Hi! As you see, we’ve started a new folder for you to post photos of your latest and greatest (or not so recent and even not so great) creations. We all love to see what everyone’s been doing, so here’s a place to share.
This gallery is intended for all kinds of fiber arts, so don’t limit yourself to garment sewing. We’d love to see your quilts, home decor projects, and needlework of all kinds. Also, we’d be interested to see what your sewing spaces look like–if you’ve come up with an especially efficient way to use your space, show us. Drawings and sketches are great, too.
Don’t forget that you can post photos in all the folders of this Forum, so if you have pictures of a new technique you’ve developed, or have a question about a construction problem, you can post those in folders where they’ll be likely to get some helpful replies.
Let me know if you need help figuring out how to post. I’m NOT a technical wizard by any means, but I know people who are and will be glad to have them answer your questions.
We look forward to seeing your masterpieces.
Carol Fresia, Assoc. Ed., Threads
Replies
Here's a couple of pix of some baby things I did a while back.
#1 and #2..My experiment doing French sewing by machine. :)
#3 is a machine lace with silk ribbon embroidery and pearls.
That part took eons and didn't photograph too well, sorry to say.
Jean, Thanks for starting us off with such a lovely selection. Very nice work--I especially like the knitted coat.
Carol
Oh, Jean, we have this interest in common! Did you make those for grandchildren? Absolutely lovely. Did you knit that lace? I am very frustrated these days by not having any tiny people to do the french sewing for. My niece is now six, and she loves the stuff I make, but there's just not a lot of call for the really dainty stuff. Hopefully, someone in my family will reproduce and need a Christening gown soon.
Yes, they were outfits I made for grandchildren. Lots of fun doing them. The knit outfit was done on my knitting machine.
DH just took snapshots with his Pentax for all of them. We now have a good digital camera that would be able to show more detail. If you have a flatbed scanner, it will do a good job showing details of your work too.
Here's an example of the neckline of a knit top that I made.
Jean,
I was noodling around upstairs altering necklines, and had one of those "Doh!" moments. You scanned the sweater, right? You didn't scan a pic of the sweater, you scanned the sweater. OH, well Theodora! Learn something new...thanks, Jean! I can try that with some things. I did just recently get a scanner and I am learning how to mess with it. (I AM taking a class this fall in digital image processing and collection. I'm glad I know ahead of time I can just slap the fabric down on the scanner.)
The picot edge on the sweater is dainty and quite neat, and I like the transition to the seed stitch. Good work! And the knitting on the Christening gown is a treasure. Do you hand knit? I did for a long time but carpal tunnel has made me abandon it. When I was 16 I started a round tea cloth in lace using Knit-Cro-Sheen, on a size 0 round need. Only an innocent would start such a project. I still have it, still on its needle, about 3 inches of edging from being done. It was to be 36 inches in diameter. I still tell myself I may finish it someday, and frankly I should. I don't think I can read the instructions any more, though! The paper is deteriorating. Or is it my eyes...
Sissy, I opened your file in Adobe PE, but it was blank, no image. Hmmm, I'm pretty new at this too. I look forward to seeing the bench.
The sweater was scanned, not a photo. What looks to you like seed stitch is really more of a lace. The dark spots are holes, but the back of the sweater behind disguises that part. The edging is crab stitch crochet (aka backward single crochet) I think it makes a really nice trim. I do hand knit but not as often lately. The machines are such fun and so much quicker.I wish I had counted all the aran knits I've done over the years, I made up my own. My dear friend still has one that I made for her +- 40 years ago. Still in beautiful shape too, it's been all over the world. I miss the knitting in Threads!!
Thanks for letting me know. I'm going to try this again. I added them a couple of different ways, as an experiment. I guess you learn something new everyday.
By the way, Jean, your gowns are gorgeous.
Sissy
Hi, everyone! Thanks for posting photos--I've enjoyed seeing your work.
I'd forgotten to suggest, for those of you with scanners but without digital cameras, that scanning an item that's flat enough to go in the scanner is a great way to send out a detailed image. You can also scan a photo, but often enough, it's harder to get a good, detailed photo with an ordinary point-and-shoot than it is simply to scan the garment itself.
