Apple Picking... Without the Apples

Hi everyone! Long time no "chat", huh?

I put off and put off posting in the hopes I'd have some stitching to show for the past few weeks... and well... nothing has miraculously stitched itself while I slept. I actually did start Olga, though! Yay me! But, Olga got hit with some frogs... I had to rip out everything I stitched, b/c I started too far to the middle and realized that I would only end up with about 1/8" on the opposite edge if I continued. I just wasn't paying attention because I was in such a rush to work on her. That'll teach me... well, it should teach me, but it probably won't, lol!! That was this past week on one of my lunch hours and I haven't touched her since. Poor Olga. Retract your claws dear Olga. I promise to take you to work with me this week.

Yesterday, my picture taking friend Melissa and I attempted to take our two children (and our "dudes") to the local pick your own orchard for some apple pickin' and picture takin'. We came up with the plan early in the week and both of us spent the rest of the week plotting our photographic plan of attack. When we arrived, we were informed that the apples weren't ready yet... say what?? But your website says... (and the attempted 'from scratch' pie crust for use with said apples? Yeah. We won't talk about that m'kay?)... Ah well. We cut our losses and headed over to their berry patch.

I had two photographic lessons reinforced while we were there. 1) High in the sky sun is a photographer's enemy. 2) Never believe what the LCD screen on your camera is telling you - especially when you are standing in bright, non-shady, almost directly overhead sunlight. Ever. Just don't do it. Trust me. Why?? Oh. Well, hypothetically speaking (because I know this lesson already and would neeever allow myself to be tricked) you might look at the pictures you just took and think "wow, those are really overexposed." Then you might think "Wow, I'm a photographic genius! I'll fix this! I'll just drop my exposure compensation a few stops and all will be well with my photographic world again." And if you do that you might (okay, you will) end up with pics that look like they are properly exposed ("Oh, self... you are soooo silly! They just look dark on the screen b/c it's so bright outside!"), but in reality are nearly unsalvageably dark, and which can only be made "presentable" by applying some special effects in PhotoShop Elements and pretending you took the pics that way because you wanted to apply said special effects in post processing.

Anyway. Here are some pics from yesterday. Enjoy!!

Okay, that's it for me! Have a great week, everyone!!

~Robin

New Beginnings

Hi there everybody! How are you? This seems to be a very busy time of year, doesn't it?

We have two kinds of beginnings going on in our household. The first, and most exciting and important is that my baby is now a kindergartener. :) Lots of prep (like choosing the perfect dress for her first day of school), and nervousness (she woke up that morning and said she was sooo nervous and scared) beforehand, but she loves it. She has been so proud to bring her folder home everyday with a "green circle" on the daily calendar (indicating that she was a good girl all day). She loves her teacher and loves her new friends, and really really loves it that she is now "a big kid." You know me... I had the camera out while we left the house and waited for the bus. I took WAY too many pictures, and here are just a few:

The other "beginning" (really... not sure it actually deserves to be called that) is that I finally got myself off of full auto on my camera last weekend! The hubs, girl child, and I went to a little field in our neighborhood and I took pictures while daddy & Leah ran around like fools and goofed off just to humor me and let me practice with my camera. I made a few REALLY stupid mistakes, but am very excited that I took the training wheels off a little bit and actually got some decent shots. Here are a few of my favorites:

That's it for now... no stitching I'm afraid... I hear it distantly calling my name, but I've been so busy the past week that I haven't really been able to spend a ton of time on anything except maintaining day to day. And, I'm still pretty obsessed with the whole photography "thing" so it might be a little while before I really pick the stitching up again. However, I do have a bit of a crafty project brewing, probably for sometime this week. So, who knows... I may actually have some "product" rolling out of my craft room in the next post.

Thanks to all of you that commented on my last post! I got some comments from folks that I hadn't "met" before, which was very very cool, so thanks and welcome to you ladies!

Have a great week!!!
Robin

Stitching In Stasis

Hi there everyone!

Well, as you can see from the title of this post - ain't no stitchin' here. None. At all. For the last... week and a half? Two weeks?

So, what have I been doing with my free time? Playing with PhotoShop Elements. Yep. I finally decided to bite the bullet and learn how to use the program so that I could quit my belly-achin' about all the pics I see from the pro-fesh-un-als (and non-pros, too!) that make me want to weep with envy, and drool all over my keyboard. Now, don't get me wrong. I got one of those million page long "Missing Manual" books when I got the program, and I did read it - somewhat. But I'm a hands on kind of learner so it wasn't really cuttin' the mustard, know what I'm sayin'? So, I did what any 21st century gal without a clue how to do something does - I went to YouTube, and watched hours of tutorials. There I learned about previously mysterious things like "layer masks", filters, actions, blah blah blah into the wee hours of the mornings. And when I was done there I searched blogland for some more help.

