fiber college coming soon, new workshops this year!

I can't ignore that September is rolling around soon. A couple of events I've been looking forward to are just around the bend. The first?

FIBER COLLEGE OF MAINE Sept 7-11, 2016

I'm teaching two new workshops. I'm pretty excited about them.They're also, I think, very much in the spirit of Fiber College.  Which is to say inspiring, fun, a chance to break away from the norm with no pressure. The photo above promotes a photography class aimed at anyone wanting to stretch their image making muscles: Creative Vision Challenge.  We'll be talking about ways to get out of imagery ruts, and provoke new ways of seeing. We'll be shooting challenges to make sure that happens. I am a firm believer in cross-pollinating your making experiences, it helps you grow.  This class should be amazing for anyone looking for a little jolt.

This image promotes a workshop called Haiku Postcards, co-taught with friend and frequent partner-in-workshop-crime, Beverly Army Williams.  We've come up with a project based class, one that lets you walk away with something in hand. We will be thinking about single shot imagery, photographing (with our phones-or cameras if you insist) on the beautiful grounds. We'll be printing images, placing them on  on postcard paper and then under Beverly's guidance, writing haiku to go with them. We can't wait to roll this one out. Sign up from the link on top or here.

(From the Oh, Natural Tahki Yarns collection I shot, just releasing. Love, love , love this hat.)

There's an interview with me on Fiber College blog. I keep returning to teach at Fiber College. It never fails to inspire, create community, and send me into the shortening days time of year with a good attitude. I leave Searsport full of ideas and the beauty I take in on  Penobscot Bay.  Also, full of lobsters, and wine and blueberry pie...but that is not strictly  required :-)
I've posted raved about Fiber College here, here, here and here, too. One important aspect: unlike other creative retreats and events, you do not need to pay one big fee. You can come and take just one class, or just pay to enter and stroll the grounds and try the mentored dye tent or other "pop=up" experiences, and shop, or you can take classes every minute you are there. 
So...next post..a big something else coming in September, too.

smartphone photo workshops in NJ this weekend

 MAKING THE WORLD PRETTIER- ONE SMARTPHONE PHOTO AT A TIME !!
JOIN ME in a workshop this weekend- click on the shop name to register

Saturday at Pins & Needles in Princeton NJ   1:30-4:30 pm    almost full

Sunday at Trillium Yarns in Morristown NJ  1-4 pm   just 2 spaces left

If you follow my Instagram feed, you know I use my iPhone camera a lot.

No need to feel guilty if you're using a phonecam instead of a "real" camera. These days our smartphone cameras are  crazy good quality, and almost always handy.

above, my recent  IG feed, all iPhone photos with the exception of the reposted malabrigo yarn photo in the middle left column, , which I shot for Kirsten's book

That's why I'll be teaching hands on smartphone photography workshops this weekend.

both of these were quick phone photo grab shots to show some yarn-y projects on the blog

They are fun classes. Whether you shoot your knits, your travels, your sunnyside up eggs (oh come on who doesn't?), I promise you'll learn new tricks to make your phone cam images soar.  We'll use  free or inexpensive apps to quickly make your good photos great, right in the phone. Small adjustments, little shifts, controlling the cropping  and adding depth of field are my favorites, but we'll run the gamut--and then have a group slideshow at the end.

Click on the shops at the top of the post to grab your seats, space is limited.  This is a workshop a knitter can share with a non-knitting friend. We know that doesn't happen often, ina yarn shop.  Who knows, once there, they might could succumb to wool fumes.

An iPhone photo Befre and After, taken at my peak sheep moment at the Ct Sheep & Wool Fest last weekend.
Before, on the left , courtesy of an 8 year old   and After, on the right. We'll cover adding type on the image, during the workshops.

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I'll gladly teach this Smartphone Photo workshop  in your community--at a yarn shop, workplace, retreat, whatever--shoot me an email.

goings on

A quick hello because it is upon us: I am teaching a Smartphone/iphone Photo Class this Sunday Feb 15 at Knit New Haven.

On the left, the straght-up photo from my phone. On theright, after a a few moves /Apps to fix it up.

Come on out & join me. This is a fun class, and really, it doesn't matter if you are a knitter, this is a class you can take with a non-knitter friend, while sitting in a cheerful yarn shop. I guarantee you'll both leave with a few new apps & tricks to make your phone camera images fabulous.(You might leave with some yarn, too...but that's another story.)

