Author Archives: ScoutJ

I’m a mama of two who just wants to wake up and have her espresso and knit a few stitches in solitude. Then I can conquer world peace. Is that too much to ask?

And the Winners Are…..

December 4, 2008 – 8:54 am

Stacey & Carol

Congratulations you two!!

Thank you all so much for playing. There are some great patterns out there and I can’t wait to check them all out. It sure seems like the February Lady Sweater is a super popular one right now. I couldn’t believe how many of you are either knitting it or have it on your queue. I think I need to do contests more often. I love seeing everyone coming out and commenting!

And based on the number of comments I guess you guys really DO use the calendars. It was so nice to see everyone come out and let us know how much you enjoy them. For now we will keep on doing them. We might have an idea we will run by everyone soon about them. But thank you ALL for your comments. Really. It was nice to feel appreciated for our work on them.

What else is going on? Anything? I cleared my bloglines because looking at those numbers overwhelms me way too much. But then I hate missing out on important news. Please let me know if I’ve missed anything out there in your worlds! (and again, whether I have you on my Bloglines or not!) What’s up with me? So much. Between the kids/soccer/Scout’s Swag/sock club/book writing/photography + a trillion other things I barely have time to sleep. However, I do love being busy and I love what I do even more so I’m not complaining.

The book is going well. I know I haven’t really talked about it much because I’m not going to turn my blog into a bog about that. As of right now I’ve written 4 out of the 6 chapters and have gotten 3 of them back from Melanie with edits. I am now going back over edits and hope to have them all to her by the end of the month and will then write the last two chapters. It’s a bit overwhelming at times but I’m so grateful that Melanie is extremely patient and planned out lots of time for me to write it from the beginning so I’m not feeling rushed at all. YET. I know that time will come though.

I got word from Namaste that the Buddy Cases are in and will be shipped to me today. That means I will get them by early next week which still leaves time for the holidays. I got another order of the Zuma bags in as I sold out of some of them in the first round. I have to decide which one I want before you guys buy them all again! I have a few more cool, new things coming soon to the shop but I will wait until I get them to tell you. But it’s still very well stocked if you’re doing your holiday shopping.

I got T. an early x-mas present yesterday. Look what he already did with it this morning.

He’s always been into photography and for the past year he’s been using my Nikon Coolpix. You would never know the shots he’s been taking were with a little point and shoot. But now he has a real toy! I bought him a friend’s Nikon D70. He was mad at first but then he got over that pretty damn quickly. I saw the sunrise this morning and yelled at him to go out and shoot it. Told him what the settings should be and bam! Check him out.

Here are a few shots of mine from the past week. I guess I’ll do my Eye Candy Friday a little bit early. :) You can click onto each shot for more details.

Okay kiddos! That’s it for me. I need to go for a run and then sit down and finish re-editing chapter one. That was my goal for this week. I hope everyone has a great weekend. Are you doing anything fun? We have soccer games, soccer practices, basketball games and basketball practices! Yeah….I know. It’s never-ending!

PAX out!

Posted in Knitting | Comments (8)

Green Couch Swag - December Calendars!

December 1, 2008 – 5:10 pm

There is still time to enter the contest so make sure you’ve left a comment on the previous post if you haven’t yet. Also, Melanie Falick is having a contest too so head over there and win there too!

I am seriously in disbelief that it is December. The time goes way too fast sometimes! Here are the calerndars from this month from Cynthia and me. For anyone who takes one can you leave a comment? I’m really curious as to how many people really download them each month. I actually almost told Cynthia I thought maybe it was time to stop but I’ll let you guys help make that decision. Do you love them? Do you use them every month? Do you not care either way?  We’ve been doing them for almost 1.5 years now and I just want to see if a lot of people are even really using them!

Without further ado…..here are the calendars for December! Just click on the image and it will bring you to the larger image to download to your desktop. Hope you like them!

Posted in Hula Swag | Comments (134)

It’s like pulling a Band-Aid off right? + a Contest!!

November 29, 2008 – 10:14 am

You know, when you haven’t posted on your blog in forever and you finally just have to do it really fast so it won’t hurt too much? Yeah, sorry about that.  I’ve been so busy that even my neighbors who are very good friends of ours told me she was happy to see me the other day because she hadn’t seen me in so long. And they live across the street! Things are great. Just unbelievably busy. It’s ll good stuff though. I’ve been doing a lot of photography shoots and am really loving that. Here’s one of my favs from a recent shoot of the twins who are now 9 months old.

It just takes a lot of time to shoot/process/etc. I have three pretty big jobs over the past few weeks and have even more stuff coming up on the horizon. Super seekrit stuff that I can’t talk about though. But at some point you will all be able to see what it’s all about. And look! I got a makeover!

Isn’t it super fabulous? What else has been going on? I’ve been busy stocking the shop. The new Namaste Zuma is the cutest bag I’ve seen a long time. I’ve already restocked them once.  See the post below for links. Everything else is stocked in the shop too. With less than a month until Christmas and Hanukkah I won’t have much time to restock again so get things while I have them!

