I just wanted to pop in to my blog to say that I am still around :) Things have gotten crazy busy around here (about the exact opposite of how I thought the end of summer would be), but it is good crazy busy. I have a really big photo shoot coming up that I have been busy preparing for and am excited about. So I haven’t found much time for sewing or crafting, it has all been photography around here lately. I will probably have a few crafting things in the next couple weeks, so I might pop back in a few times but I think things might be a bit quiet around here the next couple weeks until after I am done with this photo shoot… I hope everyone is having a good start to the fall though and I look forward to being back to blogging very soon! :)

(And since I don’t have any crafting to show, I thought I might share a few more of my favorites from the senior session I did about a month ago now…)

I already posted this one below in color, but I really like it in black & white too…

A little something from my w.i.p. pile…

These will eventually be made into a quilt, although I have yet to decide what size quilt or what I will do with it. I actually made 3 more blocks today that I didn’t photograph, so even though a few of these have been sitting finished on my w.i.p. pile for awhile now I am making a little bit of progress on it. I just need some cold rainy days (or not) to make me want to stay inside and finish it up.

I meant to blog about this project way back in the beginning of July when I actually finished it, but totally forgot and then things just got busy (and our living room got messy and so I didn’t want to take a picture until it was nice and clean). So now the living room is clean, things are a little less crazy, and I finally remembered I never posted this. :)

It took me forever to decide how to arrange our living room furniture when we moved in and then when I finally decided I had this nice big empty wall/walkway a couple feet behind the couch (there is a door to the left of those photos that goes out to our patio so there sort of has to be a walkway there) that was perfect for a gallery display of photos. I didn’t actually come up with the idea for this photo wall, I saw it on Tara’s blog and she actually got the idea from Erin’s blog… It was just perfect though for the space we have and it is so much fun to have my own photos on our wall instead of some art from Ikea or something! :)

Details: The frames are 19 3/4 x 19 3/4 Ikea clips frames. I added the white borders in photoshop and then had the photos printed through a pro lab. (I actually had one photo printed with borders & without and decided I really liked the borders so when I ordered the rest I included borders.)

I hope everyone has a good weekend! I have really enjoyed posting these last 3 days in a row, so I will be back on Monday for sure to post some more! :)

I think I can feel summer slowly winding down, mostly because I have actually managed to fit a bit of cleaning and sewing in this week… I am a little sad to see summer go, but at the same time I am looking forward to the next season in anticipation of what it might bring. Living in a new place always makes each season feel fresh and new in some ways.

I had planned on sewing a bit more this summer and trying to make my summer tops, but the summer just got away from me too quickly. Before summer ended completely I decided I needed to make another Simplicity 3835 top though. Fortunately I can wear these through the fall, by just layering a long sleeved t-shirt underneath. (Oh and yay for an H&M in the Seattle area finally, so I have somewhere to buy tops for layering!)

Excuse the terrible lighting/not so great photo on this shot… That is what happens when you decide to take a picture of yourself in the bathroom mirror at 10:30 at night.

A few notes about the top: I didn’t add the elastic to the sleeves this time around, which makes it so much better! (Seriously I love it without the elastic in the sleeves!) I also brought in the sides a bit (I was too lazy to add darts) and lengthened it a bit since I am tall. (Really if you are thinking about trying this top, making it to fit your body type properly does make a huge difference.) I have to say I am pretty happy with this version, although I wish the gingham was 100% cotton instead of a cotton/poly blend… I also wish I had used black thread instead of white, so maybe I will have to make this same exact top again using a cotton gingham and black thread? I could always hang this one on the wall of my studio as decoration since it matches the chair in my studio perfectly (totally kidding about the decoration idea, although it does match…) :)

Wow, thanks for all your lovely comments on my new little venture! I am still catching up on emails, but I do plan on emailing each of you individually to thank you for your comments. I did go ahead and draw 2 names (actually the random number generator online picked 2 numbers), and the winners of the fat quarter stacks are commenters #4 Julie B. and #43 Carrie. Ladies, if you will go ahead and email me your addresses I will get those sent out in the mail to you this week…

So Saturday we had our little Pacific Northwest Craft Blog Meet-up. There ended up just being four of us, since it was a fairly busy weekend for most people, but we had so much fun. Of course who wouldn’t have fun hanging out with these lovely ladies… I totally spaced and forgot to bring my camera with so I don’t have any photos, but it was great to just get to chat. I think this is definitely something we will have to do again in the near future… Maybe next time a few more of you can join us even for a bit of coffee & chatting :)

Oh and I know it is already the middle of the week really, but I think I am going to post every day the rest of this week. I have been missing blogging a little bit, so I thought I might jump back into it. :)