Eureka!! Via The Pioneer Woman's site, I came across this blog:
http://www.coffeeteaphotography.blogspot.com/

Oh my. There is a WEALTH (A wealth, I tell you!!) of information there for the new PSE user. And info isn't all!! This brilliant, awesome lady actually creates FREE actions that are usable in PSE (you aren't supposed to be able to create actions in PSE [an action is a recorded macro - no idea why Adobe calls it an "action", rather than a "macro"], which is one of the main differences between the el cheapo PhotoShop [Elements], and the full on [@$700!!!??!!!] PhotoShop)! AND, one of those free actions is the ability to create a layer mask on ANY layer in PSE (another of the key differences in the two programs). Score!!!!

Anyway... let me rein myself in here... So!! I've been fiddling around, and here are a few of my recent attempts. Most of the before shots are SOOC (Straight Out of the Camera).

Before:

After:

Before:

After (a quick note - the point of this edit was to accomplish something [near to] "tilt shift photography" - the point of TSP is to make what you've taken a photo of look toy like. I plan on taking more pics in the future with the intent of them being TSP shots, so hopefully those will be more obviously toy like, but for my training sessions I've been using pics I've already got):
Before:
After:

Before (another quick note - this shot is not SOOC. This before pic includes the basic edits I've been making since I got the program):
After:

Before:

After:


Before:
After:

Before (Yet another note - I did not take this photo. My DH did [gotta give credit where credit is due!].):

After:

So! There you have it! Hopefully this encourages someone out there reading this that it isn't actually terribly difficult to get really great results from a not ridiculously expensive photo editing program (trust me - if I can do it, you can do it!).

If you are at all interested in photography and editing your photos, but don't yet have the know how, I would highly encourage you to explore YouTube tutorials, then go visit the aforementioned blog (there are a few others out there, but the one I listed is the one I by far got the most "juice" out of). It really is a lot of fun!

Sorry no stitching this go 'round (and thanks for your comments on my last post)! I have been missing it the last few days, so probably will have something to show you next time.

Have a fabulous week, everyone!

Robin

Touch & Go

Hi there everybody! This is going to be a quick - a "touch & go" - post (see the end of this post re: "touch & go")...

Not much going on, really, pretty much just day in day out kind of stuff... Leah is getting ready to start kindergarten in a couple weeks, so we're starting to get prepared for that. She's very excited to finally be able to go to "big girl school".

I have recently been bitten by the PhotoShop (Elements) bug... again - i.e. I've been drowning myself in tutorial videos, blogs, etc. trying to figure out how to use the advanced features to make my photos really fab, so there hasn't been a whole lot of stitching going on, but here is what I've done in the last few weeks:

Another Prairie Schooler Olde World Santa:

And some progress on The Blessing:

I also kitted up Olga (Plum Street Samplers) over the weekend and can't wait to start it. Someone (who prefers to remain anonymous) RAK'd the pattern to me, and I was overjoyed because I was going to "be good" for the sake of my wallet and not get her right away. She is just adorable! I can't wait to have her out when fall comes! Speaking of Fall... is anyone else ready for a break from the brutal heat?? Yeesh!

Okay, that's it for me (see, told ya it would be quick!), I'm going to get back to wrestling PSE into compliance. :)

Thanks for all of your comments on my last post!! I am always so glad to hear from you all! The notification "ping" on my phone is music to my ears. :) I was caught up on commenting on Sunday, but have since fallen behind... sorry!!! I'll get caught up very soon, I promise! Oh! And I notice I've gained a couple new followers! Welcome!

Okay, check ya later peeps!!

Robin

*Touch & Go: Okay, I'm an Air Force brat, so when I was trying to think of a clever title to convey that this post would be a quick one, I thought of watching fighter jet "touch & go" maneuvers as a kid. Now we weren't usually close enough to actually see the jets' tires hit the runway, but usually we could see them dip below view, and then lickety split streak back up again. It was very very cool, esp. for jet obsessed kids. :) As kids it didn't occur to us that the pilots weren't just having some fun. These were real drills for pilots that could find themselves in a hostile situation at any moment when deployed.

An Oasis (and some progress, too)...

Hi there everyone! I hope you've all had a great week! Before I get started I want to say thank you so much for taking the time to read (and comment on!) my posts. I love hearing from you all, and knowing I'm not posting for the crickets. You all are such an inspiration to my crafty endeavors, and I am honored that talented folks such as yourselves take the time to tell me how I'm doing. That sounds so sappy, I know, but it's true! So, thanks! :)

Okay, the main event of this post will be the reveal of my "new" bedroom. Unfortunately, I don't have any before pics to show you. Basically, it was pretty boring. Builder almond walls, red patterned comforter and matching drapes (which my step-mom helped me make, so I felt a twinge of sadness pulling them down and sending them to Salvation Army), an elliptical machine, some of the hubby's weights, and other misc. "stuff" that somehow made its way into the room.