Here's an example we shot while teaching this class in November, in Maryland.

On the far left, a quick phone camera shot of a skein of yarn on a typical meeting table, warts and all. Same photo; rotated, quickly fixed up a bit, and then labeled, all in Phone. If you're on Instagram, it's the kind of image that works well in the feed. (We'll talk about that).
 Even if you own a big beautiful camera, your phone is so much easier to whip out when you want shots of a new sweater, or a nice moment while walking the dog. I know I am guilty of that . Like, daily. The trick is to make the most of the image Why not ?

 We'll use free and inexpensive apps to take our phone images to a new level. The workshop is hands-on, moves fast, is fun and  and a review/critique at the end, of what we've accomplished. See you there? Call ahead to register.  Sunday 10-1.

Many more of my phone photos on my Instagram. Follow me instagram.com/@galezucker

countdown: get some class this weekend at Gathering of Stitches

Gathering of Stitches in Portland Maine--here I come!  Take one class or take 3.

Only 2 seats left for Saturday, but  room in each of the Photo editing and iphone Masterpiece classes on Sunday. Samantha offers a discount if you take any 2 or 3 offerings.

I have a special treat, too: discounts from PhotoJojo and BlogStomp for all participants! Thanks to both companies for their support.

A few words about the iPhone Masterpiece class: There are 2 remarkable things about this image, above. One is...OMG I posted a full body bathing suit view of myself online. If you follow me on Instagram ( I am galezucker there) you may have already seen this. Have I lost my mind??!!! Maybe. But I adore this photo, from Saturday. I was in one of my favorite places in the world, the beach in Delaware, with my most favorite people. I literally tossed my phone to Dave and said- get a photo of us, please.

He got the moment.  (Isn't Dave amazing? He takes maybe 10 photos a year and he nailed it). But as you can see, the shadows are in front of us, which means he was shooting into the sun, and the photo came out of my iPhone (a 4S-not even up to date) looking like this:

Which is typical, right? A few clicks with apps on my phone to convert it to better colors, with shadow details revealed, a color shift, and then cropped just the way I wanted it.  Knowing that Instagram is better squared, I edged it in off white to retain all the image info. Less than 5 minutes, you have to love that!

That's what we'll do in the iPhone masterpiece class. Keeping it all in our trusty little phones. The phonecam quality blows me away, and it's wonderful to have it always on hand, stuck into a pocket and no worries about thousands of dollars of optics getting wet or sandy (in my case). Works just as well if you're shooting knits or yarn or handcrafts, or whatever subjects float your boat. Join me for some phonecam fun. 

We can float our boats together. (iPhone image enroute to Nash Island earlier this month)

ps if you've been visiting my blog for a while, how do you like my new look? . This quick random update looks better than my old Blogger template, I am sure you agree.  More to come.

it's all good

I can't resist posting this unedited image from my first photoshoot with Lori Versaci of Versaci Knits last week. I love her adult designs, and oh my! her kids' sweaters are equally charming.

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In my head I've been doing all kinds of blog writing- but, obviously, not so much in the actual blog. Soon, I'll catch up!  (my persistent mantra). I even have finished projects and new ones underway.

Meanwhile: 
Only 10 days till the photo weekend classes in Portland Maine at Gathering of Stitches! 
Samantha , is  offering a great deal- if you bring a friend to one of myworkshops, they get 50% off. (personally I think this friend should then take you out to lunch or buy you a lovely craft beer..but that is for you to settle). 
The all-day Photography for Knitters & Stitchers & Handcrafters- Saturday June 28th  class is almost full, Photo Editing on Sunday morning is partially full . If you have taken a class with me before and wished we spent more time photo editing--or you simply want to learn what to do to your images to make them  snap online, or look just so --without investing much learning time and money in PhotoShop--then this class is for you. You don't need any advanced graphic/photo skills, I promise!
The iPhone Masterpieces class will, I hope, fill up soon- it is going to be out and out phun .
(yeah, groan, I know).

giveaway! A Gathering of Stitches photo workshops & books

Hiya ! Enter between now and May15 May 22nd by leaving a comment on A Gathering of Stitches, saying what image of mine you like from sometime on this blog. Details at that link, and below.

Some people have had trouble leaving comment son the Gathering of Stitches blog. If that happens to you, leave a comment below, and you're entered. (and sorry!).

