Snowpocalypse - 2nd round

The 2nd round of the storm came through last Wednesday and I spent the day cooped up inside knitting and catching up on past seasons of LOST. By the time Thursday came around and we had another snow day at work, I was going batty. I needed to get out of the house.

After shoveling and then shoveling some more, I threw on the layers and grabbed my camera to see what was going on in the neighborhood. After getting 28 inches over the weekend, and then another 17 inches only 4 days later, I had to get out and witness the city as it had never been seen before.


A motorcycle parked in front of a neighbor's house.


Tree by the Fairmount Waterworks along the Schuylkill River.


Fairmount Waterworks on the Schuylkill River.


Buried bench by Lloyd Hall in Fairmount Park.


Philadelphia's Boathouse Row.


Reflection of the Philadelphian on Kelly Drive.


Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Eakin's Oval and City Hall


Tubing down the Art Museum steps.


More fun on the Art Museum steps.

Do you see the snowboarders waiting for their turn? As I was walking home, I saw a few boarders locking up their snowboard to a bike rack outside Bishop's Collar. That's a first.


Buried park fence - Fairmount.


Buried cars.


Outside my window.


Outside my window.


One last shot from outside my window.

Road Block

Back in December, Black Bunny Fibers (Carol) had an open house at her home. She had lots of beautiful yarns on sale and of course, I indulged. One of my purchases was this beautiful Wenselydale wool in a colorway Carol called Spearmint Ice. I loved it and wouldn't put it down.





The pictures don't really do the color justice.

Earlier this month, I finally cast on this yarn to make Sarah Shepherd's Sage Remedy Top (ravelry link). The pattern has you start on the front first and I finished that in a little over a week. It came out great.



No problem, right? I start knitting the back side, which has the same feather and fan pattern on the back. Real pretty. Last night, I finished the feather and fan pattern and started increasing for the sleeves. I looked at my ball of yarn and panicked. I have a good 30+ rows to go, not including the edging, and I'm out of yarn

I even sent a message to Carol to see if by any chance she had anymore of the base yarn and could dye me up a little more. I knew there was a fat chance that was the case, but I knew I had to at least ask. Nope. She doesn't have anymore of the base.

Some suggestions on Ravelry have been to rip out the edging at the bottom and do another color there instead as well as for the edging. Another suggestion was to rip out the pattern on the front and do it in another color as well. I was hoping that I could just reknit it in a larger gauge and that could solve the problem.

Either way, I'm screwed and have to rip out. I'm bummed b/c I really liked the top and was excited to wear it. Now I have to decide if I want to knit it again, but in a different yarn, or if I want to try some of the modification ideas first. If I feel like trekking to Rosie's today in the snow, I may try it. Otherwise, I'll figure it out over the weekend.

So bummed. :(

WOW

I don't know what else to say. I have lived in many snowy places -- Vermont, Colorado, Massachusetts -- but never have I seen a snowstorm like this. In less than 24 hours we were pounded with 28.5, that's right TWENTY-EIGHT POINT FIVE, inches of snow. Better yet, to have a season that has TWO storms like this is crazy. And to top that off, the weather folks are calling for another storm in a couple of days!

Of course, I had to go and buy a house this past summer which has on-street parking. Gone are the comfy days of covered parking in a garage. When I moved to Philly, I gave away my awesome, extendable snow scraper since I didn't need to remove snow from my car. Those days are over. This was my car a few hours before the snow stopped falling.



Yes, those are my windshield wipers sticking up thru the snow. Would you like to see a close up?



This is what it looked like when I opened the door and thought about digging myself out. I think I waited a couple more hours to make sure the snow had stopped.



Instead, I thought I'd stand in the comfort of my warm home and get creative. Here are some picture of my mailbox (and street) and front door.



The snow was piling up on (and out of) the fence out back.




In between rounds of digging myself and my car out, I wandered around the neighborhood. Many streets had been "plowed" but there were still others that hadn't been touched. It was so calm and quiet out. I would have broken out my cross-country skis, but I had waited too long and the plows had already been thru.




Just like every storm, we woke up this morning to a beautiful clear blue sky. It was cold, but not too cold. I threw on my layers and headed outside to explore and walk on Kelly Drive. Kids were out in force sledding down the hill across from the Azalea Garden. I was surprised at how many runners were out. I remember my training days I having a bitch of a time not sliding in my running shoes. Very daring.

While I was out, I couldn't help but take a few more pictures. Snow and water are just too pretty together to not capture it. These pictures weren't taken w/ my new camera, but trusty point and shoot.

Oliviaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh

I finally finished my Olivia (rav link) cardigan that I started a year ago. I had started it, got distracted (as I always do) and finally remember this past December to pick it back up. I pretty much kept w/ the directions until the sleeves. They were supposed to be more of a blousson style and I really didn't need the extra fabric.



So, I did my first major pattern modification and changed the sleeves. Every time the pattern called for a decrease on each end, I increased on each end. I took the end number of stitches for the base of the armhole and subtracted the number of increased stitches to get my cast on at the cuff. I cast on for the cuff at the beginning (which was to be added at the end) and did a matching seed stitch pattern w/ the border. I knit the cuff the same length as the cuff in the pattern and then switched to stockinette. It ended up being a very nice, tailored sleeve! I really didn't know if it was going to work since I didn't measure a thing and I am terrible at math modification and reading patterns. I don't have a great picture of the sleeve, but you can see how the cuff and bottom of the sleeve look in the picture below.



And did you notice the pocket???? That's right, the sweater has POCKETS. I've never done them before and was a little perplexed at the beginning, but once Jenna demonstrated it for me at Rosie's, I was set. They are so cute.

