november post 1: BTS jill draper at work

Just out-of-the-dye-vats yarn in Jill Draper Makes Stuff studio! I'm going for a strong start at my annual stab at daily blogging for November, NaPoBloMo. 

Here's Jill dyeing. If you want to know what her work day is like, check out her profile on Etsy's Quit Your Day Job feature recently. When I was contacted to photograph her for it, I was thrilled.  You want me to spend the day behind the scenes with one of my favorite artist dyers and see how the magic happens? Yes, please! 

Of course, I know it is hard work, not waving a wand.  It's her eye for color, and choices about yarns and her overall vision that is magical. It's running a business, and figuring out inventory and ordering and marketing and shipping and planning what turned out to be a stupendously popular open house in October, and juggling all the balls. Despite our photo shoot needing to happen in the weeks leading up to some of her biggest shows of the year, Jill was a wonderful subject.

It's invasive to have a photographer and her assistant in your face- and personal space- all day. Setting up lights, climbing up ladders to get a better view, asking you to ride your bike down the street a thousand times for the camera...when all you really want to do is get back to work for real.

Recipe book. These kinds of peeks into how others spend their days is the thing I love about my job. No surprised that my favorite book as a kid was Harriet the Spy.  On days like this one, where my subject is also someone I love to work with (and be a customer of, I mean, really, you need to look at her shop if you are not familiar with her yarn and fiber), well....I have to feel pretty lucky. 

• • • • • • • 

Jill is also a client of mine, have you seen her Rural Renewal collection of designs? Later this month I'll do a BTS on shooting that collection for her last summer. I've got plans for this daily blogging thing. Stay tuned!

off on a tangent

Hipstamatically presented.  (Thanks, Kristin , for the challenge).

 

Seeing as I work from a home office, my tea breaks are very important. An excuse to stand up and walk downstairs! And distraction!  We all have our little routines; mine is strong coffee from 6 am till noon, after that it's tea all the way, baby. In the winter, my house is chilly and my office even chillier, so it's not just the mental break but the warmup, and making it last till I get to the bottom of the mug.  Which is how I found myself googling : "tea mug cozies". I realized how insane it is for someone with yarn, felted sweaters and just plain old stuff around to be even thinking about buying a tea mug cozy, so I got busy.

 

That's right, my tea mug has Barbara Walter waterskiing on it. Ugly! But it has fabulous volume, a nice big handle, and sentimental value. It was an audience souvenir when I took my mom & my aunt to see The View, (VIP seats) a rare outing for them together in the city they grew up in.

 

Here they are, holding their mug boxes post taping.2009.

  

But back to my little project. Not exactly brain surgery. I cut a length of sleeve from a felted old black sweater, measured from the cuff up. I cut it open by the seam, and blanket stitched around the three raw sides.

 

I hit the button tin to make a loop & button closure, measured to give my mug some negative ease. (yes, I did just say that). Then I  left it on a table with the tin of tangled crewel thread. Whenever I passed by, I stitched a little. I attribute this to meeting Jenny Hart last year. She gave me a serious jones to rediscover my embroidery licks. 

 

With a lot of wonk, it all came back. Daisy stitch ! Running backstitch ! Split stitch !

Of course none of this is necessary, strictly speaking, you could just cut a piece of felted sweater, add a closure and walla.  But that would not make tea break any fun, would it?

• • • • • • • • • • •

As much as Jenny Hart inspires me with her embroidery, and Kristin with her use of color and design,  Crispina ffrench inspires me to think about the possibilities with recycled sweaters. She's selling some awesome kits to make mittens out of recycled sweaters. More sophisticated than mine,(scroll to the bottom of that linked post if you want to see 'em) which I'm still loving.

 I sort of wish I wasn't off on a sweater knitting binge right now, because look at this tutorial to make a chipmunk  out of a recycled spare glove. Bobo would just explode if I made him one . Wool ! Squirrel !!

But who wants to clean up exploded bulldog, anyway?

no leavening for you!

Here's lunch time in the kitchen  at etsy headquarters in Brooklyn.  I posted a report of  my behind-the-scenes tour  over at Two Shear Spirits, my much neglected blog with Joan Tapper. Go, look, read. It was  peeking behind the curtain in Oz. Except without that weird wizard guy or multicolored horses. But with Toto-like dogs.

• • • • • • • • • • • •

Happy Passover to those observing. I made  kickass matza balls last night. I was so pleased with this particular batch I wanted to photograph them in their partially cooked glory. But, is there any cuisine less photogenic than Ashkenzaic Jewish?  I'd have had to suspend operations and style them beyond reality.  So, instead, here's a link about the White House seder.  Growing up, this is a scene that we'd maybe imagine in a comedy sketch, in that ironic stretching the humor way.  An African American president leading a seder? In the White House?  Love it!

