Another Sick Day

I attempted class today, and I made it for 4 hours but then feeling sick just got to be too much for me and therefore I went home, but in a way my afternoon was not wasted this time. I sat at my computer and started looking at websites. I have now gotten an ideal for a crochet project, now I'll I have to do is create the pattern, and possibly buy yarn, but that can wait till tomorrow.
The place I would love you all to go look is a flickr account owned by Sleepy Robot 13. I really like the one grim reaper who is standing on her head and I absolutely love the robots like there is no tomorrow. Then I thought to myself "why not try and make a crocheted version" So that is what I am going to do. Wish me luck and I will show you how they turn out.

As well a bit of news I have been asked to make 4 more of my crocheted bead guys. Therefore when I get sometime I am going to work on them but again because they are specific colours I will have to go buy yarn, hopefully tomorrow.
enjoy the website I have given you to look at. They are quite the interesting clay figures.
-Photo Alley

Applefest Weekend

Oh this weekend has been amazing. I came home and my animals all loved me. I swear my cat barely left my side the whole first night. The next night me and my fam jam made home made gluten free perogies. Boy were they ever delicious. When I find the site I got the recipe off of I will post it for ya here. We made our own filling, one of onion and potato and the other potato, goat's gouda and bacon. I think next time we will use a less powerful cheese and a more tasty onion flavour because just the onion wasn't powerful enough. As well it took a bit of time to get the hang of the dough. The first couple that we made flattened completely out but by the end we were pros. It was tons of fun having the family all cook together with our own little jobs.
As well this weekend was Applefest weekend in my home town and it was amazing. The street fair keeps getting bigger and bigger. I had in all honesty planned on taking pictures but I was just having to much fun I ended up take about 2 pictures the whole weekend. I did however crack out that good old disposable camera today, we'll see how the pictures turn out. Well I'm off. Back to school.
-Photo Alley

Sickies

Today of all days I was sick, I missed class and I bet it was an important one too, I just hope that I start to feel better soon. At first I thought maybe it had been the cotton candy that maybe there was some chance that there had been gluten in it, especially since I ate it with out checking but after being sick for 4 days I don't think it was gluten. However it may have been lactose. I drink Goat's milk which has less lactose in it and my stomach seems to tolerate it where as when there is even a small amount of cow's milk outside baked goods I'm a goner. But the only link so far between the days is the goat's milk I was having at breakfast and some new goat's cheese I was trying. All very delicious but possibly a little too much.... OR the other possibility is I have the flu, I've been hella tired and a bit on the achy side but I thought it was due to carrying camera equipment around for lots of hours on end. Then I noticed I was producing a lot more phlegm then normal and my glands were a little swollen, not a lot but a little. This has brought me to the conclusion I think I have the flu or have caught something from my roommates or classmates, groups of people I hang out in close proximity to that have been sick in the past couple weeks.

This however is not what I was posting about. On a day when you just feel horrible and can't really do anything, I can't go shoot, I can't go to class, I pretty much am bed ridden... what then do you do? Well I always find putting on a good movie and doing crafts a good way to pass the time. If I were at home with my parents I may have gotten a good chunk of my to do list of quilts done but seeing as I am at school I crocheted.

First here are 2 guys I did before I got sick. One is an egg man that I did one day when I could not sleep for the life of me so till around 1 in the morning I made him.I saw a picture similar an thought I can do that.

I got the egg design off of the web of course in free patterns,
it was untested and boy am I glad I did him small.
I used a 2mm hook with some 6 strand thread commonly
used for making bracelets. He came out to be the size of a small egg.
I only wonder what would have happened if I used regular yarn and
3mm hook. Anyways and then I added the feet
and the black crack.

This of course is an applekin, the one I

made for my mom. I needed
him done by applefest.Then I was in the mood to make
something small and I couldn't sleep so I
thought why not try and make an
applekin small. This is what I came up
with, I didn't have small enough beads for his arm
so I made them like a bracelet.

