prairie city gem

tucked in on main street

one of my daydreams of travelling by car through so much of the country was to stop at quilt stores along the way and maybe even find hidden treasures, lines of fabric sold out everywhere else long ago but tucked in a corner of a store in an out-of-the-way place. maybe some meadow dot for me or parisville for liz.

decorative painted quilt block at the front door

the first stop i got to make came as we were wending our way from Utah to central Oregon. we were going from aspen grove family camp to a reunion at sunriver in Oregon. it took all day long. any trip for our family can be counted on to require a few extra hours. there were lots of interesting and inviting sights along the way, but we had to cover a lot of ground and couldn't stop.

finally, we were making a pit stop in the very cute little town of Prairie City. while the kids played in the park and took a potty break, i noticed a shop on the main street across from us that said "quilts." without telling the mr. or anyone else, i grabbed the 5 yr old's hand and ran across the street. i wasn't sure if it was a gift shop or an actual quilting shop until i got inside.

on the design wall

 what i found was the heart of a small but thriving quilting community in rural Oregon, quilts & beyond, etc. the owner told me they had a guild of about 25 members, which i found quite impressive considering there weren't that many buildings in town. the tiny shop was crammed full of bolts of quilting fabric with a mostly traditional flavor as well as a back room for classes and guild meetings.

 i hadn't brought my camera or even my wallet with me, but i ran back to the car to get both. and to tell the mr. where we'd gone. the shop was about to close, but they were kind and chatty with me, as quilt folk will be. they let me take a few photos. i didn't have the time or lighting to do justice to the samples i photographed. i hope they'll forgive me!

 the owner, marci, is also into Brazilian embroidery, which i'd never heard of before. it's much more three dimensional than traditional embroidery. you can't tell well from the photo of the humming birds, but the individual feathers on the wings are quite raised from the canvas. it was beautiful and i wish i'd had more time to learn about it.

 my little charmer i'd brought with me lucked out. they were having a "Christmas in july" sale and giving away sewing kits to every 10th customer. when my daughter begged me for a pair of snips similar to some I already own, they gave her one of the kits, which included some of the snips. and we hadn't even bought anything yet, nor do i believe we were a 10th anything. quilt people really are so generous! this kit provided entertainment through out the trip and prompted many pleas to sew.

i did pick out a few fat quarters and a bit of yardage from their collection, but the kit they gave her far outweighed my purchase in value. it was truly very kind of them. when my other girls popped in to see the shop and did not get a kit offered them, my little stinker said, "i guess i'm just the cutest."

 

d5 gives quilts and beyond shop a thimbled thumbs up!

photography or quilting = happy me

at work on a photo shoot in early august

i hesitate to post this today because 1) my photos are solid, but not the best by a long shot, 2) my people and life photography are better than my sewing photography, 3) i didn't have time to take the photos i would have liked to to go along with the post or to write it as well as i'd prefer. but here's what I've got to share. i hope it helps someone somewhere.

 i have been a hobby photographer for about 15 years. i got my first slr camera in 2000 and made the switch to digital in 2008. this was later than most because i wasn't satisfied with the quality of digital til that time. currently, I shoot with a canon 60d, usually with my 2.8/24-70mm zoom lens. i've read dozens of books, taken some real-time workshops from professionals and at least two online courses, too. i've also taught basic photography classes to mom groups a few times.

i love photography!
and making pretty pictures.

in order to not bore with a bunch of words, this post will be interspersed with photos i took recently on our big road trip as well as fabric and sewing shots. warning: it's a big post.

tour boat on san juan island, wa

although i shoot daily and have done infant portraits and a few family sessions (as well as one engagement shoot - yikes!), i am NOT a professional photographer. in fact, being asked to do photography for others makes me super nervous! i just really like learning about photography and making the best photos i can in-camera at the time i take them. capturing my world and experiences makes me happy.

i'm a homeschooling mom of 7 who also likes to read, scrapbook, and quilt. i do NOT want to spend my time editing photos. therefore, i do my best to shoot well-lit and cropped photos when i take them. and i live with what i get. an imperfect photo often captures enough of what i want to some degree. i'm okay with that.

