Weekly Portraits- The Third Week of July

This is what I see when I spend too long sewing or working on the blog.  Two sweet little faces, hanging out together, patiently waiting for Mama to come play with them.

 

  Little by little they’re entertaining each other more.  G still gets frustrated by his little brother, and typically prefers playing with me or the Mr, but every once in a while I hear him yelling for R to play with him.  R, for his part, will play with anyone or anything that moves.  He has started doing pullups on gates and the drawer pulls on our island.  My brain is running on overdrive trying to predict what he’s going to get into next.

 

Not So Perfect-Weekly Portraits-The Third Week of April (Pt 1)

Not so perfect in a couple of ways.  First off, I forgot to take pictures of the boys last week.  The Mr. and I went for a long weekend away together and in the hustle and bustle to get everything together for everyone, I entirely forgot to pull out my camera.

Secondly, I’m joining up with Jill of Baby Rabies in her Slice of Perfect/Messy Reality photo challenge.

Lord knows I’m not shy about admitting to you guys I’m not exactly perfect, (smeared goo and splattered dye anybody?  How about piling so much junk on shelves that they rip out of the walls?) but I definitely agree with Jill that sometimes photos paint an awfully deceiving picture.

So first off, here are my pictures of R for this week:

  He has been climbing up on everything lately, and so I thought I’d try and get a picture of him in the act.  He wasn’t interested in cooperating though, never getting further off the ground while my camera was out than he is in that first picture.  So, instead of a picture of him climbing on the table, I decided I’d climb on the table and take a picture of him below me.  Nothing like being a good example, right?

  Room looks nice and bright and clean in those pics, doesn’t it?  HA.  Cropping is tricky…this is what the room looked like, 30 seconds after I hopped down:

Also, as a note, this is the room I take 98% of my pictures in…and for nearly every single one of them, everything in the room gets piled on that table and then the table gets shoved to the side so I can use the wall as a blank backdrop.  Cuz I’m classy like that.

Pictures of G will have to wait for later tonight…he’s off at school, giving me and the lil’un some time to chill one on one.

So that’s my messy little photography secret…lets see yours!

Weekly Portraits- The Third Week of March

  Ok winter, it’s time to let up…I’m getting tired of having the same square footage to attempt to come up with interesting portraits of the boys in.  Besides, the wee bit is a climber, and at this point, there’s very little inside the house he can’t climb onto, so all of his shots keep winding up thisclose when he comes barreling towards the camera.

  G is totally on-board with the “lets get OUT of this house” initiative too.

  He stumbled across his box of chalk in the basement the other day and was about rabid to get out and draw on the driveway.  We don’t really have any weather-appropriate, play-outside clothing for R, since he’s not walking yet, and all G’s hand me downs, it was far warmer when he was this age.  I’m not about to go out and invest in teenie tiny snowpants for a week’s wear, so we just waited til R’s nap and ran outside to play before lunch.

  Nothing real special about how I took these shots.  My usual, 50 mm lens.  Both were in Aperture Priority mode with natural light.  I’ve found a new technique that I’m playing with, but I want to get more comfortable with it before I write it up…the shots I’ve gotten so far are unimpressive.  Once I have a little bit of a better handle on it, I’ll explain how it works!

Weekly Portraits- First and Second Weeks of March

Well, I can’t swear the stomach flu is gone (we thought it was gone the other night and then G threw up again…) but things have calmed down enough for me to do a little bit of photo processing and posting at least!

First up are last week’s pictures.  G’s birthday was Friday (the last day of Feb) and R’s was Monday, so we had the grandparents over on Saturday and did the whole cake-and-presents thing.

  The cake was a creation of the Mr.’s…and was actually brownies that we frosted.  We sort of set ourselves up last year by making G a “Lightning McQueen” cake.  He had just gotten into Cars, and with my being due with R at literally any moment, we didn’t want to get a cake until the last second, just to be sure that we’d be home to serve it!  So instead of doing anything crazy, we bought a pre-made sheet cake (one of the ones with roses, that you see in every grocery-store bakery, everywhere) and plunked a Lightning McQueen Hot Wheel on top.  He loved it, and, as his birthday approached this year, not so subtly indicated he’d like another one.  He obviously didn’t need another Lightning, so we grabbed him an Iron Man figurine…his newest obsession.