As for the guys I made today, here they are:So I was going to try and get through the patterns

I have accumulated but haven't made. This
was my first one. He is from the lemmings pattern
by a person named June. When I find the site
again I will post a link. Anyways I didn't have mohair yarn
to make his hair so I used some fuzzy stuff I had and
then I made him a hood. He kind of looks like he is wearing a parka.
Now all he needs is something like a pick axe and he'll
be good to go..... MaybeNow I know you have all already
seen Safety Cone and miniature Safety Cone..
Kinda reminds me of the horses and the miniature horses
from Richmond Fair. Anywho. I know I already made them but
when looking through my patterns I noticed the girl
who made the patter originally made a
winter hat for her guy and I always thought that was cool
so I thought I would try my hand at making him
a nice winter hat. As well if you notice his expression is
a little nicer then it looked before. It always bothered me that
he looked scary, like what you would find on a jack o'lantern.
Therefore I changed it.And lastly there is this little guy. He quite literally is small. I made
him with a 3mm hook and regular yarn and he still is only
about as tall as Safety Cone. He's so cute. Anyways, I've
always wanted to make a bat and
all the ones I see are either just the head with wings or
they have felt parts to them. I wanted a totally
crocheted bat. Therefore a little while ago I made a pattern for him
but never tried it out. So today I thought I would try it on out.
As well I had just painted the eyes he had a couple days before
and I think they work wonderfully.

I know it doesn't look like I got a lot done but each item took about a movie long or longer to make. I watched 2 movies from the Bring It On Series, as well as Pride and Prejudice and Ocean's Thirteen. I think I did pretty good actually. I would say I found it harder today because my fingers started to cramp earlier then usually and they were finding it difficult to do the smaller parts to the little guys.
But not it is time for more food and more re hydration. Write soon, hopefully the sickness will go soon.
-Photo Alley

Richmond Fair

Well I'm not sure if you know this or not but Richmond had their annual fair this past weekend and along with an assignment to shoot I thought it would be tons of fun to see what their fair was about. It reminded me a lot of home and being homesick I thought it the perfect remedy.
At the fair I took tons of photos I mean in the thousands of images. My hard drive is not appreciating on these RAW files I have uploaded this weekend, the fan is going wild and the computers running slow. I decided I needed to go through my old images and files and delete what I didn't need anymore, that of course left me with tons to empty in my trash can because of course I always forget it needs to be emptied regularly. Anyways along with all those great images and a fun time I received a sun burn. When they tell you put sun screen on they mean it. I swear I was fine the first day I went but this Sunday (today) I burnt my forehead and my nose, but nowhere else. Strange but oh well it was worth it.
As for the fair there was the usual food and carnival rides which of course I wish I had played so I could win these two stuffies:Now imagine these guys where fairly big, they could have easily been used as extra pillows and they of course were adorable.
The downside I had to this weekend was buying some food at the fair and not thinking to check it for gluten. I was sick all Friday night and most of Saturday while the rest of Saturday I slept. Now this disappointed me because one I didn't see the demolition derby but I also missed the day of horse shows. I love horses and cows and the likes but on Friday only a few were in the barn. Saturday was to be the big show day. Then I thought to my self would you rather stay home and get better or go to the fair and be sick the whole time. I chose to stay home as well I was consoled because there would be a few horse shows on Sunday and they were Heavy and Draft horses, my favourite.
Sunday I got to the fair and immediately went to the horses. However at the time the miniature horses were showing. These are the cutest horses I have ever seen, they barely come to your waist if that and are actually horses not ponies. Much smaller then ponies actually. Very cute but not what I wanted to see. And then I saw them the draft horses. These beasts are huge and when I say huge I mean HUGE. There were some that the men leading them didn't even come to their shoulders, they were beautiful. But I must say the best part of the draft horse shows actually started around one and they were the carriage pulls.This is just one of about 100 I took of the show. I must say there is almost 200 images of horses alone in my 1000+ sets. But they were so majestic and beautiful, i stopped taking pictures and just watched. I was a little sad to leave the fair because the shows were still going on but my ride was waiting and I was starting to feel sick again. Overall though I wonderful weekend.
However I think I may have caught a little dehydration along the route with my sun burned face. Till next time though
-Photo Alley
P.S. soon I will upload some more crocheted magic.