the backlighting in this photo made it rather hazy and faded, which can be corrected with editing. but i like it fine the way it is.

the opening photo in this post was taken by my friend's daughter while i was consulting with jen about the shots i got of her and her husband. jen, a college roommate and my bestest old friend, talked me into doing a last-minute family session for her while visiting them in Washington state this summer. her idea, NOT mine!

this is a photo i took of two of my girls after that shoot on the beautiful Puget Sound. it's a tiny bit dark, but good enough for me, especially since i was able to capture the colors in the sunset sky by adjusting my white balance! that's a feature I've been messing with the last few months and i am happy with the improvements mastering it is bringing.

my kids playing on the private beach of the house we rented on san juan island

i learned how to shoot in manual mode a few years back and am fairly competent in it. i definitely understand the workings and interplay of iso, aperture, and shutter speed. however, i find that shooting candids of children/moving targets does not usually allow for time to work in manual. so most often i shoot in P (program), which is sort of like auto but allows me to make adjustments.

my go-to adjustment is the exposure compensation. i use it to quickly bump up or down the amount of light coming in the camera's auto settings. this works quite well for me most of the time. if i'm not happy with what i'm getting that way, then i go manual.

bakery stop in canon beach, or

when i started blogging about my sewing and began shooting more things rather than people, i quickly realized my product photography needs help! i keep my eyes peeled and take note of other sewers photographs and look at styling in craft books for ideas on how to improve.

bear d1 made 2 yrs ago - acceptable, but needs better exposure and less distracting background

desk of merriweather lewis at fort clatsop, or

i know my photos are not the best out there. however, i'm satisfied with the quality of them and that's what's important. like i said, i'm happy with imperfect photos and i'll post them if they're all i have. but there are three basic things i learned a long time ago that can improve any photography with any camera tremendously. i'll share those today and maybe some more complicated tips another day.

1. shoot your subject and leave out the rest

most untrained people, when handed a camera, will center their subject in the frame and leave as much room around it as possible. you don't want to cut anyones head off - i get it. (my grandfather was 6'4", that happened to him a lot in group photos.) but what that can do is give you a shot like this:

when what you wanted and were thinking of when you took the photo was this:

so think about what you want to photograph, the story this photo is to tell, and then include only that in your photo. in my sample photos, the story i wanted to tell was "fabric i got at a certain shop." the top photo is "some fabric i bought, my tile floor, my courtyard door." the second photo captures much more closely what i was trying to show.

get in close. fill your frame with your subject as much as possible. maybe even cut off a bit of it.

 in this photo, i put my fabric pile on a plate for styling, but to include the entire plate, i had to include a lot of wall space and dusty cabinet top also. not a very effective photo.

this zoomed in photo still includes some of the pretty plate for styling purposes, but cuts off part of the plate and even the fabric, which showcases the fabric even better.

now if you want an atmospheric shot and the setting is part of the story you are trying to tell, then include the entire setting in your photo. but if not, then zoom in on your subject and leave the setting out.

case in point - the top photo of the fabric on my floor in front of the door was actually taken to show where i was shooting so as to demonstrate shooting in natural light. that's the story that photo tells. but i didn't include the whole hallway or entire door, just enough to give you the idea.

zoom in close. then closer still.
don't forget that sometimes the zoom is you not just your lens. move yourself.

this photo tells the story of my daughter playing in the water in the bay.

i love how this photo captures the seaweed muck on their feet

and the second photo captures a detail of the story i wanted to tell. maybe you can see the seaweed in the top photo, maybe not. i made sure to get a shot of both parts of the story.