  So it seems plunking a small toy on top of the birthday cake is now a thing.  …way easier than trying to do some crazy, detailed frosting rendering, so I’ll take it!

This week’s pictures are from a wrestling match the boys had on our bed.  G loves climbing on our bed, closing the curtains and using our canopy as a secret fort.  For some reason, that secret fort always seems to get wild!  I poked my lens through the curtains, and did my best to get some snaps when faces were showing.

  Don’t let G fool you here, he looks sad, or contemplative…what he is, is UP TO SOMETHING.   R kept dropping the planes and helicopters they’d been playing with behind the headboard, thinking it was hilarious when the Mr had to go get them, and G wanted to get in on that.  He was a little more sneaky about it though, and adopted this faux “I’m zoning out” look before dropping his toy.

  Pretty subtle buddy.  Not so subtle I didn’t see exactly what you were planning…but your Daddy didn’t catch it.  Granted, Daddy was also dealing with this at the time:

  I’ve been working on a huge overhaul of colors and new prints over in my Spoonflower shop, trying to make sure I have a couple of collections to go with me to Quilt Market in May, and once I get that pounded a little bit more into shape, I’ll write that up too!

  Thanks for your patience with the scarcity of posts everybody, it’s been a loooooong winter.

Weekly Portraits-The Last Week of February

  For this week’s shoot I wanted to get pictures with both the boys in the same picture together.  I’ve had a picture of G from just before his first birthday in our bedroom since, well, just after his first birthday…and I wanted to exchange it for one of both boys…just before their 4th and 1st birthdays respectively.

  Attempting to get both of these firebrands into frame, looking at me, focused, in portrait orientation (to fit the frame) and not making horrendous faces was an exercise in patience, but it paid off.

  Awww, brother hugs.  I don’t see this picture getting replaced for many years.

Weekly Portraits- The Third Week of February

Things have been quiet around here on the “creative” front.  I’ve been desperately trying to finish the scarf I started for G back in, oh, I don’t know, November?  For some reason I just haven’t had much inspiration to work on it.

I also suspect that somebody let a flock herd swarm of tsetse flies loose in my house, because I’ve been going to bed early, sleeping late and napping and am still exhausted all the time.  No, I am NOT pregnant…just, apparently dying of sleeping sickness.  Or, you know, trying to keep up with 2 energetic little boys who haven’t been able to get outside and play for MUCH too long.

G seems to have just as bad a case of cabin fever as I do.  Partly I think it’s the age, but I can’t help but believe that part of his mood swinging from saint to demon-spawn in 3.2 seconds flat so often has to be at least somewhat related to the lack of fresh air we’ve been getting as of late.

  R’s mood has been significantly brighter than, well, anybody else I’ve ever met…but while his giggles make it more adorable when he gets into things he shouldn’t, it’s still exhausting.  …and he’s hell-on-wheels fast now.  I’m not sure how much longer we have before this guy is going to be walking.  He’s definitely doing the thing where if he’s holding something in his hands he forgets that he’s not holding onto a piece of furniture and will stand, completely independently, for several seconds, before realizing what he’s doing and freaking out.

  He really didn’t want to let me get far enough away from him to get the camera to focus with that first picture.  Most of the pics I got of him are blurred because he was zooming towards me so quickly.  The second one, I had to include, because it so nicely showcases the little staticky puff of hair he has constantly had lately.  It seems fair to me that since he made my hair all exploded puff ball of static that he should have a matching ‘do.

  These guys both have birthdays coming up in the next week and a half, so hopefully I can get some good “cake” shots.  Meanwhile, I’m going to keep slogging along, working on fabric designs, knitting the scarf that just won’t die and, since we’re supposed to have a bit of a “warm” spell, hopefully getting these boys out for some sunlight!

Weekly Portraits-The Second Week of February

Last weeks portraits were rather subdued and serious.  That’s not really my boys.  They’re silly, and constantly goofing around and giggling.  But typically, if they’re giggling, I’m playing, not taking pictures!

I thought this week I’d catch their goofier sides.

  Neither of these sets were terribly easy to capture.  G, especially, breaks out his cheesy fake smile when I ask him to smile for the camera, so I have to either get him when he’s NOT smiling, or actually elicit a laugh to get something genuine.  Patience is of the essence, believe me.

