Just a little doodle.

(Drawn with the Uni-Ball Pocket Brush Pen, fine nib, in case you were curious. Color in Photoshop.)

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Since my folks were in town for the weekend we took them to some of the popular Kansas City tourist destinations. One of those places is Parkville, a quaint little town north of Kansas City full of antique shops, art galleries and specialty food shops. The most notable shop, for me anyway, is Florilegium, a mecca of fiber arts goodness that has to be the most beautiful place I’ve ever visited. They carry yarn and fiber as well as materials for embroidery, beads, ribbons and assorted goodies. Beads are stored in an array of jars on glass shelves like a fairy apothecary. Even yarns are stored in jars on shelves in a way that made me want to sample every single one. The shop carries lots of lesser available yarns like Ozark Handspun and Feet First from PJ of former Cottage Fiber. Gretchen, the proprietress, is planning to start carry more fiber in the future but she did have hand-dyed locks and a small selection of hand-dyed roving.

Florilegium is absolutely dreamy and totally worth a trip up to Parkville.

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What did I do this weekend? Funny you should ask because I did what I’ve been wanting to do since Yarn School. I got in my car, drove two hours to Wamego, Kansas and I bought a Louet Victoria, gobs of fiber and some yarn. If I could have rolled around on the floor in the fiber without getting strange looks from Jennifer, the charming owner of Settler’s Farm, I would have. Instead, I knit for a bit on Nikol’s giant scarf project and then drove two hours back home. It was an amazingly beautiful summer day making the drive gorgeous and feel like a picture-perfect road trip. The sky was cartoonishly blue with little fluffy white clouds and everything was amazingly emerald green. It was fitting that the Oz Museum was two doors down from Settler’s Farm – it really was the emerald town.

I was terrified that I would have forgotten everything I had learned at Yarn School but I hopped on the wheel and grabbed some of the Corriedale fiber I dyed at Yarn School and started spinning. I remembered how to adjust the tension, I remembered how to treadle and I remembered to pre-draft. I think I can do this! I spun and spun and spun until I could hardly hold my eyes open any longer. I dreamt about spinning and kept waking up at night wanting to check and make sure my wheel was still in the closet and that it hadn’t been a dream.

PS: I cannot called my wheel Victoria, that’s my sister’s name so I need to come up with a suitable name. I considered PeeWee and then I remembered the whole PeeWee Herman debacle so I’m back to the drawing board. I am accepting suggestions.

[More pictures of my trip are in my Wamego Road Trip to Settler's Farm Set on Flickr]

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Okay, ‘fess up. who sent these to me? They are freakin’ amazing. I squealed with glee when I opened the package. I so want to frame these and hang them in a place of pride. Someone knows the way to my heart. (I am blowing air kisses at you, whoever you are! xoxoxo!!!!)

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There are just a few days left in my self-imposed Big Finish project and I have another project done! My Wicked (and a little bit wonky) sweater is done. Not blocked yet so maybe some of the wonkiness will block out. It ended up being a bit too large. I probably should have made the smaller size and done a bit more bust shaping to give it a better fit.

I’m still learning. I think I’ll always be learning.

As for some of the other projects on my to-do list, I’m making headway on the Lime Cardi. I’ve decided I’ll frog the stripe-y toe-up socks and re do them top-down for improved heel shaping and gusset. The Louisa Harding stockinette tote has been put into hibernation until such time that a hot pile of wool on my lap will not be unwelcome.

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The package fairy (AKA Robert the Postman, but don’t tell him that he’s my postal fairy godfather, he might take it the wrong way) delivered not one, but two packages full of joy. First, is my Pro-Keds Rocawear sneakers in (of course) lime green. I had to send the first pair back because they were a men’s size 7, not women’s so they were ginormous on me. These are the perfect size and a lovely color. I might have to order another pair while I still can. Plain Pro-Keds are so hard to find these days and they are way more comfortable than their poor cousin, Chuck Taylor low tops. (If you promise not to buy the last pair of size 5 lime green ones, I’ll post the link to the shop where I found them.)

Then there was a little tiny box from Sarah at Maisy Day full of her hand-dyed Vermouth Corriedale fiber in rich midnight blues and dappled with olive-y lime green. The colors complimented my sneakers perfectly and made me want a martini. Oh, for a spinning wheel!!!!

Could my day be any better?

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I thought it would be interesting to see if I could make minor tweaks to some images using Apple’s iPhoto Adjust and saving myself the time and effort of opening Photoshop. I think the results are striking without being too obvious or drastic. This is a great solution for quick snapshots or minor tweaks.

The images below are before and after examples. Click the image to see full sized versions (warning, full size images are REALLY full size and may take awhile to load!).

With the hydrangea, I increased the saturation, increased the sharpness just slightly, and tweaked the color and white balance (temperature) just a little bit to create deeper lilac tones. Better?

I went the opposite direction with this ballon flower bud. I warmed up the temperature considerably to get rid of the overall bluish tinge, added a bit more sharpness and increased the highlight setting. To my eye, increasing the highlight slider actually toned down the bright highlights giving the leaves and bud a softer look overall.

The image of the hydrangea was a standard jpeg while the balloon flower bud was a RAW image. According to Apple’s support documents, iPhoto really does handle RAW images and then applies and saves tweaked images as jpeg copies. Cool!

While I am certainly not the PopPhoto The Fix column, I think that I was able to gently tweak these images to improve their overall quality without resorting to Photoshop layer masks and heavy duty retouching.

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I got my new stash of Jet Pens! Unlike The Pen Addict, I do not stick to a particular color or style of pen. I am all over the map – pens for writing, pens for lettering, pens for drawing… I love them all. In this batch, the pen I completely fell in love with was the UniBall Pocket Brush Pen (third from the left in the photo). It has a rigid almost rubber tip that is more durable than the standard fiber-based brush pens. The color is rich and dense and the crisp tip creates a great range of line weights on various paper stocks.

In the photo above, from left to right: UniBall Signo Bit, UniBall Signo DX in brown black, UniBall Pocket Brush pen, Ohto Pocket Brush Pen, Preppy Fountain Pen in black and the Zebra Sarasa 3+S multi-pen.

This doodle was drawn with the UniBall Pocket Brush (fine) while the DVD we were watching last night was paused, waiting for Bob to finish making tea. Great drawing pen!

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Saturday, I impatiently scheduled a haircut at the nearest salon because I could not stand the ratty ends a moment longer. I got lucky. The guy who cut my hair did a great job (IMHO). My hair is soft and lighter. The perfect summer cut. No one would ever believe I got it cut at the local beauty supply shop. Shhhh, we’ll keep it our little secret, okay?

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This is my new bike. Its a Giant Tran Send. Its a women’s frame in the medium size. I’m so happy. It’s easy to ride, beautiful and my new best friend.  Even with the U-lock on the back, the bike is light and easy to maneuver. The only complaint I have so far is that the position of the pegs for a water bottle mount are very high on the bar. It seems unlikely that I could put a water bottle on the bike or remove a bottle from the mount without serious exertion. As a commuter bike, this might not be a huge deal but it does get hot around here. Water would be nice.

Now I just need to get into shape so I can ride it for longer than 20 minutes without bonking.

Next up is a basket on the front and some lights so I can ride in the evening.

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