the hook (including the chain on the hook, count 5 backwards), DC. *ch 1, skip the next ch, then DC, ch 1, DC in the following chain*. Repeat steps between ** until you reach the end. 
3. Row 2: CH 3, turn. This will be your first "DC" in this row. 5 DC in first ch 1 space, *SL in the next ch 1 space, 6 DC in the next ch 1 space*. Repeat steps between ** until the end of the row.
4. Tie it off leaving a long tale for sewing the flower together with a tapestry needle, then attaching it to the headband.

Pattern for second layer:

1. CH 17
2. Row 1: In 5th ch from the hook (including the chain on the hook, count 5 backwards), 5 DC. *skip the next ch, sl in the following ch, 6 DC in the next*. Repeat steps between ** until you reach the end. 
3. Tie it off leaving a long tale for sewing the flower together with a tapestry needle, then attaching it to the flower base.

The princess asked me to add a "jewel" to the middle and I let her pick one for me to attach with hot glue. Done! Then reluctantly, the dragon modeled the finished headbands.

what's this you've got on my head, mom?

One for the family

This post goes out to our families scattered throughout three continents.

The Squish with her eyes open:

This week, in honor of Thanksgiving, I will be posting more than usual. Today, a little Squish for the family, tomorrow a thank you post, and Wednesday, a recipe for bite-sized yummies for Thanksgiving dinner. Hope you're all having a wonderful week!

Pink }{ The March Equinox Project

Finally I get to pink... Honestly, we have so much pink around this house due to a certain little miss that I was in no hurry to go off and find pink out in nature right now. 

Do you have girls in your house? Are your kids so very much into a favorite color? How do you deal with it?

But I'm running out of colors!

I started this project with the intent of taking/posting pictures for one color each week from March 20 to June 20. Now I'm realizing that it's actually not the best way to approach this. Instead of posting a collage every week, it might be best to take the pictures, but wait until the end to have a post with a compilation collage of all the colors. I might start posting the weekly collages in my flickr pool instead.

Have you ever done a series like this? How did you approach it?

Purple }{ The March Equinox Project

Purple is the color of royalty. It's a word with no match (can you think of a word that rhymes perfectly with purple?).

Before this year, I didn't think of purple as a spring color. But I'm finding it everywhere.

What do you think about when you think of purple?

Blue }{ The March Equinox Project

The weather has taken a turn for the worse around here. We've actually had snow the past couple of days.

So in honor of blue skies, hoping they come back soon, this week I'm posting a couple of blue photos.

Red }{ The March Equinox Project

Once during an interview I was asked what color crayon I was and why. Guess which color I chose?

I told them I had lots of energy and a vibrant personality. And red goes well with a lot of other colors. I'm not sure if they liked the answer, but I did get the job. (I know that doesn't sound humble, but you can't be too humble on interviews, right?)

What color crayon are you?

Yellow }{ The March Equinox Project

One more week has gone by, one more color I enjoyed out there. Yellow.

Daffodils and dandelions. I do love dandelions, and I don't care that they are considered weeds. Maybe that makes them even more... of an underdog.

One of the cool things about this project so far is it's teaching me which flowers come out in early spring versus later. I know. I should know that by now, considering that I like to add flowers to my garden every year and that I'm always buying indoor flowers as well. But, there you have it: I'm not sure what comes out when and how long they last. 

Even worse, I don't even know the name of lots of flowers I see and like. So I've been asking. Another good thing coming out of this project  - I'm realizing how friendly many people are around here. If I ask the name of their flowers and permission to take a photo, they open right up, smile, and give me all kinds of information about gardens. 

I really need to do things like this more often.

What's your favorite way to strike up a conversation with neighbors?

Green and White }{ The March Equinox Project

As promised last week, I'm back with the pictures I took for the colors green:

And white:

It turned out to be more challenging than I thought! We had hail, lots and lots of cold weather, and clouds up through the weekend. A lot of flowers and foliage that had begun to sprout and bloom then withered or suffered from this cold spell. Some beautiful cherry blossoms I had seen are now gone. The daffodils from my neighbors look so sad. But in any case, I found some greens and whites. But then somehow I forgot to include my favorite picture of something green in my collage! Oi... 

If you want to know more about the project I've started, check this post.

What has your beginning of spring been like? Warmer than usual, colder than usual, or just about average?

The March Equinox Project

I've been meaning to do a proper color photography post. Now I've got an excuse and a plan.

1 - A few posts back, I mentioned some colors that remind me of spring.

2 - I read about this color walk in the lovely Whimsy Love blog.

3 - Then, today I joined an Alt Summit online class (which you can find here) about projects to get your creative photog juices flowing. One of the exercises suggested was to come up with a project and do it.

