January 29, 2012

My Friends are Super Talented

So it seems as though knitting and crocheting are all the rage right now.  And I have friends who are incredibly talented at these crafts.  
My headband from Becky and scarf from Melissa
And Nicki made me this scarf for Christmas!

So when I visited with Nicki in San Antonio we talked about how I wanted to learn to crochet.  And the perfect opportunity presented itself when Erin posted about starting up crocheting again.  So I bought crochet hooks and yarn and enlisted her help to teach me.

Little did she know what a difficult student I am.

I just did. not. get it.

So I learned the basic part and then we decided we'd see if Mama Mazur could help with some remedial lessons when she is in town next.

In the meantime, Melissa mentioned to me that she thinks knitting is easier than crocheting, so I thought maybe I should see if it was easier for me.  Last night we had a Star Wars movie night with the 20s group, and since I don't really pay attention to those movies anyway, I figured it would be a good time to learn.

After it taking a while to understand--Melissa said "you make this look so complicated" (See Erin, it's not you... it's me.)--I finally got the hang of it.  I knitted all through the final movie and managed to not make it through an entire row without losing a stitch somewhere along the way.  Sigh.  In fact, some of the guys asked what I was making and my response was "nothing, I'm just trying to practice not messing it up."   So after 2 hours of knitting, I ended up with about 6 rows with stitches missing and knots where there shouldn't be knots.

But I trudged on... this morning I sat down to practice again and I made it through several rows without messing anything up.

I think Knitting will be easier for me than crocheting (partially because I didn't give up as quickly haha) and now I am on to my first project.

Hoping that someday I will be as talented as all my friends ;)

January 5, 2012

Photo Ops

So I got a new camera for my birthday and when I was in San Antonio last week I had a lot of fun experimenting with the different settings at the Alamo Bowl and our Winery Tours.

Playing with the color settings--black and white with an accent of green/yellow
 Or here is a picture just with the automatic settings:














and one around the same time set to photograph "vivid colors"


  
I also really like the toy camera effect

 But I think vivid colors made for the best Alamo Bowl Pics
 See?

I think I liked the "toy camera" effect best on the winery tours.  It helps frames the pictures and gives it a different feel.  Like these barrel pics
To me, these just feel  like 2 completely different pictures

And the colors are so different, but it was a beautiful setting!

And that is all the pictures for today!