As for tips on taking pictures, it all depends on the project you're shooting. For detailed work, come in close--we're all fanatics about seeing every single stitch if we can, and if it counts! For larger projects, such as quilts, it helps to get a head-on view if at all possible, which is usually achievable by hanging the quilt rather than photographing it on a bed. The idea is to try to get a picture in which the right angles look like right angles, and to avoid foreshortening when possible. Sometimes it's hard to, when you're photographing a very large item in a small space.
I've had good luck with garment-sized items by laying them on the floor and standing on a chair, and shooting straight down, or as straight as possible. But I'm not an expert, and here at Threads, when we need a "perfect" shot of something, we get a professional to do the job (which includes David Coffin, who's an excellent photographer).
Check the lighting--try to have sufficient illumination to show what you want to show, but if possible, avoid harsh shadows that obscure details. Distracting backgrounds, strange perspectives, etc., can make things tough to figure out, especially when the photo is posted online. However, this isn't a contest, so there's no need to fret or fuss--no one expects perfection!
Another tip is to check the size of the file you're posting. If the image is huge, you might consider resizing is to we can all see the whole thing at once. I've made this mistake several times, posting enormous images in which you could see maybe one ninth of the picture on the screen at a time. It's hard to tell what the picture is, and it takes up a lot of space to post such a big file.
Looking forward to more pictures--I'll post a couple in the next few days, I hope.
Carol
Hello Renee,
I think I know the reason your photos are not working for some folks, let me explain.
In order for most computers (especially PCs) to be able to "read" a file it needs to have a 3 letter extension. For instance if you look at Jeans pictures all of her's have the .jpg extension. You say that you used Adobe to scan and convert the image to a jpg. What version of Adobe? Was it the full blown Photoshop or one of the other Adobe products? If it was Photoshop then you should be able to go into your preferences and set it so that the program always adds the extension no matter what file type you are saving. Either way you need to have the 3 letter extension as part of the file. So please give it a try and let me know how you make out. If you have further questions please feel free to email me at [email protected]
Mark
I promised some photos, so here they are (I hope!). These are some pieces by rjf, another Gatherings member, and include a hand-woven towel, and a medley of Fair Isle and other sweaters. She says the Fair Isle sweaters were inspired by an article in Threads, No. 8 (Dec 1986-Jan 1987), and all benefitted from information on knitting edges, found in articles in No. 12 (Aug-Sept 1987) and Feb/Mar 1988.
I have some slightly more detailed shots of the sweaters--these are just teasers!
Carol
I love the overshot on the towel. I haven't learned how to do that yet.
Whoops! I posted the wrong picture--you weren't supposed to see the sideways vest--let me try again to get the correct one in. I guess I should rename the items when I've resized them so I know what I'm dealing with!
Sissy, I was able to view your photos, but I had to use ACDSee to do so--and I can't explain how it would work for others. Let's see if SYSOP (Mark) gets back to you with further information.
Carol
Hi Tish,
Glad you liked the towel. That was the supplemental warp project that gave me such a problem. It's a little like childbirth.....one eventually forgets the pain and enjoys the outcome. rjf
Hello ALL,
sorry to take up bandwidth here I am trying to help sissy resolve her picture problems. Let me know if this file downloads o.k. for you.
MarkSYSOP
Edited 7/11/2002 3:18:38 PM ET by SYSOP
Mark, both attachments opened for me just fine. First ones kinda large, but it worked OK.
Lessee if this shrinks it up a bit.
Well, that shrinks it up more than I wanted, but I'm just a beginner, too.
Sissy, that bench is so whimsical, especially the little tail on one side! Good work.
Edited 7/11/2002 6:51:32 PM ET by Theodora
Everyone helping is so nice... I can't believe those pictures are up FINALLY. I think I'll hold off on posting anymore images, for my own sanity.
