make-over

Courtesy of my darling friends, an old knit (finished and gifted more than two years ago!) recently got a “make-over” photoshoot. I had taken some crappy photos of it originally, but they never really did the piece justice, and I was more than happy to chuck them out from my project page and replace them with these…

I can’t place it on the knitterly timeline very precisely, but I know that this hat was among my first ten finished objects ever. Not too bad, eh? It’s a really good feeling to look back on something I made when I still barely had any idea what I was doing when picking up needles, and see something that I’d be proud of even today, when I have a lot more skill and experience.

I’m sure you’ve caught peaks of another (more recent) FO in the photos as well. More to come on that soon… :)

In the meantime, a huge thanks to my stunning photographer/model duo Matea and Maja :*

foot-o-shoot

I had a little photoshoot with my feet this weekend…

More to come soon… ;)

Let’s talk: Is Ravelry a photography competition?

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m slightly obsessed with the rankings (as in: number of hearts) of my projects on Ravelry. I like to see where my project stands in relation to other projects made for the same pattern (don’t you love the advanced project search option?), as well as where my projects stand in relation to each other (my projects page is set to order projects according to number of favourites).

Little Sister – 52 hearts

Obviously, there’s a bit of a competitive streak in that, and I won’t deny it makes me proud to see a project of mine, say, among the top 25 of more than a thousand projects from the same pattern (I think that’s happened once so far, and I’m still over the moon). And we all like to get confirmation from others that we’ve done a good job and that we’ve made something other people like.

Honey – 41 hearts

But here’s what I’ve been noticing. Looking at my projects page, my four most popular projects by far are not necessarily my best, or most complex, or prettiest, or whatever else projects. They are the projects with the best photos. (Notably, I had semi-professionals do the photography for the four I am talking about.) Which made me think – is it knitterly skill, talent for combining colours, inovativeness in modifying designs… or good photography that we reward when choosing our favourites on Ravelry?

Swan – 35 hearts

Obviously, sometimes it’s hard to tell if the project involved skill, talent and inovativeness if the photograph itself isn’t good enough to show it off. It’s hard to get around that fact that photographs are the best medium we have available to us at the moment to share our knitterly (I do like to use my invented words a lot, don’t I?) accomplishments. But I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve favourited a good amount of projects because they had good photos, even if the project itself was, while not “bad”, not particularly different or “better” than others.

Veyla mittens – 27 hearts

So, I’d like to hear your thoughts on this. I’m not sure if it’s a good (encourages us to be better photographers) or bad (moves away from the actual point of sharing projects) thing, and I don’t even think it needs to be decided in favour of either of those. But, I’d like us to talk about it. :)

lucky

I can be very lucky sometimes. Like when I have nothing to write about and I get amazing photos of one of my knits on that very day. Or like when I have talented friends who have talented friends who are capable of creating those amazing photos and generously share them with me.

Which is all a very convoluted way to say: Look at this! Isn’t it amazing?!

My heart melts. The model is Masa, a 2-year-old who got the Little Girl Dress I knit as a birthday present this year. I’ve been told she loves it. As in, demands to wear it everywhere. As in, locks herself in the bathroom when her mom says she’s not allowed to wear it all the time. Melt melt melt. :)

The photographers are her wonderfully talented parents Sasa and Sara, who run DOF. – a studio for newborn, child and family natural light photography. Such talented photographers with a unique style are difficult to find anywhere, let alone in Croatia – and I count myself as extremely lucky for having been able to cooperate with them! I highly recommend that you peruse their portfolio – but make sure you prepare a good stash of aaaaaws before you start, you’ll need them!

I keep looking at these photos and smiling… :) How lucky I am.

Have a great day everyone! :)