Fiber Fool

Around these parts it seems most of my plant pictures come from the yards of our friends. I still am acquiring some great ones from our friends this year. However, in 2007 I have photos from our yard too! We actually got around to planting a bit of a garden this year and our fruit trees are doing fantastic. In fact, our unknown tree it seems is the fruit bearing plum tree, even though we were told it was a different tree. The evidence above says otherwise. The tree is packed with them. We need to thin them out a bit, but it doesn’t seem as intuitive to do so as with our apple tree.

About a month or so ago we got a call from Ashley telling us about a couple of plant sales going on in town and met up with her and had a plant buying frenzy. The sale at the community garden center was all heirloom plants started from seeds from Seeds of Change. We picked up two different types of peppers, a globe eggplant, and two types of tomatoes. My friend Susan was over this afternoon (and she has a fantastic yard, though I’ve never capture it in photos — yet) and she was helping weed and suggesting other plants to put into the other raised beds and such. I think she may have gotten me more motivated to be out in the yard this season. We’ll see if it lasts once the heat hits though…

These orchid photos are courtesy of Anne letting me photograph them while we visited. The sun was setting when I started photographing them. The first is just with the natural light and long exposure time (without a tripod, even!) and the second was with flash, but using the diffuser.

It has been a very busy week, not just work-wise, but also socially. It seems we have had something going on every night this week. A visit with Anne (whom we hadn’t seen in week) at her house to see the garden in the early stages, voice lessons and dinner another night, graduate student operas, and on and on. I’m exhausted. But the weekend is full too with some fun gatherings with friends we haven’t seen in a while and some of us SnB gals are getting together on Sunday. I’ll wait to share what we’re doing until next week.

Have a great weekend!

I don’t think there is anything much scarier than to have someone order something of worth from you but demanding nothing specific. Giving you 100% creative freedom. Sure, it sounds great. You jump in and do what the photos and fabrics say to you. But, during the entire process there is that niggling voice asking questions and planting seeds of doubt. This is nothing like the original book that prompted them to contact me for these commissions at first glance. In reality the very start of this book is almost identical, but it looks so drastically different because of the difference in materials. There is also the reality that the book they liked would not fit with the decor of the house this book is to serve as a warming gift for.

Yikes! This book is going to be in a $3.3 million dollar house! What did I charge for it? Probably not enough…

It has been carefully wrapped and packaged. It has been dropped into the FedEx box. Can I pull it back out and come up with a reason for a further delay and give it another shot? Even if I could open the drop box and retrieve it, you do hit a point where you just have to say your prayers and put it out there. Not to mention, if I made another I wouldn’t make a profit!

Do commissions ever get easier? *sigh* I’m not sure I can handle the stress…

Dimensions: 6 X 8 X 1.5 inches
Pages: 64, white 98 lb pastel paper
Binding: Exposed Spine Herringbone and Chain, Lay-flat
Extras: Eyelet Reinforcement, Binding Spacers (allows for the addition of photos etc. without the book yawning open)

Photographs provided by customer, taken by Jonathan Allain.

The ornamental plum has blossomed. The fruit-bearing one is semi-blossomed. The apple is nearly ready to open. The forecast? Snow! Again! *sigh* At least we didn’t awake to any this morning even though last night they were calling for 6-8 inches overnight…

Have a great weekend!

Wednesday…

Yesterday…

I’m afraid that due to weather FO Friday will have wait. It was windy and snowing on and off for most of the day so the photo shoot was unable to occur. I also wasn’t much in the mood to get all dolled up to take photos. In fact, I don’t think there would have been a single photo without red, puffy eyes. I hope you enjoy these photos in the meantime.

Thanks also to all of you who have left your condolences on our loss of Gizzy. It means the world to my sister and I! Fortunately it sounds as though my sister will get another cat, but she feels the right cat will find her when it is time. I’m kind of hoping it isn’t too long, as I think she feels her place rather empty and lonely right now and she is such an animal person. My heart is breaking two ways - for the loss of Gizmo, but also for the pain Amber is going through. Last night she said she can’t believe that her heart really, physically hurts. *sigh* I wish I could give her a hug and cry with her. Crying over the phone isn’t nearly as cathartic I don’t think…