The art of a macro lens

In class we have to find a picture of our own that we like that will be put into a frame inside our class rooms for an entire year. Well I had been looking through my work and I had some images I really liked but none I really wanted to put in a frame, maybe it was the fact that I had been looking at them for an entire summer who knows. I did try out a swan picture I took but after printing it, it just didn't seem like something I wanted in the class room frames for a year. Do to all this I thought well why not take some new images. I ran between the ideas of having someone with sparkles being blown to writing, so I went and I took out a D3, a 60mm micro lens and a 16mm fish eye lens. Why not try all sorts of lens at the same time as getting a project done. Well once I was home all the people I could think of to model or help were at work. Then it came to me why not take my candles and try and capture some of their flames. I did this but didn't really like the result and then I was looking at some of the stuff I have hanging on my walls and it popped into my head, close ups. I had a micro lens why not get as close as I could with still being in focus and takes some pictures of that. Boy did I have fun. (the image at the end of the post is one of my favourites)
As I was uploading my pictures to the computer I decided to look up some close up pictures on the web, you know insect pictures. They have always fascinated me and hopefully when I get some money I can buy myself a true macro lens and go about taking insect images, Maybe even do a whole portfolio on them during the summer or something. I found 2 websites I liked best Insect Photography, Images of Nature and Natural Things . I liked this website because not only did it have closeups of bugs but it also had some of lizards and frogs, a real assortment of creatures plus it gave some interesting information along with the pictures like what the name of the animal was or what was happening in the picture. To me very cool.
The other site I found was A how to on Macro bug photography . I thought this website was pretty informative. Not only did it give you information on how to do photomacrography with your SLR camera but it also mentions close up work with a regular point and shoot. Definitely 2 sites to go check out whether your into close up photography or you just want to see some neat images.
-Photo Alley

Some Links

Well this is my second post in one day, quite amazing right. Well actually it is the fact that I can't sleep. Anyways I thought I would let you all know that my blog will start having more of my work from school up here as well as the crafts I am working on. Hopefully I can strike a nice balance and be a little more well rounded.
If you hadn't noticed that post from earlier today was actually an assignment as well for my multi media class. And in that class I am learning HTML.
Because of this I thought you have heard about some of these websites I talk about but I never give links, well now I know how so I thought I would try and give you a link to the Gluten free blog that I find quite interesting and was the first one I started reading. It was introduced to me by my sister's friend's sister when she found out I was going gluten free. It definitely helps a lot to know that there are other people out there either officially diagnosed or like myself self diagnosed. The blog is called Gluten Free Girl I hope the link works for you.
I think this new programming could come in really handy when trying to let you all know about links to recipes without going into copyright laws.
Keep rocking in the free world all.
-Photo Alley

The Fascinating World of Colour

Hello one and all,
Last year we learned about colour and I thought I would give you a little look at what our assignment was about, hopefully it will inspire you to do something similar. Colour is always fun and interesting to work with and I am glad that this year that is our medium for the most part.

