new items in the shop and progress

The shop has a couple new items in it this week!

I am totally in love with this bold black and white chevron striped pillow.  My mother in law told me years ago that every room benefits from a touch of black.  She was so right!  This pillow looks good wherever I put it.  It now sits in the shop next to the other crocheted pillows ready to cozy up your couch.

The last infant sunhats I made didn't last very long in the shop, so here's a new offering of ruffly sunshine.  This hat is made to fit an infant from 3 to 9 mos. (or a head measuring 16" to 18" circumference). It is made from, you guessed it, vintage sheets and a bit of Amy Butler aqua and orange polka dots.  I only made two of these, find them here with the other child hats in my shop.

My shop is continually growing and improving.  One thing I am always striving for is quality product photos.  Not only of individual items, but how the photos of each item look with all the other product photos in my shop, as a whole unit.  I want my shop to look like it all goes together.  As I take new product photos, I am constantly trying new areas to shoot in, with various backgrounds and props, trying to find the perfect "blue corduroy" look.

If I already have a photo of an item, I don't always take a new one, just because I've made the item again.  To save time, I'll just use what I have.  But this photo, taken 2 years ago, was in need of an update.  Two years ago, all my shop photo's had an outdoorsy look.  But now, it didn't quite fit in anymore.

Here's is the updated photo.  New crisp white background.  New form to hang the hat on.  New camera even!  I've also been playing around with a few props here and there for interest.  I thought these classic books looked real cute with the colors of this hat.

I would love to add in more live model shots.  There's nothing cuter than seeing a beautiful little girl with something darling on.  That's next on my list.  What makes a product photo stand out to you?

color and photos

Color is the theme for the next couple of weeks in my cousin Megan and mine's photo a day project.  This theme can be pretty open to interpretation, and is a very fun and easy one to acheive.  We have come up with a list of themes, with the help of Lukas.  We will be picking randomly from these themes every couple of weeks.  I think it worked out perfectly to start out with some easy ones.  There are a few in our list that are going to require a bit more concentration and perhaps manual reading.  But I'm looking forward to them all, really.  I want to stretch myself and learn more.  

This new photography love of mine has definitely been a happy place for me in  my creative rut.  The rut hasn't trickled over into my camera.  My camera has actually been a tool to help dig me out of my rut.  As are my selfish sewing projects. 

texture all around

I've really been enjoying my photo a day challenge. I'm pleased to find that it hasn't been a burden at all to take at least one photo every day. Megan and I did find, however, that we were challenged with "what" to take a picture of. So we gave ourselves a category of the week. We decided that we would look for "texture" as inspired by Little Brown Pen.
I was actually surprised at how much texture I could find in my little world.

This little orange frog sits on the window sill above my kitchen sink, next to his buddy the turtle.



I loved this texture in such a massive scale on Morro Rock.



The texture on textiles has always grabbed my attention, but what about the texture of a bright ruffle?

I found even more texture photos this week over here.