Sorry to gross you out. but I thought that you could use a little pick me up since it's Monday, after all.
Why is it cool to have blinking glowing teeth if you're 8 yrs old? Does it mean that I'm old because I find this kind of disturbing? I think I'm officially over the hill now.
Anybody care to join me?! Ewwww....
Ever since I visited The Workroom in Toronto, I have been wanting to go back.
With no trips there on the immediate horizon, it seemed high time for it to come to me.
I didn't order a lot, just one piece of incredible Liberty of London fabric with jewels on it and a few colors of sparkle floss by Lecien.
It still made my day when this happy package arrived from Canada. Would love to get back there someday soon.
Until then, I have some plans for this Liberty fabric. Serious plans!
Getting out there in the field with your camera isn't always easy.
If you love to shoot film, sending your film off for processing and having it scanned is just another step in the process.
We recently went to San Francisco with the family and took photos on the Golden Gate Bridge because our niece had sent us her Flat Stanley.
I want to get out and do some more shooting this spring and summer. Not sure exactly where it will be yet, but we have some ideas.
Until then, more shooting around the neighborhood is probably in order and maybe even a little more photo taking around the house would do in a pinch.
I do hope to get back to San Francisco sometime soon.
Stopping in at a few favorite places would be nice, including:
Flora Grubb - plants to die for
Heath Ceramics - always a good day when you can stop by here
Fluevog Shoes - some are too out there for me but many are calling my name
Taking a ferry to Sausalito for maybe some lunch at
Farmshop...mmm, looks yummy, right?
Peapod Fabrics - it's been a while since I've stopped by here. Awesome fabric, outrageously difficult parking
Until then, I'll be on the sidelines of the baseball field taking pictures of those little monkeys you see above.
Last year I bought a "Snowball Hydrangea" plant when I was shopping at Filoli. Ever since I bought it....it's been the plant that makes me go hmmm....
I waited all last summer for it to bloom and all it did was grow really huge and make a LOT of leaves. No flowers. At all.
At first I talked sweetly to the plant. Whispering sweet nothings into its foliage with thoughts of making blooms. When that didn't work things eventually escalated to me making nasty threats involving a shovel and the compost pile.
Finally I decided that waiting may pay off, so I left it alone and forgot about it for the most part.
This weekend it decided to produce two very tiny blooms. They are really quite adorable.
I'm not exactly sure if the plant itself is an Annabelle Hydrangea or not, but I think that is the other name for this plant. I'm glad that I didn't kill it after all.
In other news and wanderings, I discovered a very cool shop called Fringe Supply Company when I was in the Sincere Sheep booth at Stitches West.
They carry some interesting looking scissors in their tools section and have some buttons that are made from real horn and bone that are to die for.
Hope your week is off to a good spring-y start.
I dug out my modern house blocks and started to think about putting another border on them.
I was so in love with this project and these blocks before that it is practically a crime that they have not been made into a quilt top.
How about some advise on setting the blocks here...
I like the fabric on the right and think it is a good tone...it allows the quilt to come together. I think something is still missing though.
Maybe a very thin dark 'frame' of maybe 1/2" black or almost black fabric around all the blocks first? They sort of need something to frame them up.
Ideas? Help! I'm crowd sourcing this one!
First let me say that I did not make this amazing shawl, but I did have the great pleasure of photographing not only it, but I also got to take photos of my beautiful friend Marianne, who actually did make it.
I was so inspired by it that I dragged her around looking for the exact same yarn so I could get pretty close to the version that she made. We'll see if I ever finish it. I'm not quite the knitter that she is. The pattern is called Catkin.
Taking photos of your finished projects doesn't have to be all that tough. There are a couple simple rules of thumb I use and they serve me pretty well:
- Only use natural light: no photos at night, no photos using light bulbs or camera flash bulbs
- Get up close: this usually involves putting your camera into macro mode, which often has a small flower icon on it. I know, you may have to use your camera manual. This is seriously not rocket science here. Try it, you'll like it.
- If it works, rock that light: Meaning, find the best light that you have available to you and use it. Use it, use it, and use it some more. If you only have good light in one room of your house during a certain time of day, only use that spot to take your photos and do it when the time is right.
- Have a photo party: When the light is good, whip out several things and take photos of them in batches. This will allow you to use them at 2am to do blog posts ;)
Good luck and happy shooting!
In some parts of North America, people are getting a little relief from the snow.
Here in the California Bay Area, we are finally getting some long overdue rain and we're all really excited about it.
Kids get to bring out super-hero themed umbrellas and I get a good excuse to stay in and do some extra sewing and knitting.
During the last storm my kids got the block village and build a pretty considerable tiny city up. Including a section of London, a small railroad, and a forest full of trees and sheep of all things. That would be a knitter's dream forest!
I actually don't mind a little stay at home catch up. I also discovered that after several hours of culling away that my office does indeed have a floor that does not include boxes all over it. I minor miracle really.
The really big news this week is that Flat Stanley arrived at our house. It was sent to us from my niece. He is busy learning to drive, and also learning to knit. I'll have to teach him how to quilt as well perhaps later tonight.
In other random wanderings, I found Yumiko Higuchi's amazing site devoted to her embroidery. It makes me want to run out and embroider everything. I was never a huge fan of embroidery, it seemed very grannie to me before I saw Yoko Saito use it in conjunction with applique. Now that I've seen how Yumiko uses it, I could understand getting really really into it.
