Tuesday 11 May 2010

Broaden the Horizons, Widen the Skillset.

If anyone of you is looking for a way to widen the skillset and learn a heap of new things as autodidact, I can only recommend running a conference with an archaeological experiment. It is amazing how many things you can hone on that - including not only computery stuff like database wielding, but also things like photographing.

I spent the day yesterday behind the camera and a photo-tent (for good lighting). In the photo-tent? A sheet of paper with orange millimetre-grid and changing motifs (but all of them similar, and very wooly). And I progressed from photos like this,


when I started fiddling with the settings,



to this as the final result:



All photos are taken with a very long exposure time and a very small aperture to get a high depth of focus. I'm very happy that my camera has a setting exactly for things like that, which means that once I set up the label and wool cop, I only have to press the button once and then wait until the camera on its tripod has taken three pictures with slightly different exposure time...

Today I will take the rest of the photos, which is easy work but more than a bit boring, since the long exposure time means that it takes about two to three minutes for each item to finish. And in that time, I can more or less just stand around and be bored...

4 comments:

Arachne said...

That thread is extremely thick compared to what spinner "B" is doing these days... It would be fun to test all the spindles again! To see if spinning very consciously for year has made any difference.

a stitch in time said...

Ah, that was yours, oh Spinner B? (I admit that I do not remember most of your Spinner Identity Codes...) But then, as you can clearly see, this specific sample was done with the notorious Spindle from Hell - and that would be a good excuse for a Slightly Different Than Normal Thread (TM).
Threads you did on other spindles look as if they might be a little thinner. And I hope to know much, much more the week after next!

Arachne said...

I've practised making sewing thread these past few weeks and it needs to be wickedly thin for plying... My-Thinnest-Thread (TM) has shrunk drastically since Eindhoven. I worry I won't be able to spin woollen ever again... I'll probably have to watch Ruth's long draw-video before I go to sleep every night to set things right again. ;-)

a stitch in time said...

Yes, sewing thread is really thin stuff. Did you try to spin thinner after Eindhoven? Or did it just develop by itself?
But don't worry about the woolens, even I can spin woolens still, thanks to Ruth's instructions. Although that thread is not so totally thick as well, come to think of it...
Anyways, we can have a nice little friendly spin-thin competition in September, huh?