I'm going to combine those three totally unrelated pieces up there into a new photography challenge: the March Equinox Project.

Here's my challenge:

• I'm choosing one color every week
• Taking lots of pictures of nature in various shades of that color
• Sharing a collage of that week's color with you
• Then at the end, make a collage including my favorites from each color

Duration: From the March Equinox to the June Solstice

That means that I'm already 1 week late! So this week, my goal will be two colors and two collages.

I'm choosing green and white to start with. I'll be sharing a full collage for both in one week.

For now, I'll leave you with just a bit of green sprouting from our apple tree that I happened to snap this weekend.

I didn't know I'd be doing this challenge when I first edited this picture, so it's textured. The others won't be.

What creative challenges have you embarked on lately? Would you like to join me?

Goodbye ballerina

N. had to make a choice.

We don't want to overschedule her, or be those parents running around from class to class and never giving anyone a chance to just be, just relax as a family. Still, I also want to give her a chance to try out the things she's interested in. Then again, how much can you trust the request of a toddler to be more than a passing phase? I listen to what she says, and I believe she knows what she wants. But when you have to prioritize...

The point is she asked to go to ballet *and* gymnastics, and we agreed on a trial basis. We tried it out, but the schedule was getting to be too much for me and her during the week. I asked her to choose one.

She chose gymnastics. So it's goodbye, ballerina.

Dream }{ Texture Tuesdays

"Once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return." - Leonardo Da Vinci


This week's Texture Tuesday's prompt was dream. I am nothing if not a dreamer. 


And how I miss the beach and dream of it!

• tweaked original image's level and curves
• Kim Klassen's "loveinlayers" on multiply @20%
• Kim Klassen's "dream" on multiply @30%
• added quote (Rabindranath Tagore, Bengali poet)

As you can see, I'm back participating in Texture Tuesdays. I've truly missed it.


This image is not my usual style, but I wanted to try something outside of my comfort zone. I'm not sold on it, but again, I wanted to stretch myself.

Portrait }{ Texture Tuesday

The prompt this week was "people." Could I do a portrait of anyone else?

(maybe the husband but since he's not around lately...)


Sometimes I feel things in black and white, sometimes in color. But she's always beautiful to me.

• original image
• BW background copy on normal @20%
• BW gradient map on overlay @30%
• Copper gradient map on soft light @25%
• Kim Klassen's "Portrait" on lighter color @35%
• Kim Klassen's "warm sun" on multiply @40%
• Added layer mask to "warm sun" and with opacity @50% removed some of the texture over her face

• original image
• BW gradient map on overlay @50%
• Copper gradient map on overlay @20%
• Kim Klassen's "silence" on darker @50%
• Kim Klassen's "stained linen" on multiply @55%
• Added layer mask to "warm sun" and with opacity @50% removed some of the texture over her face

Freedom }{ Texture Tuesday

It's Texture Tuesday again.

It's one of my favorite posts of the week along with WIP wednesdays, tutorial thursdays, free for all fridays, and illustration friday (yah, I know that means every theme I post is one of my favorites - it's just how it goes).

This week's prompt was open for us to choose - just use one of Kim's textures on a photo we like. Freedom of choice.

So with Fourth of July coming up and all, I decided to do a tribute to freedom. I can't think of things freer than animals in the wild. And yes, I know that a marina is not "the wild" exactly... But he's not in a cage, right? Here's to freedom in a modern setting with a textured old look.

• original photo with minor adjustments
• make background copy BW on normal @26%
• sepia tint copy on normal @100%
• gradient map BW on multiply @32%
• solid navy blue layer on exclusion @20%
• Kim Klassen's "mayzee" on linear burn @50%
• Kim Klassen's "just cause" on soft light @50%

How would you represent freedom?

Words }{ Texture Tuesday

This week's Texture Tuesday prompt was "words." Oh boy, oh boy! Of course I had to do something with books. It doesn't matter that photos of books have been overdone to the point of boredom. I never get tired of them.

You see, I love books. In fact, I love the printed word - magazines, books, even newspapers. In my collages (one day I'll share those) I always add some printed words element somewhere. 

These first two photos show a book that fates back to when my grandparents were still engaged. But this copy isn't my grandmothers - I ended up hunting for one of my own when I was a teenager. Still, my grandmother read this story when she was in her late adolescence/early twenties, my mother read it when she was a teenager, and so did I. My mother liked it so much that she named my little sister after the main character in the story. The story itself isn't anything great, too sugary as my mother used to say, but still... At this point I feel like it's part of our history. 