Well, I cleared all that out, painted, and this is what we ended up with (looking in from the bedroom door):


The bed, with this original oil on canvas artwork in a fab frame (it was a total steal at $35!! And, it doesn't look quite this small IRL...):


"My" corner of the sitting area (the rug in this pic is where the whole "design" started - it was a major "score" at Home Goods, and after I had it I based all other purchases, and the wall color on that rug. Recognize the trunk? It used to reside in my craft room. The rest of the house was cannibalized freely for this redo - including the round table in between the chairs):


Looking into the bedroom from the bathroom:


And one last shot... just because I love the blue of the wall against the white drapery & chair, and the gold framed mirror:


So, that's it! I really love the way it turned out. It is so calming and peaceful in there now... everything I always hoped our master bedroom would be. There is still more accessorizing to do, and I'd like to get more artwork on the walls, but I'm happy with it as is, so those other acquisitions will be moments of serendipity.

What else have I been up to... Well, I did get a decent amount of stitching in this week, so here's where I am now:


Next on the agenda for this piece will be the house - I did the tree first so I wouldn't have to count (and possibly have to frog) a lot of wide open space to start stitching the house. We'll see how far I progress in the evenings this week. Speaking of audiobooks (nice segue, right?) - I started listening to Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir yesterday while I was stitching. It is fantastic!! If you like historical fiction, you sould definitely read or listen to this book. Just wonderful! I have always liked this author's non-fiction histories, and her transition to fictionalizing the people and events she has researched so heavily is absolutely flawless. 5 stars all the way!

That's about all I've got for this week... I get to go get my baby next weekend, and cannot wait to see her!! When we get home it'll be time to get her ready for kindergarten. Wow... time really flies, doesn't it? It literally seems like yesterday (or last week) that I was bringing her home from the hospital.

Since I've already tortured you with a post and a half worth of pics, I figure what's a couple more?? I had my macro lens out today to play around, and here are a couple of the shots I caught:

Have a fantastic week, everyone!!

Robin

Briing Back, Briing Back, Bring Back my Mojo to me, to me...

Hi, everyone! How's it going?

Thanks so much for your kind comments on my last post. I can't tell you how much I enjoy getting and reading each and every one of them! I've been pretty remiss in my blogging responsibilities the last few weeks (sorry!), but finally caught up on commenting this afternoon.

And, while I was catching up, I found two great giveaways - head over to Deb's (her name is the link) if you haven't already - she's a great lady with a great blog! And when you're done there, head over to Jan's wonderful blog (again, her name is the link) for a chance to win some more goodies!

I can't quite believe it's been a bit over a month since I last posted - it doesn't seem like it's possible that that much time has gone by, but it has. Nothing bad has been going on, just busy... two kinds of busy, in fact. The kind of busy where you go to bed at night thinking "wow, today was a really busy day, but honestly... I have no idea why or what I did!" and the kind of busy where you're getting lots done, and are wishing there were more hours in the day!

Not much time has been spent on stitching... okay, really, almost zero time. I don't think I've picked up my needle in about 3 weeks! Even when I have had the time, I have been completely unmotivated to even look at it.

So, instead of new progress and new projects, I'm going to show you what I got done while Leah was gone last time, and what was done shortly after she got back.

First up, my second completed Olde Worlde Santa ornament:


I did start a third, but decided no one really wants to see a small green blob of stitching... not a very interesting progress pic. I'm hoping to get all of this series stitched and finish finished by Christmas - that's a lofty goal for me!

Next up is the quilt top I was talking about finishing. It is complete! I finished it while Leah was with grandma last time. First pic is the only star that came out with the points even remotely correct:

And, here's the whole thing:


I love the colors, and the contrast. I wish there had been more red and blues and less browns in this layer cake, but overall, I'm really happy with it. Now I just need to get some backing fabric, baste it, and quilt it. I should be able to get that done some time this decade, don't you think? I'd better, b/c I'm itching to rip into some more of the jelly rolls and layer cakes I've got, and (esp. with the quilts), I'm a one project at a time kind of girl.



Next up is my progress (sadly, not much to show...) on The Blessing. Here's where I was last time I posted:

And here's where I am now:

Last week and weekend was one of those running around like a chicken with my head cut off kind of times. My mom (aided and abetted by Leah) conned talked me into letting Leah come back for a bit longer visit before the end of the summer, so the week prior to the 4th of July weekend was spent frantically getting her ready for a 3 week visit (3 weeks!! WTH was I thinking??). Saturday, I drove her to MI, Sunday I drove home (9 hours each way), and when I got home started the real "work" of my annual home decor project. I decided to redo our master bedroom, and so, everything had to be cleared out so I could get to the walls to paint them. Monday I painted, Tuesday I finished painting, and the rest of the evenings this week were spent recuperating from all the chaos. Friday night the DH & I put everything back in the room, and set up the new furniture, then yesterday we went out to get things to "complete" the room. And, now it's as complete as it's going to be. I'll save pics til my next post (next weekend, I swear!) because I'm just now pausing to catch my breath.