The backstory:  an out-of-the-blue email from a Samantha Lindgren arrived. She told me about her wonderful making space for stitchers & crafters in Portland, Maine. That sentence right there? has several of my favorite words in it, including the location.  Her space, A Gathering of Stitches,  was on my radar. Some of my favorite chums were teaching there - Mary Jane Mucklestone's Eeeeks! Steeeks! class come to mind- and block printing on fabric, and indigo, and of course it is my fondest dream to have a space like hers in my own community.

Anyhoo, Samantha was wondering if I'd be interested in a photo weekend, and oh by the way, did I remember her, with a different last name, she had been my photo editor, I used to shoot for her, for Forbes and People magazines. whaaaaat? We were both tickled to reconnect in the world of handmade.  

I know you've seen this before. I never tire of it.

So we put together classes that I've never offered before, and lined'em up so that you could take one, two or all three. Whatever floats your boat, so to speak (see that? Portland's a harbor city? I'm so lyrical).  

 Here's what they are, but click thru to get the full description and register from A Gathering of Stitches website.
• Photography for Handcrafters - Saturday June 28 9:30-4:30 (with a lunch break)
A full day to demo camera techniques, do hands-on shooting, explore photo editing and then have a critique of what we all shot .

•Photo Editing for Handcrafters - Sunday June 29   9:30-12:30
A tiny bit of shooting but mostly, you'll do lots of photo editing, using a simple user-friendly online software (not Photoshop) to make your images really stand up and crow. If you've ever wondered why your images lack the ooomph you thought they would have when you shot them, this is where you will learn the tweaks that make a good image look fabulous. Taught in non-jargon language, to boot!

•Make iPhone Masterpieces of Your Handcraft (and everything else, too) Sun June 29 1:30-4:30
Title says it all, right? Any smartphone welcome. This is going to be super fun. Because the best camera is the one you have on you, and we always have our little phones along.

Spread the word, too, OK?  If Portland Maine (easy peasy drive from anywhere n the Northeast, and has an airport right in town. Well worth a visit)) isn't within your June realm, there are giveaway books too. Check the link.

postcards from Rhinebeck 2013

Thanks to all who let me know they enjoyed the Rhinebeck Style video. And mwah! to those who re-posted, or FB'd or tweeted. Feel free to share  You totally get me. Work on the book version proceeds, with a bit of fire under me now.* 
 It was a weekend where everything comes together:  perfect autumn weather, great energy, beautiful yarn, stellar community, and oh! the knits everywhere. Plus sheep and alpaca and goats.This year I taught workshops on the weekend mornings: Photo Safari: NY S&W Festival. Love my  students who gleefully joined in as we photographed the fair, as our subject and our backdrop. My assistant Ariana was along to pose in knits, for exercises shooting backgrounds & angles. **. She's wearing a Through The Loops Vestry Street. I know you want to know.We visited the livestock barns. An experiment with the 2013 festival poster as the background for Through the Loops Germinate shawl. I give it a not-quite-thumbs-up.
I stayed at a shared large house-  Ariana and I missed the group photo but you can see we were in excellent company- organized by Yarny Old Kim, whose scrappy long socks I covet. *** Wish I'd had more time to hang out there, it was full of good cheer. Some parts of our  potluck left me a permanently craving. (hello! Steve's mac and cheese and homemeade kimchi)Foodwise, at the festival: Waiting in line made much easier by knitspotting/knit ogling.Very happy to get our Flammkuchen. Butternut squash, beets, fennel, creamy ricotta cheese (or was it goat?), flame cooked. Kirsten got bacon on hers, and do you love the sweater she's wearing? Design not yet released. <hint, hint cough> 
Jill Draper and her inspiring sweater.The ever stylin' Ellen Mason,aka Odacier, in her Mary Rebecca sweater and  signature cardi/dress combo with plaid scarf, colored tights, and boots. She and my other style muse, Sonya Philip were walking around the festival together. Someday I want to have them style me.  Not for a day.  Like, my whole wardrobe. Thrilled to see the patterns I shot for Green Mountain Spinnery and their new ebook on display at their booth. I didn't get there fast enough to buy Weekend Wool , their new worsted weight yarn - by Sunday they only had a few skeins left.**** True only for their wares.The Sunday morning class had a photo session with a couple of fleecey girls.Shooting at sheep eye level, in open shade. Aren't they gorgeous, even in a crowd?Sheep eyes, Love'em.  • • • • • • • • • • 
Ok, starting next post I'm going to ramp up into gift giving mode, with a bunch of book reviews and book giveaways. I've been saving them for just this time of year. Watch your feed, I'm hoping to git'er'done !  

