6/52

We finally, finally got some sunshine and went for a long walk in the snowy woods.

So good for body and soul. More photos from this series over on my photo blog.
It’s carnival weekend over here, which means no office today. Instead I’ll stay in (roads are closed all day due to carnival anyway), work a little on my neverending photo business to-do list and just enjoy the last of the long weekend.

hooked

It’s obviously been around for some time but I only just found out about this new “adaptation” of Austen’s Pride & Prejudice for Social Media: It’s P & P as a vlog started by Lizzie!

I’ve been watching and laughing so hard! I’m half way through and I think it’s fantastic. Can’t wait to see what they came up with for the Lydia situation!

laying low

My 5/52 photo and a perfect mirror of myself these last few weeks. I am really starting to miss the light. It’s been on the news that this past January has been the dullest (in terms of sunlight) in about 50 years. I crave a sunlit afternoon so bad.
Instead, I turn to the next best thing: sleep. Me and the couch and the hot water bottle, we’re close in winter. Come 8pm you’ll find me fast asleep nearly every evening of the week.


So hard to get anything done when you’re sleeping all the time. Some socks, coming along very slowly. A new skirt, waiting for the finishing touches for weeks. Lots and lots of research for the business (exciting stuff in the works this year!).

Planning and dreaming and waiting for the light.

4/52

A portrait a week.

The old mare at our barn, enjoying the quiet of a snow-blanketed world.
This challenge is so good for me.

3/52

So, after declaring one of my New Year’s resolutions to be ‘challenging myself in my photography’ I’ve been thinking about what I really want my photography to be like and where I need to grow.
My photography is all about the little moments…natural interactions between people, with animals etc. (see my photography blog for more). I’ve gotten better at resolutely turning down requests for party photography and such. There are many great party photographers out there, but I ain’t one of them and never will be. I work best on a one-on-one basis.
So, for a start, I will be following Jodi’s “A Portrait a Week” challenge”. I’m already two weeks late to it unfortunately.

I’ll be defining the term “portrait” very loosely for myself. To be honest, I’ll probably be lucky to shoot one nice photo for myself a week, portrait or not. Time will tell whether I’ll be able to keep up, but it’s a nice thing to start and having to blog it may just be pressure enough for me to actually keep doing it!
So here it is, my first portrait, week 3 in 2013.

january

I kind of like this January. Despite having been sick with the flu for the last week and a half and some frantic catching up at work, January still feels like a respite from the hectic pre-holiday days.
A time to reflect and make plans and refocus.



Due to the flu, there hasn’t been much sewing going on, but I made lots and lots of plans for spring and summer sewing. I also did some decluttering on shelves here and there and took the time to clean out my closet yesterday. It’s amazing how much stuff accumulates within a few short months of the last decluttering! I’ve also been unsubscribing from some annoying email newsletters since the start of the year, keeping only the ones that I really like to read. Digital decluttering, I suppose and so easy…just take a few seconds to unsubscribe as they come in.
Adding in that we cleaned out our pantry and basement during the holidays, I feel the new year has gotten off to a good fresh start.



Photos from a winter walk across our frozen, icy landscape.

christmas dress | burda cowl dress in velvet

I really wanted to sew a nice dress for christmas this year and I had been eyeing that pretty navy cotton velvet for a while online (did I mention my navy blue phase? I promise the next thing I make will be a different color!). So when the Burdastyle Cowl Dress was on sale one day, I snatched it up and went to work…the Sunday before christmas!

I didn’t even make a muslin but I really like how it turned out. It’s definitely the most elegant thing I have ever made and own!

I was in such a hurry to finish it that the hem is a bit twisted (it’s a handstitched blind hem), so I’ll need to redo that before I wear it the next time. Although I like it a lot I’ll probably not wear it very often, I just don’t often attend events where I would not feel completely overdressed wearing this!
I didn’t change anything except the back zipper…I really don’t like back zippers so I put one in the side seam instead. Handpicked again, definitely my preferred method of inserting zippers! The side seam zipper makes the dress pretty hard to put on though.

All in all, a pretty simple dress and I have plans to make a sleeveless summer version from the pattern some time. The velvet was nice to work with, but even though I finished the seams with zigzagging it still loses a lot of fluff. This got me to make myself the christmas present I’ve been thinking about for some time….I got myself a serger!!!

I still can’t believe I bought it, after eyeing this model for about a year. I’m finally accepting that this sewing clothing thing is not just a phase for me. I’m really, really excited about learning to use it. It came threaded but of course when I wanted to try it one thread broke…the one that is most difficult to thread in again. So the boyfriend and I spend some time pouring over the manual yesterday (I really couldn’t have done it without his help) and I cried a little and thought about sending it back, but we finally managed to re-thread it and it works, yay :) I’m very excited to try this out on future garments and especially with jersey.