it must be puzzle day! This looked like a fun picture for a puzzle:
This is Rob, our third child, when he was about 3 or 4. He just turned 30 in April, and this is one of my favorite pictures of him. He loved his stuffed animals!
Sue
Archive of entries posted on June 2009
Today Stop on Minnesota’s Blog Hop is. . .
Perkins Dry Goods! Celine Perkins is a fantastic teacher; I know, because I’ve been lucky enough to take some classes from her in years past. Visit Celine and check out her tutorial on triangles. While you’re there, be sure to leave her a comment. She has a special offer today for those who order anything off of her site. Her patterns are the bomb. Nobody writes better instructions than Celine!
-Sue
Minnesota Blog Hop Continues…
Stop by Heather Mulder Peterson’s blog (Anka’s Treasures) and check out her designs. She has an adorable free pattern on her blog, and after you’re done checking that out (and it’s available for free downloading), be sure to add a comment to her blog to be eligible for her drawing. Comment in all ten designers’ blogs (there’s one each day, starting yesterday) to be eligible for the grand-prize drawing.
-Sue
Tuesday’s Birds
What a week! Not much sewing going on, but instead I’m doing cleaning and laundry. I know, shocking, isn’t it??? I was just as surprised as you are. So no design wall pic yesterday because there’s nothing going on there, and I checked and I took no good birds pics this week either. Soooo, here are some favorites from Port Aransas, Texas. The above picture is of a long-billed curlew taken along the National Seashore on North Padre.
This great blue heron was stalking a fisherman who was fishing in the surf of the Gulf of Mexico just outside Port Aransas. Every once in a while, the fisherman would throw the heron a small fish.
This guy definitely isn’t a bird, but on our 2008 visit to Paradise Pond, the pond was LOADED with turtles!
This is a yellow-crowned night heron. They are about the size of a chicken, and roost/sleep in the trees during the day. At dusk, the night herons rise up out of the trees by the hundreds (but this is the only yellow-crowned one I saw). It’s quite a sight.
Here is a picture of the black-crested night heron. They were more plentiful. We only saw them in 2008. I hope they come back another year, they were so much fun to look for. Click here for more information on night herons.
~Sue
Minnesota Blog Hop, & You’re ALL Invited!!!
Some of our fabulous Minnesota designers are having a fun blog hop starting today. Today’s designer kicking things off is Gudrun of GE Designs. Be sure to visit Gudrun’s site and sign up in the comments for her drawing. (Sign up at all ten blogs, one each week, and you will be entered in the drawing for a grand prize. I’ll post a link here each Monday to that week’s featured designer.) We all get to do a shop hop together! How fun is that?
And something for everybody: Gudrun has a quilt-as-you-go pattern/tutorial on her blog today for placemats!
Sue
Stash-Busting Report
No change this week:
A customer quilt was delivered this week; Pat & Patrick’s wedding quilt was delivered to them, so I can show a couple of pictures of their Irish Chain quilt. It’s an extra-long queen — 98 x 118 (actually that was before quilting, so I’m sure it quilted up a little smaller). I made it from Eleanor Burns’ book. She offers two options for borders: an easy border and a seminole pieced border. In one of those what-was-I-thinking moments, I chose the seminole border. I love the look, but the borders were pretty much like making another whole quilt. I like it though, and I think it was worth the extra time. I decided to do an all-over panto, and I like the look of Jodi Beamish’s (Willow Creek Studio Designs) Daisy Swirl on large open spaces. It has a nice distribution of quilting vs spaces, not too open/not too tight.
I’m trying to be more organized in my blog posts and do specific reports or subject matters for each day of the week. My plan is as follows:
- Sunday — Stash Report (Judy L at Patchwork Times hosts)
- Monday — Design Wall Report (Judy hosts this one too)
- Tuesday — Bird Photos (my best bird photos from the past week, if I have any; otherwise, I will “wing” it!)