2. try different angles and perspectives

lavender farm san juan island, wa

i've been known to lay on the sidewalk or climb on a fence to change my angle when taking photos. walk around, move yourself, try out different sides, get higher or lower. by playing around with perspective you can change your photos dramatically. and often you can crop out background distractions by moving yourself rather than your subject, which isn't always possible.

here are two photos that are not at all great, either one of them, but one is much better than the other just because it's oriented differently.

awkward! ugh.



still somewhat awkward, but better

standing directly over your subject, on a chair if necessary, can really help give you a flatter photo. it sure would help with the strangely angled one we all get of our quilts on the floor sometimes. (I've posted plenty of those - see above.)

taken standing in front of the table the blocks were on

taken standing directly over the blocks, shooting down

3. take lots of photos

photo #1 - fabric pull for new nephew's quilt

photo #2 - added a bit more light

 i already mentioned this, but it deserves it's own place in the list. if you're playing with cropping and angles, you are naturally going to shoot more. but i'm saying it again to be clear.

photo #3 - tried shooting from the top to see pile better, but it shows the top too much



photo #4 - shifted angle and tried adding light; too much

photo #5 - better light, but i'm not liking this angle

in the days of film photography, you had to shoot blindly and hope it was working out. film and development cost $$$. digital doesn't work that way! you get to see (mostly) how your shots are coming out and you can erase what you don't like. memory cards are super cheap compared to film and can be reused many times. the storage capacity on them these days is enormous.

photo #6 - restyled pile by fanning out and stood over for another angle



photo #7 - new angle on fanned pile

so click, click, click away!
don't be stingy.
just make sure you download often or carry extra memory.

photo #8 - shot from top again, zoomed in a bit

photo #9 - added some light



photo #10 - restyled again in a pinwheel, off centered



photo #11 - one more shot! but i like #10 best because i cropped just a little better

sometimes the first photo of the 6 or more identical shots i took works the best, but usually not. and if you're photographing people, the more you have in the group, the more you need to shoot to increase your odds of that one great shot.

 you also have to learn how to use that trash can button a lot so you don't end up with photos you don't need clogging your storage. be ruthless! take a lot, then get rid of what doesn't work or isn't the best.

here's the bonus tip:

4. turn off that flash & learn to use natural light!

this is an entire subject unto itself, beyond the scope of my post. but after you've started playing with the above 3 tips, it's going to make night-and-day difference in your photos. there are limitless resources dealing with this subject. look it up and figure it out. you won't regret it.

this post was inspired by beth's new photography workshop link up at plum and june.

what i did on my summer vacation

hexies ready to go-go

 you know that old school essay that was supposed to start the year off, "what i did on my summer vacation?" none of my teachers ever actually gave me that assignment, but i'm the homeschool teacher now so here's my answer:

i did lots of epp basting and made 5 whole blocks (wheels), 1 half/middle block, and 1 set of 3 interconnected blocks. voila! i believe i have enough pieces basted to complete a good dozen or so more. with these blocks, that will give me about 2 rows of the quilt completed.

the reason my piecing is rather random is that after completing the first two blocks, i noticed that the pattern in the book was slightly different from the pattern Katy had used on her cushion. i had to make a choice between the two. the pattern in the book featured complete blocks, side-by-side with squares in the corners. Katy's cushion was interlocking blocks. i decided i liked the dizzy look of the interlocking wheels. so i made one half block to fit in between the first 2 blocks i made (top left) and eventually tried my hand at 3 interlocking blocks (bottom right) to see what they were going to look like stacked. eventually, they'll all get joined up and filled in.

 i made another design choice en route: to include my two favorite color prints in each block. i have enough prints that they each get used only every second or third block, but i like the idea of featuring the two florals i took my color scheme from more often. looks like i need to baste some more of the london calling squares before i can go much further.

yardage and blocks randomly layered to give an idea of how the quilt will look eventually

and the 3rd adjustment i made along the way? after having a reality check with how long this is actually going to take, i think instead of doing a complete quilt top in just the wheels, i'm going to do 3 sections of wheels broken up by either a solid or maybe some of the black and white prints. it'll be sort of like a horizontal strip of rows of wheels, a horizontal strip of solid or print, wheels, print, etc., alternating in a stripe pattern down the quilt. no borders, just the strips.

whew! did you follow all that?

i originally estimated i'd need about 100 blocks. now that they're changed, i'm not sure how that's going to work. one of my little nieces asked what i was making as i stitched at the family reunion. i told her it was a quilt that would be made out of 100 of the wheels. the next morning she asked me, "did you make 100 of them yet?" oh, i wish!

