The leaves in the above shot were very red, but I loved the vintage feel of this version.

Straight out of camera, the sky was that blue!

I use to think that summer was my favorite time of the year, and now I am not so sure… Fall really is lovely around here (well when it isn’t raining). I think the only downside of fall is that it doesn’t last forever and winter does eventually have to arrive. (And with winter comes the rain from what I hear :)

Some sewing hopefully in the next post, since this is supposed to be a craft blog after all… :)

One of the things that took up a lot of time this last month was a fairly big photo shoot that I had booked. I was hired to take school portraits for 60+ kids at a local private school. It went great & was such a blast! While I love natural light, outdoor portraits I can now also say that I love studio portraits too. The lighting is a whole new adventure for me, but it is also a lot of fun!

I would love to share the photos from that shoot, but since I don’t have permission from each of the parents I thought I would share a few from another shoot I did right before that one. A few of these are in my portfolio, so if you have been to my new website you might have seen some of these but I mixed in a few that I don’t have posted over there…

If you live in the Seattle area & are looking for a portrait photographer, be sure to stop by my website - Chara Michele Photography :)

Okay, my little self promotion is over… back to a bit of crafting maybe? :)

(All photos are copyrighted by me, please do not use without permission.Thanks!)

I can’t believe I haven’t shared this already, but I have a new website for my photography!

Chara Michele Photography

It really feels amazing to have this be a reality… A lot of my blogging break this last month or so was spent working on my photography business & making this dream more of a reality. I have had a lot of support from family & friends, and I definitely have to say a big thanks to my husband who has supported this dream of mine from the very start. This blog & all of you readers out there have also been a great inspiration. In a lot of ways this blog was the start of my love for photography. So thanks to everyone!

(More in my next post about that big photo shoot I mentioned a month or so ago.)

One Quilt Block for September -

I absolutely love the colors & fabrics that Leah picked out for her month for One Quilt. It makes me want to go with the white background idea when it gets to be my month (which is coming up really soon, so I really need to start thinking about that…)

As sad as it is I only finished 2 pretty small sewing projects this whole last month. The only other thing I managed to finish besides September’s quilt block was this little baby blanket for a friend’s new baby girl…

I never knew I could miss my sewing machine so much! :) When I finally sat down to sew that baby blanket, I just wanted to sit & sew for a few days straight. I have quite the list of projects going right now, so I just might have to find some time to do just that! :)

(And even though I didn’t get much sewing in this last month, I do still have a few more catch up posts in the works :)

Really I hardly even know where to start… There is so much to share from this last month - photo shoots, fall colors, a little bit of sewing (although not nearly enough of that last one). Maybe a bit of sewing & crafting?

Pounce insisted he be a part of the photo…

Okay so making jam isn’t sewing, but it sort of fits in with crafting. To be perfectly honest, I am not much of a cook & I don’t really know my way around the kitchen. So when I see great recipes on other blogs or good food ideas, I sometimes bookmark it but never use the recipe or get around to making that food. The idea of making my own fresh jam though sounded so good, so when one of my friends offered to teach me & even offered some of her extra raspberries I jumped at the opportunity. I was amazed at how simple jam making really is and how great it turns out! Next summer I think I might have to try a few more fruit jams and maybe even a bit of canning (maybe). Of course I still don’t know how to make dinner, but who needs dinner when you can have toast & jam right ;)

I have lots more to share, including a bit of sewing, but I think I might try to break it into smaller posts. So I think you can expect at least a couple more posts this week. I also added 2 new banners up above (they alternate so you will have to refresh to see both) to spruce things up around here for fall!

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…

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.

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 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. :)