  The wee bit is a little easier…just play a round of peek a boo while snapping shots and he’ll chortle away.

  Same lens and general set up as last week.  I’ve only got 2 lenses, so don’t expect a whole heck of a lot of variation!

Weekly Portraits-The First Week of February

  These two are so cooperative about letting me point my camera at them.  Poor G has been my bitty model for almost 4 years now…and even R has been trained to “pose” every time he sees the lens come out.

  Both of these shots were taken while they boys were playing together in the living room.  I tried to get one with both of them in the frame at the same time, but they just move far too fast.

  Sure, I want to document them as they grow up…but not if it means stopping them from playing nicely together to get a shot I want!

  I got the shots by opening the curtains on the east side of our living room and sitting with my back to them, so when I caught a good expression, the boys’ faces were well lit.  I used my 50mm lens with the aperture around 2.

Calvin and Hobbes- My Sweet Little Boys’ Halloween

  Alright, so first things first, I’m going to warn you, I’m a failure as a blogger and mother when it comes to photos this Halloween.  Between the rain, the preschooler’s aversion to even slightly-damp clothing, the boys napping in shifts and my just being lazy, I didn’t get a single picture of the boys together.  I also only got pictures with my phone.

  Boo, hiss, I suck…whatever.  I’m over it.  Lets get on to the cute pictures already.

  Isn’t R just the cutest Calvin you’ve ever seen?  …probably because he’s not old enough to get into any of the trouble that comic-book-Calvin is always giving his parents…

  I was shocked by the utter impossibility of finding a plain red shirt for him.  Apparently kids aren’t allowed to have clothing without pictures on it?  I wound up buying 2T-3T white undershirts and tossing one in a bath of Rit dye.  I used cherry red.  Be warned, cherry red is suspiciously close to fushia pink.  After I finished dyeing it, I used a sharpie to draw the imperfect, sketched on, comic book black lines.

  And here is our Hobbes, finally cooperating with having a picture taken…and, of course, his absolutely necessary tail.

  I’ve already walked you through how I made the pants and sweater…the tail is just a long, skinny rectangle that I stuffed, sewed shut and stitched onto an elastic belt.

  I’m desperately hoping that he decides to wear the pieces of this as part of his everyday wardrobe.  I spent a stupid amount of time on this costume otherwise.  I was a little annoyed when I started that I wasn’t going to be able to make the pieces match, but honestly, I sort of love it now that it’s done.  I think it makes it more playful.  3 year olds, even 3 year old tigers, oughtn’t need to match.

  Finally, because Halloween is my favorite holiday and I can’t stand to be left out of the dress-up fun, I threw together this costume at the literal last minute:

  The rain just kept coming down and didn’t show any signs of letting up, so I racked my brain for costumes that integrated an umbrella.  Mary Poppins was the obvious choice!

  I hope all of you enjoyed your Halloweens as much as we enjoyed ours!

Knit Baby "Quilt" Blanket

  I’m really excited to show you guys today’s project.  It’s one I’ve had in the works for an exceptionally long time and then had to keep hidden because I didn’t want to ruin the surprise.  My dear, dear friends in Pittsburgh are expecting a baby and I finally handed over this blanket:

  This is a couple dozen knit stitches/patterns joined together into one blanket.

  To make the blanket I created 6 separate “scarves” of a certain number of stitches.  One scarf for instance is composed of all knit patterns that are 24 stitches wide.  Once the scarves were all completed I used the same yarn to stitch them together.  After they were stitched into a square I borrowed my mom’s foam mat and blocked it to get out some of the weird pulling spots where some of the patterns were narrower than others.  Finally, I crocheted a frame of single crochet stitches around the outside to stabilize everything.

  Probably the most challenging part of this project was finding enough interesting patterns that had the right number of stitches.  There were lots of them that were just 1 or 2 stitches off from what I needed.  Luckily, the internet is a wonderful resource for knitting, so I managed to muddle through.

  I’m really happy with how it turned out.  I had this concept for a long time before I started executing it.  I love the “sampler” look in all one color.  With all the lacey stitches there are lots of holes for little fingers to explore.  My friends love it and I can’t wait to see their little one all wrapped up inside!