_____________________and now for the footnotes: 

*La Shannon Okey herself is going to be sitting down with me on Monday, up close and personal, to get this book from almost-done to press ready. I am looking forward to it like crazy. Shannon's a force to be reckoned with. I love me a force, and a good solid deadline.  Like a publisher sitting next to you .

**Ariana will also be assisting me when I teach at Vogue Knitting Live in NYC in January 2014. It helps to have her model,  so no student misses shooting for a minute--and also, for those who don't want to pose in the knits but want them shot on a lovely smiling person. Ariana is a talented film maker & editor herself, and a knitter, so she knows what's what.

*** I don't know why but I can't find a link to her blog! Kim is all kinds of awesome. She organized the house, the potluck, is a brilliant knitter and finished weaving in the ends on those socks Friday night as we sat around eating & drinking , following a breathtaking Hudson Valley moonrise. I know the photos you may have seen signal riotous hilarity 24/7 but Kim and the rest of the roomies are so much more than that. Smart, artistic, talented. And good cooks too.

****I never shop much at the festivals-I'm an indecisive shopper even in a quiet limited setting--but I had a mission this time. Too bad I browsed Saturday and by the time I went back to purchase on Sunday, I missed out on the Weekend Wool selection but also a super chunky hand dyed skein I wanted from Briar Rose was history, so were the skeins I was eyeing from Still River Mill...I did finally buy some yarn. But that's another post.

join me for a Guatemalan fiber & photo adventure?

This is a little out of the ordinary, even for me! *
Master weaver Hetty Friedman of Crafts for a Cause, took a photo class from me. Her woven pieces are exquisite. She explained that she works with Fair Trade craft/fiber cooperatives in Guatemala to dye her yarns, and weave her designs. Hetty lived and studied in Guatemala, and leads small tours to artisan villages there. She invited me  join her in creating a  special tour, combining our passions for textiles, craft, travel, artisans and (or course) photography.

Full flyer for this small group tour 

to the Western Highlands of Guatemala 

photos courtesy of Hetty Friedman/Crafts for a Cause

You do not need to be a serious weaver, or have special knowledge of textiles or knitting or especially photography! Just be interested, curious, ready to see new sights and meet wonderful people. Not to mention eat and drink well, in beautiful settings, and do a bit of craft market shopping.
The tour is  limited to a small group--so if you can put together 3-6 of your peeps, we can offer a discount.
Email me for details--actually email me with any questions at all! 
Hetty and I sat down one cold winter day and ironed out an exciting itinerary. It includes visits to artisans' cooperatives, with a chance to interact and see how they dye, weave & create.  Also, we'll visit craft  & food markets, do walking tours of historic sites, boat from village to village on Lake Atitlan, with time to work on your photography with me as we go along, if you want to, so you'll go home with a photographic story of your trip. Or  R&R, if you don't.
I hope you'll join us. It should be amazing! Deposits due by the end of July (we extended it from the flyer).
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* we just learned that we may have come across as expecting travelers to be serious or advanced weavers or photographers. We don't! Gale doesn't weave, Hetty is pretty laid back about her photos--but we are both appreciative of the artisanry that is celebrated and preserved in the region, and love to look at everything and revel in the sights, tastes and colors of another place on this planet.*

with many thanks to tthe internets

Thank you ALL who joined my Photographing Your Knits webinar for the live webcast from Interweave last Wednesday. * I applaud you! (Sorry about the overuse of um for the first three minutes, then I got rolling. At least I'm not one of those artificially perky speakers, right?)

I was so jazzed up after the virtual live presentationended, I had to go to the beach to get my ya-yas out with Zoe for an hour of hooky-playing.  I love knitting but it doesn't offer the level of ya-ya reduction required at the time.

