Weekend Blitz

I wouldn't be me if I didn't have 20 projects going on at once.  I'll do a photo montage of all my projects...just as soon as I have a minute.

I love taking pictures.  Unfortunately, the cheap $100 cameras don't take very good pictures.  

Photos indoors are generally blurry...

or dark...  

or sometimes it just has someone's head well-lit and in focus...but nothing else. 

I would eventually like to get a really expensive digital camera, but I'm afraid that I still wouldn't have any idea how to use it.  An expensive camera with an ignorant user is like buying a Ferrari for someone without a license. 

I find that I can take fairly good outdoor photos, especially of flowers and other things that just sit still.  Or move very slowly.  

Of course, some of the best pictures I've taken were with my phone.  Simple auto-focus technology.  Unfortunately, I don't know how to unload the photos from the camera without first posting to Facebook.  So anyone who is on my FB friends list will have already seen many of these pictures.  Sorry.  

Over the weekend, we drove over to the in-law's for the weekend.  While Kelly took Emma to a production of Fidder on the Roof at an outdoor theatre (waiting for potential rainout), me and the little kids went to June Faire and saw some great stuff in the Arts & Sciences area.  Countess Elizabeth, the new regent of Ithra, was spending hours churning butter.  When we came by, the fresh cream in the churn had turned into a liquid that resembled latex paint.  We chatted with her for some time--probably 20 or 30 minutes--and it was still paint consistency when we left, although it was getting more difficult to churn when we said our good byes.  Apparently the churning is an hour or three of pumping the handle and then suddenly it turns into butter.  Time varies depending on temperature, humidity, the cow's diet, etc.  There is no comparison to fresh butter and the stuff you get at the store, which is made to be more homogenized in flavor and color, so adjustments are made at the factory.  While butter is awesome, there's nothing like fresh-from-the-churn butter.  The booth next door was making fresh bread, so she and others were anticipating the marriage between the two.  We didn't stick around long enough to find out.

Up the path, the dye pot was bubbling some brazilwood and this piece of fabric was being sent through the dye on this sort of rotating wheel to make sure the fabric goes through the dye evenly and doesn't get splotchy.  The fabric may have been sewn end to end and rotated through the dye, straightening out the wrinkles as they went.  I was amazed at how bright the color was.  It inspired me to try the onion dye again using sock yarn, then follow their advise and dip one skein into ammonia afterwards to see what color develops afterwards.  I'd also like to try it with tansy later this summer, and perhaps with some period dye stuffs like woad and weld.

Here's a woodcut of the real thing, albeit a bit narrower through the middle.  I found another woodcut from the 18th century that is much larger, but hey, this was a Medieval faire...not an early modern faire.

Graduation night tonight.  First dinner.  No, first getting dressed.  Then dinner.

K