Intro
The post today is going to be a convoluted story of different hobbies, different types of people and how they all get connected. It’s a great study in how the most diverse types of people can actually meet somewhere in the middle.
First of all, there are many types of quilters in this world. I got into quilting because of two traits of mine. The first is that I am a creative person. I consider myself an artist – even though I cannot draw in the traditional sense. I need paper (or a computer program) that gives me a grid and allows me to draw geometric things. That’s actually the second trait – my love of things geometric.
My second trait – the geometrical side of my personality – stems from my very rational mind. Yes, it really sounds like trait one and trait two are polar opposites. Artistic flow tends to be chaotic and Logical flow… well…isn’t…
I love Art. Of all forms. I cannot say, however, if I love Art more than I love technology. Give me some bits and bytes and I’m in heaven. I can work all day long in front of a computer and then come home and surf for hours. While I still read many books, I read on line, connect with friends, plan things, you name it.
I connect with people who are also “geeks”. While I cannot develop (program), I understand those who do. I speak in databases and processing speeds. In fact, although several of my best friends are also artists in the traditional sense (Cathy, Brandie: I’m speaking to you), the majority of the people I connect best with work in IT fields. With few exceptions, IT industry people are not considered to be art aficionados or those who appreciate traditionally non technological fields such as quilting.
Geek Aspect/Hobby – Photography
Photography is another medium (not primary and not minor, but medium) hobby of mine. This is where the geek takes a bit of a lead. In 1995, when digital cameras first hit the mainstream market at an affordable price, I bought one. I had always been interested in photography, but there was too much uncertainty when taking pictures (will they turn out? Did I do that right?) and not much instantaneous gratification, so I had not invested much time and effort. The digital camera changed that; I could see right away if the picture was good, and I could take many more without having to change or develop film. I could also crop and manipulate the photos.
I always stored my pictures on my home computer (with multiple backup copies) but I also printed them into albums. A few years ago, I purchased space on an online storage (Photobucket.com) site that allowed me to do greater sharing and use of my photos. In true geek style, I paid for the better site that allowed for more pictures, larger files, and more tools for online albums, etc. In fact, one of my daughters went through the site and create a calendar for me with family pictures. It was the best Christmas present.
I’ve taken many pictures of my quilts and I use them to illustrate this blog, for displaying in trade offers (I trade for other products; I don’t sell them), entries to contests, etc. Quilts are hard to display well for pictures, so I use a lot of cropping and filtering tools. This is where a digital camera comes in very handy!
It also seems like many other geeks – developers, Systems analysts, DBAs – that I know also have an interest in digital photography.
Frugal Aspect/Hobby – couponing
When I was a young and very poor, I got into extreme couponing. I don’t have the time for that now; somewhere along the line, my hourly wage went up enough that clipping, collecting and exchanging hundreds of coupons each week no longer passed the CBA (cost benefit analysis). However, I’m still very conscious of the price of items, annoyed with inflation, and appreciate a good deal when I find it. I discovered the new trend of Groupon, Living Social, Crowd Cut and other sites that present a hot deal/deals each day.
One of these deals that I bought was for Vistaprint. As previously mentioned, one of my favorite presents ever was a photo calendar. My youngest daughter put it together with pictures from my online storage site. I decided to do the same this year (including making another for myself!). The coupon from Vistaprint covered several calendars, but left me with about $4-5 dollars. It wasn’t enough for another calendar, but it was enough for a small spiral bound photo book with a dozen-twenty photos.
Hmmm…
Quilt pictures?
Sure….. that works
I looked through my online photos, selected around a dozen that were fairly decent pictures and threw together a little book.
Social Aspect/Hobby - Friday Night Dinners
Today the calendars and the book came in the mail, and tonight we had dinner with our friends. This is a regular Friday night occurrence. It’s a casual get together and it’s a rotating group of 3-20 and today was an unusual group. It was hubby and I, a single friend and two other couples. Another friend of ours came, and brought SEVEN other people with him. I’d met two-three of them at another large dinner, but the rest were newcomers to my world. This friend is a DBA (Data Base Administrator) and most of his group (if not all) were IT crowd people. On my “side” were a quilting friend, a college friend who is a talented seamstress, craftsman of different sorts and a novice (soon to be expert) quilter who works in IT, and the rest – while not quilt people in their own rights – hang around with those of us who are.
The Quilt Photo Book
I showed the book to my two quilter friends and they admired the quilts. We talked a little about them. The next to look at the book were the others from my group. They looked at them for more the pictures; not being quilters they were less understanding of the quilt techniques.
Now here’s where it gets pretty cool.
One of the guys who I hadn’t met before was into photography. He’s an IT person. I whipped out my book and showed him the photos. I believe that his concentration – at least at first – was on the technique on the photos and he started giving me tips (very appreciated) on how I could edit the photos to enhance the unique lighting problems with that type of photo/subject matter.
Then we got started on how I design the quilts – my use of graph paper, a techie program called Visio (a flowchart/design type of program versus actual quilt programs) and bits and pieces far more related to computers than old fashioned quilting. The conversation went on for quite a while, with several people commenting and asking questions about the pictures, the quilts and the techniques.
I’m used to a lot of non quilters giving looks of contempt about and not understanding the degree of skill needed for quilting. There are many people who regard quilting as “cheesy” and/or “homemade” and that quilters are little old ladies who make simple “blankets”. Tonight, I didn’t get that attitude at all; no, what I got was admiration and interest for the digital photography, the use of the photo book, the techniques for my quilting and the actual quilts themselves.
Conclusion
It was really an interesting discussion and an interesting evening.
Notes:
· I used Vistaprint for this particular book
· I use Photobucket for my photos; you can browse my site from here
· I printed out calendars and this photo book in the 4 x 6 size
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