Incoherent Scribblings

Last year, about Christmas time, I wanted a digital camera. I pled my case to A., who didn’t think digital cameras were all that and after much discussion, I compromised and we got a scanner; the idea being that I could scan my regular pictures and voila! “digital” pictures.

I was never really sold on the idea, but have never regretted for one instant that I got my scanner. (I use it all the time to scan my cross-stitch masterpieces.) For about three months I tried this method of “digital” pictures, but the problem was that I wasn’t getting the instant gratification that I wanted. I wasn’t any better about taking film to the developer and I couldn’t immediately see what I had taken a picture of.

Finally, without discussing it with A., I established myself a budget, did some research, and went out one day and bought myself a digital camera. (After all, we have an agreement that unless something is over about 300 Euros we don’t have to discuss it with one another before spending the money.) It wasn’t the fanciest camera on the shelf and not even the one I had originally intended to buy, but it fit into my budget I was pretty pleased with it.

However, as soon as I showed it to A. he criticized it, and in doing so, indirectly criticized by electronics buying ability. Some people are not meant to buy electronics as they don’t have the first idea what they are looking at, but I am not one of them and he knows it. Therefore, I was a little perturbed about the fact that he wanted to return my camera from the start, but I held firm to my little camera and didn’t let the matter bother me too much.

Since then I have learned quite a bit about my photographer’s eye, ability, and desire. My photographer’s eye is crooked, my ability is slim to none, and while I desire to take superb photos everywhere I go with my digital camera, I just don’t. When I do want to take pictures though, my little digital camera works just fine. Sure it would be nice if it had an optical zoom, but overall it is a nice little point-and-shoot digital camera. The only real complaint I have doesn’t actually even have anything to do with the camera itself; and that is my rechargeable batteries are starting to show wear and tear and really need to be replaced.

In all this time, A. has shown very little interest in my camera, so the other day when he started talking about getting a new digital camera, I was mildly surprised. Last year when I wanted a digital camera his argument against them was that it would be a long time before digital cameras were as good as film cameras and/or that he wanted to wait until the really fancy digital cameras came down in price. I will admit that in the past year digital camera prices have dropped significantly, but didn’t realize they had dropped enough to peak his interest.

But if truth be told, after the experience I have had with my camera, I’m just not really all that excited about them anymore. I also have to admit that I feel a little bit grumpy about the situation: Not because he wants to spend the money and not because he has decided that he wants a digital camera, but because I still remember feeling that he was patronizing me and my electronics knowledge the day he scorned my little digital camera when I was so pleased with it.

Yesterday, when A. asked me what I wanted to do for Christmas, I jokingly replied, “Go for a walk on the beach.” (Remember, we are in southern Germany… a pretty long way from a beach.) “OK,” he said. “Get bundled up. We’re going to Tegernsee!” I had actually been thinking a nice warm beach somewhere in the Caribbean, but beggars can’t be choosers, right?

So, we hopped into the car and made our way down to Tegernsee. I have written about Tegernsee before because it is one of our favorite places to go in the area. It is the most gorgeous lake complete with a beautiful background of mountains. Of course, it is nicest in spring and summer, but even in the fall and winter the place has its charm.

We visited Tegernsee on Christmas last year and there was ice on the edges of the lake and quite a bit of snow. This year, however, the lake has no ice yet and while it was wet and muddy, there was very little snow. It didn’t seem to me that there were a lot of people hanging out at the lake on Christmas Day last year, but not so this year! The place wasn’t nearly as packed as it is in the spring or summer, but there were still a lot of people.

In fact, there were so many vehicles that we had a bit of an adventure finding a parking place.

There is a parking area near our favorite spot with a row of angle parking, a “car pass-through” of about 1 meter (a little over three feet), and directly behind the angle spots, a row of parallel parking. The parallel spaces are supposed to be for buses and motor homes and while the situation is tight, we can usually manage to squeeze through.

It just so happened that yesterday there was also a little bit of snow in the parking area. A small car had badly parked in an angle space that was about half full of snow. Directly behind it, a motor home had parked. This left less than the normal one meter drive through area. As we approached, A. didn’t think we would make it through. However, the spot was so tight that turning around wasn’t an option either. So I jumped out of the car and navigated him through the area with no more than 5cm (about 2″) between our car, the small car, and the motor home! I swear I will never get used to traffic and parking here in Europe! Amazingly we made it through without a scratch and then directly found a parking space.

While walking along the lake, I tried once again (mostly unsuccessfully) to be an amateur photographer. A few shots turned out OK before the batteries in my digital camera died. One was this photo, which I have so aptly titled “Lamp Post at Tegernsee.”

“Lamp Post at Tegernsee”
Copyright and photo 2004 by the blondelibrarian

I just finished five additional hours on “Passing Admirers” and can really see some progress today!

I decided to give the women in the picture names so that you know who I am talking about and working on. From now on, the woman on the right in the white dress will be known as “Polly” and the woman on the left in the violet dress “Maggie.” (Maggie’s dress looks brown in the display photo, but the floss colors are actually “Antique Violet.”) You may ask why I chose the names and I can only say I thought of them on the fly, but I think they sound like nice Victorian names.

Anyway, I have finally finished the bustle on Polly’s skirt and will try and do 5-10 more hours on her dress before I finish this rotation. The dress should go pretty quickly, because there aren’t nearly as many shades in the dress itself as there were in the bustle.

You can see the latest progress pictures in my cross-stitch gallery!

Way back in February, I stitched the “Sewing Wreath,” by Mike Vickery. I discovered it from FreePatterns.com (registration required), but it is no longer there. However, it originally appeared in Cross Stitch Magazine, No. 40, p. 6, 1997.

The skill level for this piece is “challenging” and combined with the fact that it the second piece that I ever did on Evenweave, I can attest to the fact that I found it slightly difficult. Nevertheless, it stitched up pretty quickly (it might have taken me a week) and I didn’t even make that many mistakes! I quickly learned while doing this piece though that ¼ stitches have a distinct advantage on Evenweave.
I had wanted to frame it for quite sometime, but felt that a square frame didn’t do it justice. As luck would have it, a few weeks ago, I came across a small wooden hoop and decided that would be the best framing solution for this piece. I have a couple of other pieces I framed in hoops, but was never happy with my solution of trimming the fabric very close to the hoop and then tacking it down with my glue gun. After consulting with Isabelle, I decided to trim the fabric around the hoop in a wide circle, leaving the extra fabric as a decorative fringe. It turned out great. My only wish is that my walls weren’t white so you could see the fringe a little better.

(Click for a larger picture… Attention: it is over 300K, so it might take some time to load!)

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!