now that i'm home, I've been running around like a crazy woman getting school started, the packing all put away, catching up on chores, and going to various appointments. i think i've been in the car more the last 4 days than i was on our road trip! i also think i need another staycation to recover from that trip.

i keep dreaming about quilting, but that is so far down the list. i've managed to spend a little time cleaning in my sewing area, which was surprisingly messy even though i was gone. that's mainly because i was frantically preparing epp for the road up to the last minute, i had a few packages arrive just before i left, and i made some purchases along the way. i literally got home from san diego jluy 12th, ripped into my packages, spent 5 minutes looking at the contents, then finished packing for the road trip and got in the car with the kids. we basically came home for a few hours to load the car and collect the kids before we hit the road.

it. was. insane.

i'm married to a high-octane man, so it didn't slow down or change much for the whole 5 weeks.
that's why i'd really like a staycation now. besides, vacations with children aren't vacations, they're trips and a change of location. fun, but not relaxing. i'm not complaining. i'm just saying i'm exhausted. (so why am i blogging? i missed quilting and you people!)

therefore, my cheater finishes for the Friday Finishes link-up with crazy mom are that i finished my road trip and i've featured the blocks i finished along the way. it's all i've got folks!

i promise i'll share something new or different soon.

there and back again

where in the world have i been for the last month or so? where haven't i been is more like it! all over the western united states: arizona, nevada, utah, idaho, oregon, washington, montana, wyoming. the crew and i just completed a nearly 5 week road trip in our monster 12 passenger nissan nv van. whew! it was marvelous and chaotic, with plenty of highs and lows en route. but it's nice to be home once more, even with the extreme heat here. i tried to keep up a bit with the quilty blogging world on my phone as i went, but really, i spent time with my family. and worked on my epp along the way. a little.

the first week gone, we were at aspen grove family camp, all squished together in one of their tiny rustic cabins. despite close quarters, I made room for my epp project on a chair in a corner of the room next to my side of the bed.

 I used the big travel kit to house most of the bits and pieces and took my little ziplock baggie around camp with me. I got lots of basting done over the week and pieced together an additional 2 1/2 blocks.

 mostly, it was smooth sailing, but occasionally I made mistakes along the way. like when I sewed the side of a triangle down to the hexagon center instead of to the next square, creating the 3d piece above. silly me. unpicking handsewing is much more painful than undoing machine sewing because of the time involved in getting those hand stitches in there. however, it must be done when mistakes are made.

 another problem I ran into at times was my shapes not seeming to match up. sometimes there would be a gap between pieces that were supposed to be matching up. i'm not sure what causes this, whether it's my basting isn't tight enough or i'm not matching pieces as well in the beginning. at first it upset me because I thought I was going to have to unpick the whole thing and start over. but I forged ahead and just sewed the next seam down. somehow it worked out. maybe this will cause more inconsistencies later, but that's what I did.

by the end of the week, this was the pile of work i'd completed. I refrained from sewing all the blocks together because I didn't have storage capacity for lengths of blocks. i'll work on that at home once I get more blocks completed.

I had this absolutely crazy idea that because I was going to be on the road for 5 weeks that maybe I could get the entire quilt top done. completely bonkers, I know. that would have been 100 blocks in the original plan I had for the quilt. (more on changes later.)

i'm sure I could have completed more than I did since there were several times I could have been sewing and didn't, for various reasons. but it looks like this will truly be a longterm project for me. oh, well. it'll help me get through many a soccer practice, art class, or various other kid events I have to sit around for.

and now liz can stop being bored of me being gone, because i'm back! she did continue to nicely inquire about my travel, but I think she was about to drop our friendship altogether since she got so famous while I was gone. just kidding, you know I love you liz! ours is a relationship built around teasing and stash padding.

so i'm back. sort of.

homeschool has to start up and there seems to be endless house management issues to deal with after being gone. like the leaky kitchen sink we came home to and had to replace immediately. it's taken me 3 whole days to get around to blogging.

I managed to produce 1,990 photos of the trip, so there is still lots of trip-related quilting to share. and maybe some day soon i'll do some other sewing now that i'm home again.

ps - any of you literary fiends out there know where my title came from? I selected it because we listend to J.R.R. in the car on the road.