Anywho, now that my "while Leah is gone" projects are pretty much complete, I'm really really hoping to be able to get a severe case of stitch a$$ for the remaining evenings and weekend I'm without my baby - and when I say severe, I'm talking so severe it necessitates a visit from some hot helpful firefighters to get me unstuck from my chair.

Speaking of "hot" and "firefighters"... I don't know about the rest of you, but it has been seriously HOT in my neck of the woods (Mid Atlantic) lately. So hot, people's dead deck plants have spontaneously combusted. I'm sooo not kidding. Here's a link to an article about one such fire in my town. We actually tied a city in SoCal for the hottest city in the country one day last week. It was 106. Plus humidity (fortunately, not too high). Ugh! I don't really mind the heat usually, but good grief!! Even for me, that's a bit extreme!

Well, have a great week everyone! I'm going to sign off and see if I can get the DH to make me something alcoholic, yummy... and frozen.

Stay cool!!
Robin

Memorial Day Part Deux - Cute Overload

Wuzzup my homeys?? Howz it hangin'? Are you ready for a pic heavy, word lite, cuteness loaded post? Good! Here goes!

First up, the lambs. They were so stinking cute and full of personality this year!! No real narrative for these, but I did come up with captions. :)

Yeeeee-haw!!!! We're FREEEEE!!!!

Holy sheep doo Sheeplets! What is THAT???


I so tired... just 5 more minutes, then I play cute more, 'kay?

What's up Doc?

The little guy below had been getting shoved aside by the rest of the herd during feeding time, and as a result became so weak, he pretty much can't move. So, he's separated and getting some extra TLC. Including loving from Miss Leah.

Next up, pics of Leah's very first "real, big girl" riding lesson. She was sooooo excited (can you tell from this pic??):


She did some practice in the indoor arena, then it was out the door to ride outside for the first time in her little life:



She did such a great job! I know I'm biased, but really... I've seen adults not steer and stop, then start again so well their first time out. It probably helps that a) she had been dreaming of that day for ages, and b) her brain is like a little sponge - all young and what not. ;)

Here are my two other favorite pics:

Can you tell she was enjoying the heck out of it? She is still at grandma's (I get to go get her on Friday - thank GOD!!! I knew I'd miss her, but my my my...) and having a grand ole time living the life of a farm girl (stay tuned at the end of the post for "Leah's Theory of Good Farm Girl Living"). Riding every day, playing with the dog and cats and lambs. Every kid's dream, right?

Mooooving on....

Maybe if I close my eyes, she'll be gone when I open them...

Here's the obligatory shot of Leah's best buddy Razz:

We wondered if he'd remember her again this year... sure enough we got there and after hugs and kisses for grandma, Razz was the first stop on Leah's "must do immediately" itinerary. He was eating his grain, so we figured that the likelihood he'd be interested in greeting her was slim to none. Ha! Goes to show what we know! She called him a few times, and over he came. Pretty cute.

And what farm would be complete without flowers??

Daisies aren't my favorites in the garden (Not that I don't like them! I do!), but I sure do think they're the happiest looking flowers!

Just a cool looking dead tree...

And my favorite early summer flower, the peony...

And that brings us to... "Leah's Theory of Good Farm Girl Living"....

Let me set the scene. Per grandma's request Leah is helping in the barn by raking up the hay that got in the aisleway during chores. Our good family friend and farm helper, Marty, comes in and asks Leah how she's doing... and a theory is born:

Marty: How's it going, Leah?

Leah: Good.

Marty: You're doing a good job raking up the hay... looks like you're turning into a pretty good farm girl, huh?

Leah: Uh-huh. (Looks up at Marty). Mr. Marty? When I grow up I'm going to be a farm girl, but I'm not doing chores and raking and all this other stuff.

Marty: Well, then who will take care of the animals and the farm?

Leah: My servants.

Marty: Servants? What servants?

Leah: My mom.

Well, that's all I've got right now, folks! I've gotten some things done in the craft room, but not as much as I thought I would with my evenings being "free". But enough to make a pretty "busy" crafting post, so I'll save it for next time.

Once again, thanks so much for your comments! I know you are all busy, so it really makes it extra special when I (maybe a tad obsessively) check for comments and see that I've got a new one. :)

Have a fantastic week everyone!!

Robin