• background with minor adjustments
• Kim Klassen's "Trust" on linear burn @25%
• Kim Klassen's "Sweettart" on color @20%

• original image with minor adjustments
• convert background copy to BW on normal @26%
• add solid white layer and use clipping mask to background copy. With opacity of brush on 65%, add some black on portions of the flowers.
• Kim Klassen's "Portrait" on darker color @30%
• Kim Klassen's "Stained Linen" on darker color @25%
• add layer mask to the this last layer and with brush opacity on 65%, remove some of the texture from the flowers 

Speaking of history, this last photo shows an interesting book. It's a collection of short stories compiled by a 16th century French writer (Pierre Boaistuau) who said they were true accounts of amazing events, and guess what? Romeo and Juliet is in there somewhere... yep, before Shakespeare, but we knew that. His incredible ability is not always in what he wrote, but in how he wrote it. Boaistuau himself did quite a bit of plagiarizing, incurring the wrath of many during his lifetime.

• original with minor adjustments
• Kim Klassen's "Just Cause" on linear burn @ 40%
• Kim Klassen's "Warm Sun" on soft light @50%

Gardening }{ Texture Tuesdays

Partake as doth the bee

Abstemiously.

The Rose is an Estate -

In Sicily.

Emily Dickinson

Gardening was the theme for today's Texture Tuesday's challenge.

small flowers from one of our flower beds

• start with original and minor adjustments
• background copy desaturated -25%  on luminosity @70%
• gaussian blur on background copy
• Kim Klassen's "stained linen" on multiply @26%
• layer mask to erase the texture over the flower
• Kim Klassen's "warm sun" on soft light @80%

N. playing with one of the flowers we picked

• original with minor adjustments
• convert background copy to BW on lighten @30%
• Kim Klassen's "warm sun" on linear burn @26%
• Kim Klassen's "love" on luminosity @26%

These were my attempts at minimalist, simple photos involving our garden.

I'm not an orderly person. If you see my crafting areas, things are a bit... disorganized. Still, there's a side of me that likes everything in order, neat, absolutely logical. When I get around to organizing my closet, about once every month, it has to be done just so - sleeveless shirts, short sleeve shirts, long sleeve shirts, button down shirts, jackets and cardigans, sweaters, skirts, pants, cocktail dresses, business suits and dresses, and finally a few formal pieces I still have; and within each of these categories, they have to follow a progression of light colors to dark colors; and they all have to face the same way.

Back to gardening. Like me, my garden is messy and orderly all at once. Flowers follow a color based distribution, the spaces between them having been measured, trying to achieve a balance and order in quantity and shades. And yet, there are spots with overgrown grass, weeds that I never get around to pulling out. How do you reconcile all of this?

Lately, my organized side has been winning the battle. I've been in full "simplify" mode, getting rid of clutter, donating old clothes, shoes, toys, packing away things I don't need for a while but that I'll take when we move. 

This has been a long post for a photography based challenge. My apologies. Like my house, I'm trying to get words out, de-cluttering my thoughts. 

ps.: in case you are wondering what's with the quoted poems lately, I've been in the mood for poetry, revisiting a lot of my old favorites.

A disjointed post with few words of my own

I don't have many words for you today. They got lost somewhere on my way here. Really. If you see them, tell them I need them to come back. I'll be waiting staring at the stars.

Here come the real stars to fill the upper skies,

And here on earth come emulating flies,

That, though they never equal stars in size,

(And they were never really stars at heart),

Achieve at times a very starlike start.

Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

Robert Frost's Fireflies in the Garden

I have no words or fireflies, only fragments of thoughts and passing images I dreamt.

Do you know any fireflies? What do you dream of when you gaze upon the stars?

Fog }{ Texture Tuesday

This week's challenge over at Texture Tuesday involved using this texture called "yesteryear."

Fits my mood.

I've been pensive, thinking of places I've been and memories made (mostly happy). And how it all disappears into a fog in the recesses on our mind.

I wanted to work with that, with the dreamy fog, with memories. I've getting more and more experimental with my texture play, though I also love clear, well defined photos. This is just play time.

a place dear to my heart with lots of memories over many different points in my life

• Adjusted levels, color curves, and sharpness of original. 
• Copied background layer and converted to BW on soft light @100%
• BW gradient map on overlay @80%
• copper gradient map on overlay @25%
• solid navy blue layer on exclusion @ 23%
• Kim Klassen's "yesteryear" on linear burn @20%
• Kim Klassen's "yesteryear" on luminosity @30%

some fun with friends ended up giving me this frozen in the air look

• adjusted levels, color curves, and sharpness of original
• Copied background into a new layer, decreased saturation 25% and added gaussian blur
• Kim Klassen's "yesteryear" on liner dodge @30%
• Kim Klassen's "yesteryear" on soft light @35%

I honestly don't remember what I did for this one. Serves me right for not writing it down, oops.