Sissy
I hope I'm posting this correctly. I just wanted to share a website where I keep pictures of the things I create:
http://gray-duck.com/eli-nati/eli/SewingPage.html
The things you have made are beautiful! It makes me wish I had a knitting machine.
elizabeth
Elizabeth,
Love those belly-dancing costumes! Very nice, and they must be fun to design and wear, too. If we had video technology I'd ask you to show them in action!
Just to clarify: RJF doesn't use a knitting machine--she made those sweaters (and that's just the tip of the iceberg) with her two hands and some knitting needles. Impressive, huh? I don't know how she keeps all the colors straight when she's doing those Fair Isle things--I mean, I know the patterns are charted out on graph paper, but I'm sure I'd go off on the wrong line and then have to unknit and start over.
Carol
Thanks, Eli, I'm glad you liked the sweaters. It's really fun to plan the patterns and choose the colors. There used to be a store called the Tomato Factory Yarn Store in New Jersey which sold 2-ply shetland yarn in at least 100 colors so I could indulge my wildest fanatisies. The first issue of Threads I had had an article by Alice Starmore on Fair Isle knitting and later I got her book. The knitting techniques are a little different from straight knitting......everthing is knitted in the round and then you take a pair of scissors and CUT the garment open. Can you believe? It felt like murder the first time I did it but it worked.
The wedding dress you made with your friend was terrific! It fit so beautifully and it looks as if it moved nicely. Was there a petticoat under it? The skirt was so graceful and soft. I liked your webpage too. rjf
Those are amazing sweaters! How long does it take to make one? And it must be very scary cutting it in half -- I imagine it would want to unravel rapidly. I learned how to knit last winter, but I'm still working on my first project, a chenille scarf. It's not even 2 feet long yet! So those sweaters are really mind-boggling.
The wedding dress was really fun to make. Very time-consuming, but wonderful to see complete. There was a petticoat underneath. Originally I made the skirt of the muslin really really full in order to accommodate the petticoat (the dress was made long distance, so I had no idea how full it needed to be). It turned out that we needed only about half of the fullness in order to cover the petticoat, but we kept it at a design element. So the dress took 10 yds of 45" material. When I told the clerk at the fabric store that I needed so much fabric he gave me a look like I was trying to make a wedding dress for an elephant. It all worked out very well, and the fabric worked wonderfully with the design, but I was afraid my tiny sister wouldn't be able to move under the weight. But she could. Look: http://gray-duck.com/eli-nati/gallery/Cwedding/abs She said the dress was very comfortable. I was worried during the planning stages. The budget only allowed for polyester satin and I was afraid that it wouldn't breathe well and would be stifling. But all worked out. Even at the very end of the reception she was still going strong: http://gray-duck.com/eli-nati/gallery/Cwedding/ace
I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed the website!
take care,eli
Edited 7/31/2002 8:36:22 AM ET by ELI_THOMAS
Thanks so much for explaining... I did everything you said, as well as a lot of other stuff to try to get it to say .jpg after my pictures. Nothing I do will make it do that. I should have listened when everyone said "Don't get an iMac". Anywho, I tried to email at forumhelp (the link in your message), but it kept getting sent back to me. I have Adobe Photoshop. I saved the pictures on my desktop as jpg. I'm going to try to post them again. Let me know if anyone can see them.
Sissy, If you are working in Photoshop then you should be able to set your Prefs so that file extensions are added automatically. See the pics below so for a straightforward walkthrough. Let me know how you make out. Also you say that the [email protected] is not working? Hope this helps. MarkView ImageView Image
Does this work?
What program do I need to open your picture? It's not working for me.
I'm not real sure. I have an iMac and I used Adobe to scan and convert it to jpeg. I hope this helps, because beyond that, I'm pretty worthless when it comes to this.
Renee
Edited 7/5/2002 10:47:18 AM ET by Sissy
Edited 7/8/2002 3:35:37 PM ET by Sissy
Carol, I just poked through a couple of boxes of old pics, to find stuff to post, and realized a couple of things. I haven't taken nearly enough pics of stuff I've made, AND, most of my pics are of the people, and not really good shots of details and garments.
Can you give any general hints on how to photograph our work to show it off, since I don't have any pro photo equipment? Lighting, distances, backdrops, etc? Jean, what did you do?
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