humungous, 3 foot tall lilac bouquet  courtesy of the internets

 Friday morning, I set down to work started blog-reading, and there was Carole's peony.  It reminded me that my peony might be flowering, and the weird 24 hour tropical storm rain falling was going to knock off any blooms. I figured I'd better get out there and investigate.
Last fall Hurricane Sandy radically landscaped our backyard.  We kind of ignored it, dealing with replacing our roof. Good times!  I recalled a section of downed tree pinning the peony.  I thought maybe it was dead.  Not so! Friday morning I discovered it as healthy as it had ever been (which is not all that healthy, to be honest).  It is a late bloomer, so still budding.
But had I not been out there in the rain seeking an internet-inspired peony, I'd never have noticed a lushly bloomed old lilac tree in the back corner of the yard. Thanks to Sandy and her ugly older sister Irene the year before, this antique was torn mostly out of the ground, meeting a small apple tree in a combination bramble/deciduous tree canopy. For the past few years this tree had been my least productive lilac, with its best blooms  tantalizingly out of reach, high up over the neighbor's yard. Not anymore! Crazily blooming and so perfumed. Pruning my way through downed branches like a gardening Indiana Jones in the rain, I collected me three big bouquets. Thanks Carole!

 This here is on my front porch. We have a new thrift in town and I'm buying up teapots and other housewares for porch planting. Buck at a time.  I got my idea when visiting the charter school my sister teaches at in downtown Washington DC last fall. Check out their entry walkway: 
Keep in mind it was October, so the plants were on the way out for the season. When I called her confessing I had openly ripped her off, she said, no worries. She'd gotten the idea online, from Guerilla Gardening.

 I mean, seriously, where would we be without our internets??!!

 In knitting news, if you are still reading this-my Caliz shawl is 5 rows away from being done, and I need a wooly not-too-big-to-carry and not-too-attention requiring project to take with me to an adventure in Maine this weekend. Suggestions?
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*If you want to experience learning with me, sans the hands-on part, there'll be a link to purchase the webinar, recorded in all its 1 hr 45 minute glory, in about 10 days. If you already purchased and/or joined it, you should have a link to it already, in your email.

we're so chill we wear mitts

Last weekend, no not the one that dumped 36" of snow on me, the one before, I had the honor of teaching a Photography for Knitters workshop for  The Village Knitter . 
This is what it looked like when we strung up a temporary clothesline on Main Street in Babylon NY. 
And here is Stephanie, aka Crooked Knits, shooting. Let's play a game. How many handknits can you spy her wearing? The funnest, if I can mangle English here, part of the workshop is usually the part where we bust out of the room and go all hands-on, giving everyone a chance to try some of the hints tricks direction photobullying I have been laying on them during the slide talk part. This group didn't let a few degrees fahrenheit stop them. 
A class so cool they had to cover themselves in wool. It was a blazing good time, in direct contrast to the icy wind blowing off the Atlantic a block away. Afterward, I ended the day knitting and yucking it up at Ann and Katy's yarnshop , my sponsor, The Village Knitter. This is the kind of yarn shop you hunker down in. Big open table to sit at. Great selection of yarn. Super friendly owners and workers. Talented knitters and raucous conversation. We are already planning a spring/summer Photo for Knitters adventure, to take advantage of the lovely photo opps for knitwear in the town, while not suffering frostbite at the same time.

 On a not unrelated note--you can't ignore the snow here this week, mostly because we have run out of places to put it.

This is not a special pile or even the tallest on the street, it's just your basic corner. Good weather for knitters though. Suddenly everyone loves a wool mitten.

• • • • • • 

I'm brewing up a few more workshops between now and the summer-  in New Haven CT, Maryland and Massachusetts. Want one at your guild, shop or group? Give me a shout.

some class

I mean that in the same way that Charlotte said "some pig".

 
Many thanks to our fabulous model for the day, Jessie.
Holding a Photography for Knitters Workshop day at an historic schoolhouse in Needham Massachusetts makes for some great photo settings.   
Having clever & talented students in the class, makes for fun ideas.


Caps for sale anyone? Seriously, these hats by Kathy Zola are for sale, on her soon-to-be-open etsy site. She has the pattern up on Ravelry for free--although if you look at these, you quickly realize the pattern is more of a blueprint and she makes all sorts of added textures and stitches on each hat she creates.

The whole gang. Many thanks to Elissa's Creative Warehouse  for hosting the class. That's Elissa and one of her Kuku Dolls , on the far right.  Afterwards, I met Maryse at the shop and  we found ourselves staying for Saturday Night Knit Club. We didn't mean to,  we were powerless to resist the warm welcome , combined with the plentiful yarn fumes.  So we  plunked down knitting.  If you've never been to Elissa's shop, you need to go. She's got an amazing selection, nice staff  and some crazy fun projects going on.

Rules for the day.

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Want me to teach a workshop near you?  Shoot me an email and I'll see if I can find a guild or shop that would like to sponsor me.