A Sleepy Hollow Afternoon

Colorful Decay

My siblings and I grew up with cameras in our hands, thanks to our photographer father. Everyday was an opportunity for a photography lesson, either on composition, lighting, or the more entertaining techniques of how to be a working photojournalist (“No officer, you may not have my camera, I’m on public property”).

In Loving Memory of Patty

One of the many quotes he drummed into my head is “Old people and small children are easy targets”, since the elderly always have intriguing faces, especially in black and white, and little kids have a range of  cute expressions, but neither guarantee an overall quality photograph.

I want to amend his original lesson to the elderly, the young and the dead. It’s almost automatic to edit cemeteries photographs into dark sinister shots, especially with Instagram or Photoshop. My other concern was shooting someone’s sculpture without any of my own artistic input. It’s easy to shoot an okay shot of an exquisitely carved gravestone, but I get much more satisfaction (and better photos) by finding the right angle, lighting and composition.

Without further ado, here’s Gwen and my afternoon at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery:

More Leaves Than I Can Possibly Count

Another gorgeous fall day at New York Botanical Gardens spent hiking around the new trails and watching people canoe, watercolor, read poetry and just explore the forest.

See more photographs from the reopening of the Thain Family Forest this weekend.

Inside the tree:

This is the Hester Bridge, which has an incredible curve to it.

The sign said that the Hester Bridge was used for the opening credits of Sesame Street in the 70′s. Now, I’ve been watching lots of YouTube today, but I can’t find any proof of it. Can anyone else find a screenshot or video?

Bats, Bats, Batman.

After a day of gardening with Mario Batali, I was invited to experience Gone Batty! Day at NY Botanical Gardens.  So, maybe it wasn’t so much me that was invited, but more the photographer I’m working with, but I did get to go back and meet these guys:

Non-Delinquent Flowers: NY Botanical Gardens

While working on the chuppah-cabra, I occasionally took a few hours to do a non-knitting activity. Like sleeping, eating, and in this case, wandering through the New York Botanical Gardens with a camera. This set of photographs are from the Mario Batali’s Cooking Garden, where we first explored the garden, and then watched Mario cook using food straight from the vine.

Lots more photographs inside.

It’s a Wrap: The Chuppah-Cabra is Done!

The Chuppah-Cabra is complete! After a mad four day knitting binge, it’s finished and delivered! Yes!

It came very close at the end, there were lots of late nights, early mornings, pots and pots of coffee, some tea, some tears and eating eggs-in-a-basket at 3:00 am.

See how it all turned out.

DIY Gift Bow and Wrapping

For anyone who has been following me on pinterest.com or has received a present from me in the past year or so, may have noticed my growing obsession with gift wrapping. Many of my gifts and mailed packages wrappings are recycled from brown paper bags, old greeting cards, yarn and anything else that stands still long enough for me to cut up.

Here are two from last weekend:

See a brief how to:

Chuppah-Cabra Update

Here’s a long awaited update to the Chuppah-Cabra. I’m almost done with the first border of the Yggdrasil Blanket Chuppah. It’s about baby blanket size now.

More pictures after the jump.

Vodka and Weddings

The yarn for the chuppah-cabra has finally arrived! It’s a big box of yarn that arrived on my doorstep yesterday.

There's more yarn in there than I'd like to admit. I over-ordered, and am still afraid that I'll run out.

I was so excited about getting the yarn, that I completely ignored the rest of the mail. It wasn’t until hours later that I discovered there also was a heavy, white envelope…with our wedding invitation!

pretty pretty bow.

After waiting for the yarn day after day, it seems fated that it would arrive with the wedding invite.

As for the vodka….

Wedding Project #2

It must be wedding season. I’ve been working on another wedding gift for another pair of madly-in-love-with-each-other friends, I’ll call them Gwam. Right before I left for a two week road trip (photos are coming in another post), I realized in a panic that I didn’t have a project to take with me. Two weeks of driving and nothing to keep my hands busy? Not a chance.

I wavered between Mason Dixon’s Moderne Log Cabin and Debbie Stoller’s Long and Winding Throw.

Hard choice, right? I was advised that the log cabin would be a more guy friendly, and even though, as previously mentioned, I love using intertwining cables for weddings to represent the lives coming together. In the end, it was much easier to knit endless rows of garter stitch, as I could drop my knitting to take pictures, look at the map, get snacks from the cooler, etc, and always continue my knitting without ever counting stitches or checking the pattern.

Here’s what it looked like the day before we left:

Lion Brand's Fisherman's Wool in Nature's Brown, Oatmeal, Natural and Brown Heather

And here’s how it looks today:

It's 3.5 planks tall!

Gwam’s measurements: 20″ x 27″

Goal: approximately 50″ x 60″

This is going to be my mental break from the more intricate chuppah, when the cables, leaves and grafting get to be too much.

Big Plans for a Big Chuppah

Two close friends of mine are getting married this fall and are asking their friends to contribute to the celebrations. When asked to knit the chuppah for their ceremony, I was honored and thought it was the best project they could have requested of me.

The guidelines are:

• 6′ x 6′
• colors: dark orange, rust, wine and chocolate brown
• leaves, branches, and tree motifs are good
• they’d like to keep the chuppah on display after the wedding

I scoured Ravelry for the perfect pattern. The most popular chuppah pattern seems to be Kat Coyle, which has been done beautifully many times. The pattern wasn’t quite right for the couple, too lacy, I think. Then I started going through the many, many shawls patterns. Closer, but no cigar. Then I found Yggdrasil. Designed by Lisa D. Jacobs, it’s a center start blanket with three different borders. The pattern first caught my eye because of the trees in the center, but later, it was the borders that were best part. It had the requested leaves, and I love symbolism of intertwining cables for weddings. I’m going to replace the trees with a plain panel, to simplify the design so I can use the four requested colors.

Here’s the plan:

a basic outline, but effective for planning

Then came the best part, picking out the yarn. I went through several different interpretations of the colors, and finally decided on sport weight yarn, in order to shed some weight and let some light through. I even did a swatch of the braid border to see how it looked. I’m pretty sure this is my first swatch ever, I’m much more of a start knitting and rip it back and start all over again kind of knitter.

Knit Pick's Telemark in Sport Weight

The yarn should be here on Monday. I can’t wait to get started!