New Camera! New Camera!

I received many lovely gifts this year for Christmas. None knitting related, as it turns out. But, the best of all was what my sweetie, Kevin darling, bestest FEE-AN-CE ever got me!

A new digital camera! It’s a Casio Exilim EXZ57 5MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom. I love it. I had been whining for months now about how my previous camera - a minolta 3.2MP camera was just not up to snuff. It had no macro mode. It’s battery life was sad. It did not have the 5 MPs of awesomeness. Now, did I need a new camera? No. Did I desperately, with the heat of a thousand suns, want a new one? Oh, yes, yes, yes. I had put the Casio on my wishlist to keep track of it, since I liked it best - its tiny and has tremendous battery life.

But, it also has a massive preview screen, and this really neat “Bestshot” feature, which lets you pick certain kinds of shots, for example portrait, or scenery, or sunsets, or food. You can also program in your own, or just put in your own settings for every picture. Or, just go with automatic. It’s a totally geeky camera.

Kevin darling, being a smartass, asked if it had a “yarn on the carpet” mode. Well, let’s see…

That picture was taken in my office, with bad lighting. I used the “flower” mode, which is macro mode with high sensitivity. I think. On my monitor, the colors are reasonably true, and while the labels aren’t super clear in the shrunk down version, in the full size they are very readable.

Oh, speaking of yarn, that’s a collection the yarn that has wandered into the house in recent days. The silky tweed, galway and cotton sock yarn came from Mangelsons in Omaha. I love Mangelsons - its a craft shop on crack. It has REAL YARN, and on the day after Christmas, had all wool yarn 25% off. It also has aisles of baking stuff, beading, flowers… It’s like a non-scary Michaels. Every year that we go to Omaha for Christmas, I’m always “Hey, let’s eat at the restaurant RIGHT NEXT TO THE YARN”. Luckily, Kevin’s entire family loves that restaurant, so its not hard to convince them to go. This year, I actually convinced them all to leave me to the badly needed yarn therapy while they went and ran errands.

I also picked up some cane straight purse handles, some cool needles, and some food service gloves.

In knitting news, I’ve finished my last two Christmas scarves, although they badly need blocked. This picture was taken in the hotel room.

Also, Ringtail is working hard on Mom’s cardigan (the one from Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk DK book). It actually has the beginning of sleeves, although you can’t tell. The entire sweater, including the sleeves, are knit in one piece, except for the front bands, collar and sleeve bands.

Aimee reports that the sweater did fit, but she hasn’t sent me a picture yet. So, I guess she gets her own entry later.