VanDorp Family Sneak

On Sunday, I did family pictures for my friend, Kathy (for whom I also took engagement and wedding pictures), on Sunday. They had not had a family picture since her sister was a baby, before Kathy was born! So, since she has an awesome friend (me), who will gladly do pictures for her, she's making this the Christmas present for the whole family this year.

With 10 kids and 20 adults present, it was definitely the largest photo shoot I've done. I was excited for the challenge though. We just did some simple family pictures with each of her siblings families, some of just the grandkids, some of her parents, some of just the couples and some of just the grandparents and grandkids.

From beginning to end, it took about 2 hours and the first hour was just scoping the area and taking some photos of just Charlie & Kathy.

I have not finished editing (or really started for that matter), but here are some select shots.

September Sweater Redesign

A couple of months ago, I found this fabulous yarn for an awesome price at Threadbear Fiber Arts Studio.  Rob, the owner, features these sales a few times a year where customers can clean out their stashes and they receive any product sales earnings back in gift certificate form for the store.  I think it's a great idea and I always find amazing deals.  This yarn is Cascade 220 Tweed in the Olive color.  It's a lovely brown with a slight green tint and I was ecstatic to make a cardigan out of it.  I bought 6 hanks for $15!  The original tags said $9.95 a piece, so I hit the jackpot!

The cardigan I chose to make is the September Sweater.  However, her directions are just a guide, not really a pattern.  I found September Sweater Revisited which gives pretty detailed instructions, but I've decided to go even further and alter the pattern to my liking, plus, I'm larger than those girls!  The top is knitted left sleeve, across the front and back to the right sleeve.  Then stitch the under arm seams together and pick up stitches to knit the body downward.  After that, I'll pick up stitches for the collar then the button band.  I'm making the open off-center to the right.  I ordered some buttons from Rob that should be to the shop sometime in October, so I'm hoping to have the sweater ready to sew on the buttons! 

So far, I've knitted and blocked the top.  Last night, I perfected my mattress stitch sewing the underarms and sleeves.  I also picked up the stitches for the lower body and knitted two rows.  I am waiting for my awesome mother-in-law to pick up a new circular needle for me today in Hastings, because I'm switching to size 7 rather than the 6 that I used for the top.  I only had straight needles to get started picking up the rows and now I remember why I don't use them!  My wrists got sore really fast with 205 stitches hanging on my needles, plus it was a little crowded.

Please excuse the semi-blurry, poorly lit photos.  I took these photos on Monday night around midnight in my living room while I was trying to block the sweater in preparation for Tuesday night knitting group.  It was dark, so I had to set the exposure longer than I'd like without using a tripod, but I was tired and that was more work than I wanted to do at the time.




If you can picture it, that's the neckhole in the center with the opening flaps for the front.

No Promises

Yes, that's right. I am trying this AGAIN. I have attempted to blog in the past, and due to time restraints, lack of motivation or Internet, I've just given up. And for a period, I experienced a lot of self-doubt. Thinking that I wasn't good enough to do photography or good enough to do graphic design. HOWEVER, I am a highly motivated self-learner. I've taught myself most of what I know through practice or research and some classes and more importantly, through my job!

Mostly, I had to let myself believe that I do have talent in these areas and that not being the best at everything is OKAY (as long as I always strive to be better). I don't know where this thought process came from, but I've always thought, if I can't be the best, then I'm not going to do it. I still don't like to do things that I'm not particularly good at, but that's okay! I don't have to be the best when I do.

This is starting not to sound good, like maybe I'm not really adept at this stuff.  Ugh.  Okay... the point being... I am good at what I do because I'm a perfectionist and I'm continually trying to further my knowledge of the programs I use.  There.  Does that sound better?

So, this is my new start. I'm not making any promises, like I'll blog once a week or 5 times a week, but I WILL try to blog more often and when I have new ideas, photos, designs, etc. to share.  This is something I feel that I need to do to get my name out there.  So many people think that because they have a Canon Rebel and a free version of some chintzy photo-editing program that they can do photography and it's really starting to irk me.  And NO, I didn't go to school for this, but I WILL and I research things and buy books and put forth the effort to know what I'm doing, so I think that's the difference.

ALSO, (and sorry Jamie (if you even read this), I'm not trying to copy you, I'm inspired by you!) I will try to do the weekly assignments from www.operationnice.com.  I really think this is a great idea to make the world a better, happier, NICER place.  I wanted to start with last weeks assignment, however that one involved doing something nice for yourself.  I didn't that was a fair assignment to start with (even though, I did go to a knitting group on Saturday night that I've been wanting to attend, so that's sort of doing the assignment).

"Today's Assignment: Kind Words for Women
We need to break the stereotype that women are catty witches (with a capital B) that just want to tear other women down. Those Lifetime movies are false! :) So how about we stop someone this week and tell her that we think she's beautiful! I'm sure she will be thrilled to hear it. Let's make it a little bit more commonplace, so maybe one day prefaces won't be necessary."

I think this is a fabulous assignment for me to start with because I'm not the touchy-feely-give compliments-kind of person.  I'm not going to count online compliments for this assignment, because I think those are easy for anyone.  It's much harder to walk up to someone and tell them you're thinking it in-person than in writing.  I do want to share that I put the free compliment poster from their website up at work.

And finally, I will leave you with this photo I pulled over to take one morning on the way to work this spring.