Worth a Thousand Words

ambisinistrous - adjective: Clumsy with both hands.

We live in a world that is obsessed with photos. I think it's because it's so easy to take and share photos these days that you feel the need to whip out your phone and capture an image and immediately put it up on Instagram and Facebook. I remember the good ol' days when a carefully crafted 140-character snippet of text was all you got to try to catch someone's attention on Twitter. Indeed, when I first started blogging, I don't think I had many photos to share. It was always such an ordeal to drag out my camera and find the cord to attach to my computer that, if I could get away with it, I'd do my best to limit the number of photos in my posts.

I'm not ashamed to say I've joined the hordes of folks taking photos all-over-the-show. The fact that I try to blog regularly keeps my eyes open for things to share. I try hard to capture something worthwhile and carefully composed, but I've noticed recently that I seem to be collecting a number of mysterious images in my camera roll.

Some of the photos I do recognize. In this one, I think I was trying to take a photo of the pretty colours in a climbing vine that I saw on the way to work:

This one was obviously taken one evening when I must have been balancing my phone, a cup a tea, and a snack:

And this one.... well, I guess I must have been running from the law again:

I have developed some interesting techniques for taking photos of finished projects. For example, this I took these photos by propping my phone on the edge of the kitchen counter with a jar of shredded coconut on top of it to keep it from toppling over the edge. It was the best way I could think of to show off my newly-completed fingerless mitt:

I'm really happy with the way they've turned out. They're so warm and cozy while being incredibly light. That's a wool/silk blend for you, luxurious and practical.  I've already taken them to work and I've also already nearly lost them. That means they're truly a part of the knitted-item rotation:

Check out those cute cables, and those swanky thumbs. I do love a good thumb. It's a marvelous feat of knit-engineering, right up there with sock heels and top-down raglan sleeves. That's the knit geek talking:

Meanwhile, I have been plagued by a case of startitis, where I just want to cast on ALL THE THINGS. After being scuppered by my plans of playing with newly acquired yarns last week, I've been obsessing over how to work with this skein of laceweight yarn which has been in the stash for a while. I was thinking I might use the grey skein of BFL I bought last week with it, but now I am not so sure. My fingers are itching to cast on with it to see what it will do. I am quite pleased with the look of it in this photo. Who wouldn't want to work with this yarn when it looks like that?

But I've also been dreaming about another project involving cables and beads for a long time now, and I decided it was finally time to give it a go. It hasn't been an easy start... in fact, it's been a bunch of failed takeoffs and clumsy tumbles, like a fledgling struggling to get off the ground for the first time. It's not helping that I had to write two of my own charts and am trying to mix it with a third. Trying to track which row I am on for each chart may eventually drive me batty. Here's what my lap looked like last night (which by the way, was not an easy photo to capture - go-go-gadget arm!):

Seymour is exhausted by it already. Wait till the beads come out:

Meanwhile, I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of a book at the library which contains a pattern I want to try use this yarn for. It's some yarn I got during my visit to London last year, and it's been calling me from the stash. It's another merino/silk blend, and if my fingerless mittens are anything to judge by, these beauties are going to be just as warm and cozy:

For now, I am going to hold true to my monogamous knitting pledge and try to finish this project before I start any others. I'm working with all white yarn, so I'm hoping that it will be easy to photograph. I'll have to start practicing my camera skills so I can accurately capture all that work I'm doing right now. You can see I've already got a knack for it:

Heh. More training required, I guess. Have a good week!