- Wednesday — Photo Puzzle Day (I may be the only one that likes these, but since it’s my blog, they stay)
- Thursday — UFO Thursday (something new starting Thursday – a support group for those of us that have waaaaay too many UnFinished Objects or PhDs (Projects half Done) of the quilting sort languishing in boxes, bags, and closets. You know who you are!!! If you felt the least pang of guilt reading about it, come back Thursday.)
- Friday — Photo Friday (I’ll keep this going until I exhaust my limited bag of tricks)
- Saturday — Week in Review (both quilty and non-quilty topics)
That’s my plan! I hope there is something there that is interesting to you, because I would love to have you stop back again!
Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there. Missing my own dad today, who was taken from us much too soon, ten years ago last month.
–Sue
Photo Friday — Exposure Compensation
Welcome to Photo Friday. If you want to look at some previous “lessons”, (and I use the term loosely), you can scroll down and on the right-hand side under Categories, and click on Photo Friday. We are going through features that are on most digital cameras so we can become better acquainted with our own camera’s capabilities. It is helpful if you can put your hands on the manual for your camera, as they are all a little different in their dials and buttons. And again, I’m not an expert; I just like taking pictures, experimenting with the camera’s settings, and I’m not afraid to try something different if my pictures aren’t working out.
Exposure Compensation. So have you ever wondered what the “+/-” selection does? That is exposure compensation. On my Lumix, it is on the selector dial and it’s very easy to get into. On my Canon PowerShot SD1100, it takes one or two extra steps. This is another feature you may not need very often, but it is very, very useful in certain circumstances and you will be glad you know how to use it!
First of all, what does this feature do? Most, if not all, of the time I am shooting in automatic mode. The camera meters how much light is out there and adjusts the exposure accordingly. Sometimes it is just wrong for the picture I’m trying to get.
When would you adjust the exposure compensation? Sometimes when you are shooting against a bright background (like at the beach, against bright snow), your subject in the foreground looks too dark. The reverse can also be true, where you are shooting against a dark background and your subject looks too light (like shooting a white bird — there sometimes is no detail or individual feathers, just a blob of white). All the photos in the post were taken using the exposure compensation feature. A whooping crane, and a bunch of pelicans:
(Other solutions could be using fill flash, depending upon how close you are to your subject and if you even want to use the flash. You can also check your scene modes and see if one is suitable for backlit photos, beach, nighttime, etc. Try out the exposure compensation though. It’s an important tool on your camera and it isn’t hard to use.)
Note: On both of my cameras, the change in compensation is “remembered” by the camera, even when it is turned off. After you are done with this feature, you will need to change the setting back to zero manually (and change your camera back to “auto” if you changed that setting also). Don’t let that scare you off; it’s easy to do.
It will probably be best if you have your manual out at this point, although you can likely figure it out on your own. On my Panasonic Lumix, I just press the dial upwards on the “+/-” icon and it brings up the exposure compensation settings that looks something like this:
-2 . . 1 . . (0) . . 1 . . 2+
On my Powershot, I need to press the Function Set button, change from Auto to Manual, then on the same screen I can arrow down to +-0 (the plus is above the minus). Select that option, and you will get the same/similar screen:
-2 . . 1 . . (0) . . 1 . . 2+
There should be an arrow or other indicator at zero. That is the normal setting. Try scrolling right and left between the -2 and +2 slowly, watching your image change darker to lighter in your view finder/display. You would basically select the amount of compensation that looks best on the display and take your picture(s)! (At the very end of this post, I will cover Auto Bracketing, which is a related feature that your camera may have.)
Water particularly causes problems for me, and I seem to take a lot of pictures against water. Here are some more pictures where I changed the exposure and/or used auto bracketing. A roseate spoonbill “fishing”, and a tri-colored heron:
Can you see why I LOVE going to Port Aransas, TX?
Auto Bracketing: This is where the camera gives you a little more help. Let’s say that I haven’t changed the exposure compensation — it is still set at zero. I select Auto Bracketing (on my Lumix, I press the +- exposure compensation button up, then push it again to enable auto bracketing. When I press the shutter button, it will shoot off three pictures (in the case of my Lumix; this is not available on my Canon). I will get one picture exposed at -1, one at zero, and one at +1.