We were told that we needed to take an image of the following colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. The colours were suppose to be the most dominate thing in the image therefore I thought what better way to do this then also make the back ground the colour as well as the object, just in different shades. This is called monochromatic. I hope you enjoy and play with colour as much as possible.
-Photo Alley

Old School

Today was our orientation to the new group of students into our program and we of course had swag door prizes. You know those neat and cool things related to your topic, in our case photography, that is given away at the end of meeting. Well Who knows what we had for those types of prizes, besides I know we had paper cause I got some, but they went all old school on us this year and gave away free disposable cameras. That's right in the era of digital cameras and laptops we as photography students now have some disposable cameras and film to work with if we want. Know all I need to do is see if my family still has any film cameras left lying around so I can use the film. See if I am actually any good. Definitely think it will be fun shooting with the disposables those, can't wait to start.
Thinking about old school like things I was talking to a bunch of classmates on how wicked it would be if I could own a Polaroid camera. I love those things and hope that my family still has our old one and I'll save some pennies to get the film or if I need to I'll save pennies and get a new Polaroid that supposedly just came out. Who knows? I'll keep ya posted especially with those disposables.
-Photo Alley

The mother load of my cravings

Hello one and all.
Ever since going gluten free I have had many many cravings and most recently it has been perogies. Well I shouldn't say recently I should say pretty much for the past 4 months.
Today my roommates were cooking while I was in my room with the door open and all I could smell was frying bacon and a starch, the smell of perogies (they were cooking pasta, do you see where my craving has taken me). Finally I had had enough, I pulled out my computer jumped onto google and started my search for gluten free perogies. Low and behold a ton of things popped up. Now I am a little skeptical with online searches having the right results that I want but I was willing to look. And yes a few results ended up being for places you could order them but you had to live in Alberta, a bit of a problem for me but oh well I kept on looking. Well was I ever surprised when I didn't just find one recipe NO but 4 yes that is right 4, I do not lie. As well all these recipes had comments raving about how good these perogies were and the deliciousness of them. I am in heaven right now just at having found some recipes that not only look great but look like them may be easy to make.
Therefore in a few weeks time I will be making these perogies. I am waiting till I go home and have the help of my mother, I know waiting when you have just found your saviour but I do not trust myself to make them right especially because I have problems with potatoes.
Well I will post hopefully pictures but as well how they taste so that you may make them as well. If however you do not want to wait like I said just type in Gluten Free perogies into your search engines, google is the one I used and start testing yourself.
Yours truly,
-Photo Alley

Roses are Red

Well hello again. Sorry it has taken so long to post this but it has been a very hectic few weeks, I ended up having to get a root canal on a tooth that was very infected. The first time I was suppose to go in to get it I was sick and then the second time I couldn't go through with it so I had to wait a week but the medicine they gave me to help me come down made me feel very ill and then when I finally went in and got it done I guess it was very infected so now my tooth is in tons of pain. This is a lesson y'all can learn from me when a dentist says you need a root canal don't wait do it then, it only gets worse with time. And then I moved and have been unpacking for a few days, all do to my procrastination.

Anyways that isn't what this post is about it is about the long awaited Rose quilt and with out further ado here it is:This here is called "Beast's Rose" I made it and then I quilted it myself.
All that is left is putting the binding on.

As well I had made 3 other comfort quilts but just needed to photograph them so here they are as well:This One I had left overs from the borders of another so
I made piano keys in different sizes with them.

This one is from a McCall's Quick Quilts Either May or June I believe
Or even possibly July's. In the one in the magazine
it's suppose to have a frog holding a handkerchief.Lastly there is this one also from McCall's
Quick Quilts (one of the issues above) and I believe
it is called something Jungle because it has
appliqued animals in the blank blocks.

Next time I'm home at my parents I will be quilting up a storm hopefully, that is if there is time. It will be Applefest and speaking of Applefest, after making those dudes with beads for arms my mom thought I should make some in the spirit of Applefest and make them like apples so here is a picture of the first 2.
The one with the green face is mine and the one with the brown face we gave to my dentist for having to put up with me during the attempts of the root canal and being so good about it.
I will be making at least one more and that one will be going to my mother who was the one that inspired me with the idea. I'm going to try and start and finish it either tomorrow or the following weekend so that it is ready when I go home. Wish me luck.

As always I wish you a good evening till I write again.
-Photo Alley