What's In Your Stocking?

Just in case Santa brought you an Amazon gift card that's burning a hole in your stocking, I thought I'd post a couple of things you might consider spending it on besides books. Not that one can ever have too many books. You know me better than that. In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that these are links to my Amazon affiliate store. If you buy from one of these links, I make a little money on the sale.

Sony Cybershot DSC W150. This link is for the students who took my Local Color classes last year at Sievers and The Textile Center and for the Inkjet Fabric students at Bead & Button. This is the camera I've been using for the past year. The shooting modes let me point and shoot automaticallyor manually adjust the exposure (remember that P mode?). I can shoot close-ups with great detail, soften the focus for portraits of people and flowers, shoot in vivid color, black-and-white or sepia. This camera also lets me manipulate images I’ve shot in the camera without altering the original photo. For example, in the View mode I can crop an image, blur and dim the periphery, or change the area surrounding the focal point of a color image to black-and-white. And that’s just the stuff I’ve figure out so far. There’s no end to the ways you can use a digital camera to create inkjet fabric. Use it to shoot objects that are too large or awkward to fit on the copy bed of an all-in-one. Build a stock photo library — for example, by shooting, flowers, fallen petals, leaves, plant grouping, and other garden elements to use in floral fabrics. Set up still life arrangements to photograph, playing with different camera angles and reflectors that change the lighting. You’ll find many ways to use these photos as backgrounds for other images as well as on their own.

HP Photosmart C4580 All-in-One Printer. This is the printer used in the above classes. It doesn’t even have to be hooked up to a computer to print wonderful fabrics. You can simply lay elements on the copy bed and press a button. It has ports that accept  the media cards from some digital cameras.(To check out the media card specs, got to my Google Group page and click on Local Color Media Card Specs. And yes, you can always hook it up to the computer to print something scanned to and stored there.

OK, I can't resist. One book. From Image To Stitch by Maggie Grey. If you love image transfer techniques, this one has some that will curl your toes.

More of my favorite fiber art books are featured in my Amazon affiliate store. I'm adding fiction favorites as fast as I can remember what I read (I really meant to keep a reading journal...). And for years, students have heard me talk about how much I love listening to audio books while I stitch, so you'll find the complete selection from Amazon here. Search on Young Adult and Classics for some great selections.