Thursday, July 8, 2010

Published, Powerful, Pending



There's a new knitting book available, 1000 Fabulous Knit Hats by Annie Modesitt. It's a collection of photos of 1000 knitted hats, along with 10 patterns that Annie considers her top picks, hat-wise. The author contacted a number of people through Ravelry, and asked to use their photos in the book - and well, guess who one of those number was?

Yes..

Six of the 1000 photos are mine!

One of them even made it to the cover:



that's the back of Elly's head. She appears again later in the book, here:



I was sent an e-mail telling me how to "sell" my friends and family on the book, but I'm truly useless at that sort of thing, so instead I'll just tell you what I like;

I like that the people in the book aren't "model perfect", just ordinary people, sometimes making goofy faces (#471), sometimes trying to strike their very best poses (#373), people happy to be photographed (#726), some not so much(#486)...

I like that the choices of designs range from classic (#016) to inventive (#123) to hilarious (#406)...

I like that the book showcases how people take photographs, some like action shots (#831), some like portraits (#534), some like a bit of the majestic (#164), and others like the utilitarian "just the hats, Ma'am" (that's most of them, mine included)...

I like that the book captures how knitter's knit, and that's with colour, colour, colour - purple, orange, blue, green, pink - all grouped together page after page.

If you want to see which photos belong to which numbers you'll have to buy the book.

- best pitch ever? -

I tried my hand at making iced coffee yesterday.



The recipe is very simple, basically take one pound of coffee and soak in 10 cups of cold water for 12 hours, then strain.



I didn't have a full pound of coffee, but there was one quarter pound in the freezer, which I mixed with two and a half cups of water (the math worked). I'd bought this coffee a while back, but found it too strong, so I stashed it in the freezer until I decided what to do with it - iced coffee seemed a good project.



It's very dark, but this morning I mixed about a third of what I'd made with ice, cream and sugar and gave it a try,

then I added more sugar.



I was about half finished when I started to feel my heart race - really, really race - and I remembered that the coffee from the freezer was espresso...

there were a few moments during the day when I thought my heart was going to give out completely. I made a few phone calls (thankfully, only to Nigel and Elly) where I sounded extremely animated/agitated/unhinged, and I had a very difficult time typing Winnipeg with only two n's.

I'm better now, and wiser too. No more quadruple espressos for me!

Project Alert, Project Alert

I haven't shown you a Friday Find for a while, and I'll be traveling tomorrow, so I thought it was time to show this:



An old Singer in it's original "coffin" case. I've wanted one of these for years



It's a model 128, with vibrating shuttle (instead of a regular bobbin), built in 1948. I've heard that this model was nicknamed "The Farmer's Wife", I suspect because it was a no frills, standard issue (not that I'm knocking Farmers' wives).

The motor and electrics all work fine, but it needs a thorough cleaning, which I plan to do on my return.

Ooooo .... excitement!

3 comments:

Jane said...

oooo I can't wait to see the book and check out those photos.

iced coffeee - sounds good in theory. Next time just drizzle a spoonful into some yogourt - you can make it last for a week at least.

Have you ever considered opening up a museum for all of these treasures? The sewing machine sounds so interesting when you write about it.
have a great time in BC

my verification word is ferfati - I'm sure that's got something to do with iced coffee and sewing machines - sounds like an Italian iced espresso maker perhaps the ferrari of espresso makers

noricum said...

Congrats on getting photos published. :) Your sewing machine looks lovely!

WV: harmam: how you politely laugh when an older lady tells a joke that's not funny.

Unknown said...

I'm sorry but I'm killing myself laughing. Not at the hat book, but your iced coffee. You'll have to bring the book to knitting some time so we can see it.

My word tonight is Visdenct (whatever that means).

You must be back from the coast already. Hope you had a good trip.