The pattern is from Kim Hargraeves' book, Thrown Together. It was a total impulse buy and I had to start the cardigan immediately. Of course, we now know what happened to that motivation. The sweater is knit in Rowan Felted Tweed in the treacle colorway.

I had a hard time picking out the buttons and went w/ the toggles. They do look great on the sweater, but after a day of wear, I don't think they were the right choice. I don't know how to describe it. In still life, however, they look great!



Thanks so much to Andrea for taking these pictures of me Wednesday night. My batteries died and there she was w/ her most awesome camera. We had fun trying to strike the right pose.

Photo Phun on the Eastern Shore

This week I had to drive down to Norfolk, VA for a hearing. My colleague was kind enough to do most of the driving so I could nurse a migraine I had that morning, relax, and catch up on some knitting. At the last minute, I decided to bring my camera down but wasn't sure if we'd have time to stop and take some pictures. Aside from that, we also left later than I had expected so we weren't going to reach the Bay Bridge/Tunnel until dark.

It wasn't until sunset that I had the urge to start taking pictures. We were in Virginia at this point, maybe 45 minutes north of the Bay Bridge/Tunnel. There were some really cool cloud formations on Tuesday that made the sunset very unique. I didn't want to make my colleague stop every 100 feet or so, so I just started taking photos from inside the car.



Of course, b/c we were driving, I couldn't really control what made it into the picture or not, but this house and tree ended up working out really well for some depth of field.



It's like it's spiraling out from the center. A pinwheel maybe? Plus, I love the layers of color from the layers of clouds.



I then put my camera away and we continued to drive. Just before the Bay Bridge/Tunnel, the colors in the sky changed. We were getting to the most narrow part of the Delmarva Peninsula and you could start to see the still waters of the Chesapeake Bay reflecting the sky.

I wish I had taken my camera out about 5 minutes earlier. We passed a white house set back from the road that was right on the water. The water was still and reflected back the most wonderful colors. It would have been a great picture, but I didn't want to be a pain and ask my colleague to stop the car so I could get out. It's one thing for me to do it either alone or at least if I'm driving, but w/ someone else driving, it was tough. So, after that shot, I had to take my camera back out.

Like I said, I didn't want to ask my colleague to stop the car, so the next shots were taken in obviously low light as we were moving and just about on the bridge. The blur of the pictures and the color of the sky almost make the shots look like they are painted watercolors and not photographs.







Not even a mile or two after the above pictures were taken, the light from the sun was gone. These are some pictures at the beginning of the Bay Bridge/Tunnel. They are dark and I don't think they do much, but I was trying out some composition stuff so you are now stuck looking at it too.

Photo Composition

I took a class yesterday on composition and intermediate photography thru the Digital Photo Academy. Since getting my new DSLR, I really wanted to take time to learn its functions instead of constantly using the pre-set buttons. What's the purpose of a DSLR if I use all the auto features?


This had to be my favorite picture of the day. Bright, vivid color with the monochromatic color of the lock and bolt.

My second favorite picture of the day. The above picture is a reflection in a moped's rear compartment. Kind of wish I wasn't in the reflection as well, but it's something to work on.

Ok, so the first part of the day was composition. I feel I already have a pretty good eye, especially with landscapes and nature, but it was really nice to go through some of the key elements to try and better my pictures. We learned about the rule of thirds, leading lines, use of color, etc. We then went out into Northern Liberties to try our hand at some of the stuff. The assignment was hard considering it is winter and there's not much color out there for me to play with nor is there the usual things I like to take pictures of. Still, I tried my hand at a few things.

The picture on the left was taken midday. Loved the colors. The picture on the right was a fluke. I was goofing off, trying to take a picture of myself, but the camera was lopsided and missed me altogether. This is what I got instead. Not bad. The lines of the wires are great.

The above picture is some barbed wire at a vacant lot.


I had taken a different version of this picture (street view w/ street lines), but Rick the instructor suggested I go back and find another way to highlight the lamppost. I came back w/ this. What I like about it is the fact that the utility post in the background seems to echo the lamppost in the foreground. Rick really liked it.


I had a lot of fun w/ the reflections in the mopeds parked on the street.


Gated window-front w/ the reflections of the street through the window.


I tried working on depth of field and the rule of thirds w/ the fence post on the left. On the right, I really liked this lamp as I was walking to lunch. I love how the line of the wall detail lines up w/ the center line of the lamp and how the diagonal line leads your eye to the subject.

Not sure how this is w/ the leading lines, but the rule of thirds works nice and the diagonal line captures your eye. Just a fence around a vacant lot.

More play on color, this time focusing on the contrasting colors of blue and orange. Also, I loved the color of the fire hydrant with its contrasting red (red orange) and green (lime green).


The 2nd part of the day was intermediate photography. It is designed to introduce you to the DSLR. We focused a lot on shutter speed and aperture and how/when to use it with your camera. We also covered white balance and fill flash. We then went outside for a bit to try stopping a moving car, panning, and blurring the car while keeping the background still. I didn't bother uploading many pictures from this part since it was more technical instruction so the pictures were kind of boring.


My attempt at panning. The biker is supposed to be clear while everything else is blurred. I still need to work on this technique.


Capturing and stopping motion w/ an increased shutter speed. Most of this was done w/ cars (boring), but I had fun playing w/ the flag blowing in the wind.

Overall, it was a good class. I would have liked to work on some other concepts on the camera, like size (raw v. jpeg) or some of the digital functions on the camera itself and what they mean, but this was a good start. I guess it's kind of hard to cover that stuff in a 4-hour workshop. Because speed and aperture are both numbers I kept getting confused. I am sure that I will need a refresher as well as a more advanced class to help me thru a lot of it.

However, I now realize my lens does not have as much zoom as I thought, so I'll be on the lookout for a good zoom lens before my trip in April. We all know how much I love to zoom.