This helps if you aren’t sure how well your photo is exposed based on what you see on your display (a bright day, it can be hard to see your display). Additionally, if you set the automatic exposure at -1, then do auto bracketing, you will get three shots at -2, -1, and zero (one shot on each side of where the exposure is set), etc.
As always, let me know by way of a comment or by e-mail using the “Contact Me” button at the top of this page if you have any questions. I’m also open to comments for any area you might particularly like covered on a future Friday. AND, feel free to upload your photos to our Friday Photos album on Flikr, plus be sure to check out other people’s photos.
Obviously brevity isn’t my strong suit — you could get a much shorter explanation in your camera manual — but I’m hoping you will get a better understanding of why you would want to use some of these features!
Thanks for stopping by.
Sue
Wednesday’s Puzzles
I’ve had a few people mention that their children/grandchildren like the puzzles too, so I’m going to post two puzzles this week — one a little easier, and the other a little tougher.
Since Dave’s (our first-born’s) birthday is in a couple of days, I thought I would show a photo of his 30th birthday quilt. I know, most “normal” people would show a sweet baby picture or the nice picture of him with his dog Tucson.
And here’s my favorite bird picture I took in the last couple of weeks. He’s a house finch, and he was facing such the evening the sun really showed off his red feathers!
–Sue
Tuesday? It’s FOR THE BIRDS!
Not really — I love Tuesdays as much as any other day of the week. I’ve decided to pretty much just post bird pictures once a week, and (big surprise!) that day is Tuesday! Fortunately we had a lot of action at the finch feeder this morning. First Mr. Goldfinch came to dine:
I got a little too much glare from the blinds on the window, but I still love the color and beauty of these birds. The feeder is getting a little low, so if they sit at a higher perch, they can’t reach the seeds as well. Once in a while he would look down at the seed like he couldn’t figure out how to get at it. I wanted to holler, move to a lower perch!
Mr. Goldfinch left, and then here comes Mrs. Goldfinch. We had pulled up the blinds so we could get a better view of the birds right before she stopped by, which resulted in better pictures.
And I love it when I get “the look” — and didn’t her Mama tell her not to squawk with her mouth full? Guess not. . .
And it must be Couples Day in our neighborhood. Jim spotted a House Finch that bypassed the feeder and went up to sit on the garage gutter. Doesn’t he look skinny?
Mrs. House Finch joined him, and she’s carrying some nesting material. Glad they didn’t decided to make their home in the gutter! That’s no place to raise children.
I thought both the House Finches looked a little raggedy, but then I remembered how exhausting it is to be looking for a place to build your home — and here she is carrying the building material around with her! What a woman.
Also, check out the photo site on Flickr on our Photo Friday shots. We’ve had some new pictures uploaded, and they are fantastic!
–Sue
Monday’s Design Wall
Judy L. hosts Design Wall Mondays, and it’s a lot of fun to check the other sites listed on Judy’s blog and see what everyone is up to!
I’ve been very busy the past month or so quilting, quilting, quilting. Not so much in the piecing department. (Plus I was lucky enough to get to spend a couple of days last week on a quilt show trip. Woo-hoo!)
So here my design wall as it stands today:
And I do love having a real design wall! The only changes are that I rearranged the wall so the Asian BOM blocks are to the left, the CrazyMomQuilts‘ 9-patches are in the middle, the reunion quilt to the upper right, and the addition is the Aunt Sukey’s Choice block (waiting to be pieced) in the lower right — the next addition to the BOM blocks on the left.
This is what’s going on my Gammill this week:
This is a top made from Moda’s Posh charm packs (I think I used four), cobbled together with some very dark yellowish-green. Also pictured is the green backing (it’s even a WIDE back) from my stash, and the cut-but-not-made binding peeking out of a bag. This is for my SIL Marilyn’s 70th birthday in July. I don’t think Marilyn is a regular reader of my blog, but if you’re reading this, Marilyn, you got a sneak peek!
So if you were quilting this quilt, would you use a pink or a green thread? Or maybe something less predictable? (I plan to quilt it using a floral or feathery panto.)
Sue
