Yarn and more yarn

New Post at Fiberly One's new home:
Yarn and more yarn

Of Skirts and Shirts

New Post at Fiberly One's new home:
Of Skirts and Shirts

Anniversary night

New post at Fiberly One's new home:
Anniversary night

Techy and Fiberly meet

New post at Fiberly One's new home

Techy and Fiberly meet

Knitting Magazines

New Post at Fiberly One's new home
Knitting Magazines

Fiberly One is moving...

I've been geeking this week and decided to move the Fiberly One blog to my website, since Blogger doesn't really play nice with Macintosh. So please change any bookmarks and links to the new address:

http://fiberlyone.thehudsons.com/

Let me know what you think.

Catching up

It all started with trip to San Jose, then Denver, then Chicago, then Phoenix, then back to Phoenix at which time we packed up my mom and moved her to Oregon - in the matter of three months. By some standards that may not be a lot of traveling, but since I don't have a real job, it's a lot for me and my blogging slowed down to practically nil as we tried to get stuff done, entertain Mom, move Mom into her new apartment, etc, etc.

So I've had a geek week processing a large number of digital photos, putting them in to web pages and posting to our server and here's what we have:

Dogs - lots of dogs
There's Jake and Mandy, of course, who continue to entertain us just being them.
    

There were the visitors, Joey, the beagle and Montana, the large black lab mix, who stopped by in May. Even in San Jose, our house was a dog (and cat) magnet.
  

We took care of Pepperoni for Mark, when he and his wife were on a road trip to the Grand Canyon in July.
  

And the now-Oregon-resident Tootsie.
  

There are even more pictures of the dogs and a little narrative in May Dogs, June Dogs and July Dogs on TheHudsons.com

Willamette River Cruise
Courtesy of Dianne Rodway and John Becker and the City Properties Group, we spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon cruising the Willamette River.
   

Fifty
Yes, I'm now 50 and I mentioned the party. Here are some pictures.
    

Jim and Chris Adamson couldn't make the day, but on their way to take a car full of things to their daughter in Seattle, they stopped by.


Fiberly Weekend
There are a few more pictures from the weekend in Chicago, including lots of color from the Chicago Botanic Gardens.
  

In May, Tom and I walked the Doggie Dash for the Oregon Humane Society. With Jake and Mandy in tow, I wasn't able to do much multi-tasking (ie take pictures), but I did get one.


In June, just before the car came to pick us up for the last leg of the move from Sun City West, I took a great picture of my Mom and her friend Viki Hartsock.


AND I've finally finished Katherine, crocheted a scarf and made shirts for Tom and John Becker for his birthday...and I don't have any pictures yet. So I guess, I'm not quite caught up after all. Oh well.

Jake is Seven

It's hard to believe he's only been our Jake for 11 months, not of all his seven years.

Happy Birthday, Mr Jake!

Something Funny

After seeing the Clackamas Repertory Theatre (CRT) production of "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" two years ago, we subsribed to the three-play season last year, when they performed "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)," "The Fantasticks," and "The Illustrated Man." All three shows were extremely well staged and performed. So it was a foregone conclusion we would subscribe again.

Last week, the season opened with a British farce called "See How They Run." Last night we saw it, and it was hilarious! Jayson Shanafelt, who we saw in "Shakespeare (unabridged)" last year did not disappoint as Clive. Newcomer Heather Ovalle was also a standout at Ida, the maid. Then again, all the roles were very well-played in this fast paced comedy.

Though the Osterman Theatre at Clackamas Community College is an intimate venue, we have been really impressed with the productions we've seen there, so we look forward to the next two plays and what the CRT has to offer in the future.

There are still six performances. If you like a great production of a really funny play, you should see "See How They Run." Maybe we'll see you there. Oh, and if Cynthia Smith-English, CRT Managing Mirector, asks, tell her we sent you.

Picture processing

Smariek Knits asked how I get the white backgrounds on my images and as with many things in blog-land I've been slow to respond, but here goes.

I use Photoshop to process my images on my Mac. I'm ex-Adobe, so that's what I have and I know, but if you use another program, perhaps you can adapt some of the steps and processes. This isn't a tutorial on Photoshop; I'm not that good. But there are great tutorials online. Searching on Google for images and definitions for the tools, I found Photoshop Lab and SimplePhotoshop.com.

When possible try to take the digital picture against a background with sharp contrast and/or with as few similar colors as my project.


Use different tools to select either the project or the stuff around the project, then delete the background. The idea is to grab as much of the background creating an outline, without selecting too much of the content from the project. With Contiguous checked, experiment with Tolerance, choose the Magic Wand tool to select batches of color in the background. To add to the selection, hold the shift key down, click on a different section. If too much of the project is selected, reduce the Tolerance number. Once there's a pretty good outline of the project, use the Marquee to select big sections of the background that the Magic Wand.



To select the project instead of the background under the Select Menu choose Inverse.



The arrow below points to where some of the hat has been grabbed along with the background, so the Lasso tool can be used to add the little bit back into the project. Don't forget to hold down the shift key. If at any time, you do forget to hold down the shift key, you can Undo.*



Next Copy the project and paste. A new layer will be created. In the Layers window make the background layer invisible.



Using the Zooming in and using the Eraser tool , clean up any extra backgroud pixels or edges that you don't like. Crop the image to remove extra white space. Depending on the original size of the image, you also may want to reduce the image size.



My last step is to add a drop shadow under Layer Style in the Layer menu, and this is the result.


This is Evelyn Clark's Crusher Hat, crocheted from Puppy Leafy yarn on a size H hook. I needed an instant gratification project. Now what to do with the remaining 6 skeins...

*Alternatley, the Lasso tool can be used to outline the project. In my Googling, I also found another, probably more precise method of removing the background at GraphicSoft.

Presenting Baltic Blossoms

In the whole scheme of things I really liked knitting Baltic Blossoms and working with the very fine Habu Bamboo lace yarn, though it seemed to take a long time to get it done. The Lily of the Valley section was re-knit a number of times and the nupps aren't nearly as neat as Evelyn Clark's sample, which I think, in part, can be attributed to the slippery quality of the bamboo. But the shawl is finished, and I like the soft, gossamer result.

Here's the shawl before rinsing and blocking:


And after blocking:






I love lace!