I'm making macaroons tomorrow. Maybe they'll be prettier.

holiday reality check (hot off the press)

Non-traditional 5x5" press-printed holiday notecards, blank on the inside. They come with envelopes. In sets or as singles. Over at my etsy shop.

Red and green nature, if you prefer a more subtle holiday approach . Blank on the inside, makes a nice set of fine art notecards. Mix & match with any of the sheepiers/apaca-ier images.

5x7", press-printed fine art photo cards, w/envelopes. SheShootsSheepShots on etsy.

There's no denying it, the season is NOW. In the spirit of last minute shoppers everywhere, I just made these new cards. Whenever you order, I will send them out immediately. I happen to live next door to the post office, no kidding. Can you say con-veeen-yent? If you order them as sets of 5 cards, they go out Priority Mail.

And you can mix and match the combinations. Or just go with yarn. I won't judge.

All blank on the inside, you can choose your own message or give them as gift sets.
www.SheShootsSheepShots.etsy.com

cookie time : contest

My similar knits were saved by single mindedness: I gave the shawl a couple days of attention. It's in cast off stage now, in all its glorious Noro-ness. The asparagus Annette sweater's traveling to Florida with me in a few hours for some one-on-one attention. Because who wouldn't want to handle wool in Miami in August.
So ....what better time for a cookie break? How about chocolate chip?

Last month I had the thrill of doing a photo shoot for my BFF, a professional in the restaurant & baking biz , a cookie baker extraordinaire who's just opened her new cookie business. You can find her on etsy at Imperial Cookies.

To celebrate, I'm having a virtual cookie tasting contest. Hustle on over to her etsy shop, read her descriptions, come back and leave me a comment here saying which one is your favorite flavor. Or...what you'd want to see when she adds her next cookie to the lineup.

Since I really want to share the cookie love, mention the contest on your blog, let me know that you did, and you get entered twice.
Leave your comments by midnight Sunday August 23rd.

There'll be two winners---because I can never decide on one of anything. Drawn randomly, and each winner gets a pound of Imperial Cookies cookies of your choice.

Not that I'm trying to influence you, but these are incredibly good with tea. Or red wine.
Just saying.

mama don't take....

This sheep shot originally created on Kodachrome film, a cranky but gorgeous slide film.

This week, Kodak retired Kodachrome. There's not a good yarn analogy to Kodachrome, I guess knitting with Kidsilk Haze sorta, kinda, comes close. You just don't want to make mistakes because everyone will see 'em, and you really can't undo them once the strand is knit. But knitting is a different art form, I'm going straight to the photo jargon. Consider yourselves warned: skip down to the contest if you don't want to get all photo-geeky with me.

Kodachrome had to be sent to a Kodak lab for processing . At best, it was 3 days before you saw how, or if at all, your photo shoot turned out. There was no tolerance for exposure being even a partial F-stop over or under. No adjustments available to push or pull and save your frames as there were for other slide films. You either did it right or you didn't. AS if that weren't enough , it only came in very low ISO's, meaning, you needed a lot of light available or you needed to know how to create your own.

But the colors? Beautiful. And no grain, or noise, at all.
You know the song, right?

It was the standard for magazine & commercial photography when I started working, I had very good, picky clients so I wanted to do it right. Not that I miss shooting film, nuh-uh. The instant gratification of digital, the chimping at the back of my camera, the amazing amount of control I have to change the image, the speed. But still, sad to see the end of an era.

So what else is a knitblogger to do but have a contest ?

the prize: a set of press printed fine art photo note cards including the sheep in coats image, above

how: go over to my etsy shop, take a peek at the four images. Leave a comment on this post saying which one you like best..or suggest the kind of image you'd like to see as a note card. More animals? yarn still lifes? fiber? more knit objects? something else?

when: leave a comment on this post by midnight June 30th eastern time US, I'll announce the randomly selected winner on July 1

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Poetic justice, I'll end with an iPhone image, local color on Friday evening.
(I guess it also makes you think all the world's a sunny day.)

open house

I've got the etsy shop fully stocked and open for business now. More seaglass buttons, and press printed blank notecards debuting today. Check it out!

Seriously? If I could figure out how to serve virtual wine and cheese for you shoppers, I'd so do it.
ps I've got plenty of knitting I could show you, and I will. Soon.

ready for finding

Buttons, anyone? Come on over, I'm officially open www.SheShootsSheepShots.etsy.com

Take a look around. It's not all up yet, it's a start. I was going to show you a view of my beach down the street where I scavenge the sea glass but I like this of Kelseys Island , it's a 15 minute kayak paddle off shore. It's got a creepy edge after dark, especially if it's windy. (And, no, we do not have anything green on trees here yet, unless you count buds. This is from summer past. I am ready for a new season to get here.)

Ironically, nothing photographic for sale yet but I'm getting some notecards ready. The little gnomes are out back printing them. Or....partying, I can't tell which. Hey, keep it down, willya? I am so not letting them near my drill.