How about your happy memories? Are they clear or do you get lost in a fog?

Expressive Photography }{ Book Review

The philosopher David Chalmers said in "The Conscious Mind" that "to be conscious is to have subjective experience." He proposed that our conscious experience has a subjective quality, our cognitive agency. As we experience the world, that experience is uniquely ours. No one can feel and experience exactly the same as another. We feel life differently.

But I do believe we all share a need to interpret the world. How we feel it and understand it makes our perspective unique, but we all try in our own ways to make sense of it. And share it. Though we never quite accomplish this, we try so often to share with others how we feel.

Or maybe that's just me. Do you do that too? Try to help others understand how you experience something? Try to understand how others experience something?

Photography to me is at the epicenter of this. Visual experience can evoke powerful feelings and by sharing an image we hope to share certain feelings. Of course, this same image will evoke a different experience for someone else. Still...

Again I'm letting my thoughts wonder too much away from the point at hand. The review. But there is a connection, I promise.

"Expressive Photography" by the Shutter Sisters proposes to "not only show you why certain images sing, but will also teach you how to create your own compelling images." The aim is to achieve those photographs that you "not only see, but feel." You see the connection now? This book speaks directly to the need to share our feelings through images (or for some of us, text, movement, taste, sound, etc). 

The things I like in this book:

• It has a poetic quality to its prose and approach to photography. The Shutter Sisters do shoot from the heart, and they share this vision with their readers in the blog and here in the book.
• The topics (ranging from childhood, togetherness, and stillness to documentary, spaces, and table among others) each include a short section on approach, perspective, composition, lighting, details, and processing. Each of these aspects of a photograph can make it or break it, and giving attention to them individually for each topic elucidates the differences between subjects.
• They share settings and strategies behind many of the images in the book.
• And of course, lovely photos.

Although I love this book, I'll also include a warning/con:

• It's not easy for someone who's just beginning. What I mean is that to fully take advantage of what the book offers, it helps to have a basic understanding of exposure and the settings on your camera. Of course, this is just my opinion and if you're interested (because it does have a lot to offer) but have no experience with a camera, I'd check it out if you can. 

I love this book and I frequently take it out of the shelf to re-read suggestions like this (in the portraiture section):

"A portrait is not just an image; it's a vibrant collaboration between photographer and subject. Just like stopping and listening to someone share a story with you, we are listening to the stories people tell with their eyes and their hands, their gestures and their expressions, and distilling them in photographs."

disclaimer: If it feels like I've been giving really good reviews to the books in my review posts, that's because I've been reviewing the books I have kept, used, and enjoyed. 

How do you like to share your experiences with others? 

Vintage }{ Texture Tuesdays

Vintage is an adjective and noun that we hear often now. Vintage is trendy and chic.

It was also our prompt for this week's Texture Tuesday.

But what does it mean?

I went to the source - the English dictionary - and found this as one of many definitions:

representing the high quality of a past time


They also included this definition for world English:


representative of the best and most typical


Still, what does it mean to me? How do I think of vintage. 


Old. Charming. Traditional. Lasting. Of a bygone era. Not representative of modern technology.


I didn't necessarily want to make it romantic or use only the intimate households items like china, tea cups, etc. So I went outside and got really experimental with my texture play. Things turned gritty.

• Original photo with minor adjustments to levels
• Background copy, desaturated, on normal @ 50% with rough pastels applied
• Kim Klassen's Trust on multiply @ 38%
• My own TTV texture on overlay @ 32%
• Navy blue solid layer on exclusion @35%

Going back inside, there's sturdy, old and lasting furniture.

• Original with minor adjustments
• Kim Klassen's Trust on overlay @ 35%
• Kim Klassen's Pour Vous on linear light @26%

I love this new KK texture, Pour Vous. The picture didn't do it justice. I can't wait to keep trying it out.

Creating a mood }{ Texture Tuesdays

Do you know one of the reasons I love playing with textures? Because a photo can end up with so many different looks or moods, just with a change of layer mode, opacity, or combination of textures.

Today's Texture Tuesdays challenge was wide open. I chose this recent picture of a flower and tried to create a soft, ethereal feeling.

Adjustments:

• levels, color curves, and unsharp mask
• layer 1: Kim Klassen's "beautiful" on lighter color @ 25%
• layer 2: Kim Klassen's "sweettart" on hue @ 30%
• layer 3: gradient fill on screen @ 20%

Here's the original for comparison:

I also wanted to try adding a grungier look with the textures, but flowers weren't working for me. So I dug up this photo from last year. It's just the side of a old service tractor I found at a park, but I liked the character of the old metal.

What types of looks do you like on your pictures - retro, vintage romantic, polaroid, grunge, soft, hazy?