Knitting? What’s that? I can’t believe that even with the cooler weather I haven’t been knitting. I guess I’m just so tired after working 12+ hours every day I just want to veg out and watch stupid TV. However, I always like to see what everyone is working on or if there are some super cool new patterns out there I have yet to see.  It seems like I do this contest yearly to see if something will call out to me and inspire me to break out my needles.  So let’s have a little contest!! Please spread the word too. Show me what you are knitting. I want links to pictures and/or patterns. Or, you can just leave links showing me a cool pattern you want to knit. I will keep this up until December 4th and will pick two people to win these brand new fabulous books with the random number generator.

and

So inspire me and win a book. It’s that easy. It’s always fun to get a whole bunch of ideas in one spot so make sure and tell people to come play.

I hope that you and yours had a great Thanksgiving (if you celebrate it). I’m all confused as to what day it is. I just realized it’s only Saturday morning. So have a good weekend too! I can’t wait to see what everyone has up their sleeves.

ETA - Bloglines is out of control and it stresses me out to not be able to catch up with everyone. I’m clicking refresh. Please let me know if there’s something I’ve missed that you’ve written about. (whether you think you’re on my Bloglines or not!!) I love to hear how everyone is so tell me about you too. m’kay?

Posted in Contest! | Comments (93)

Holiday Shop Update!

November 20, 2008 – 11:54 am

**This may be a repeat for those that get the Newsletter**

With the approach of the holiday season I have been very busy restocking the shop with everything possible plus a bunch of new items.  With only a month left until Christmas & Hanukkah I wanted to make sure the shop is completely stocked.  I’m so excited to be one of the first to finally get in the newest bag from Namaste, the Cali Zuma Bag! It is such a cool bag. Here are a few images of what it looks like:

I have all of the colors in stock and will get the limited edition Eggplant color by the end of December, early January. I have a current list going of people who would like to pre-order the eggplant color.  If you are interested please let me know. Once I see how many people are interested I will get a better idea of how many to order. They have also brought back the Lime color in the Zuma & in the Laguna as well as both sizes of cozies. The other new items from Namaste are the adorable Oh Snap!, the Buddy Case (which will be here in a few weeks and you can pre-order as well) and the Mini Cozy. If anything sells out I can place another order right away to get them back in before Christmas/Hanukkah so just let me know if you would like something.

There are so many other items restocked in the shop I will simply list them here for your:
New Haiku Bags - **NEW HANA COLORS**
Needle Gauge Pendants
Heal My Hands
Pattern Tamers **FOUR NEW COLORS!**
Shawl & Scarf Pins - **NEW PENANNULAR PINS!**
Protect the Swag Sachets
Soak Wash
Tape Measures - **THREE NEW DESIGNS!**
All Patterns & Kits are stocked!
more Knitter’s Rules & Sock Rules will be here within the week with a new Scout’s Swag Logo Sock Rule with martinis too!

Again, if there is anything that sells out, simply email me and we can get you what you need. As always, I thank you for your support. I love new swag!

Posted in Call out, Cool Stuff, Scout's Swag | Comments (3)

would you like a piece of this

November 14, 2008 – 7:52 am

eye candy?

Happy Friday and weekend my friends!

Posted in Albuquerque/New Mexico, Eye Candy Friday, photography | Comments (7)

Have You Seen This?

November 11, 2008 – 8:48 am

As always the poor blog suffers from the craziness of my life. Along with the normal busy I’ve had a number of big photography jobs over the past few weeks which just ads crazy to crazy! However, I have a few things to share! A lot of people ask me about my photography and my camera and how I get my images to look like they do. One of my secrets is that I do a lot with post-processing. After I shoot, I open up everything into Adobe Lightroom first.  This is what it looks like. Click on the image to see the larger version.

I do a number of things in this program like adjust the exposure/fill light/shadows/contrast, etc. See all of the things on the right? Lots of little tweaks. I highly recommend this program to anyone who takes digital pictures. I can’t imagine processing with my images without it.  I also have hundreds of presets and actions I play with. If you are unfamiliar with what presets and actions are, they are a series of tasks that you play back on a single file or a batch of files - menu commands, palette options, tool actions, and so on. I have some actions that I use on almost all of my images that were created by two of my good friends Cindy & Lauren and they are finally selling them! The presets are for Adobe Raw files and the actions are for Adobe Photoshop.  Here is an example of what they can do.  The top left image is sooc (straight out of camera) and the rest of them are with the actions they are selling - (click to see bigger)

I use Lauren’s clarity on almost all of my portraits. I have literally hundreds of actions and presets and these are my favorite ones. They created a group on flickr too if you are interested. - Cinnamon Rose Actions and Presets. I know a lot of you are really into your pictures and playing around with the post-processing so go get these! They are selling them for really great prices.  I have seen other actions selling for hundreds of dollars and you can get everything from Cindy & Lauren for just $30.00. It’s a steal if you ask me. Let me know if you get any. I’m more than happy to answer any questions about them too. If you join the blog they check in there regularly to answer questions as well.

As we approach the holidays I wanted to share another link with you. My friend Pete started up the coolest business. Straight from Santa - Personalized letters from Santa postmarked from the North Pole. Make great Christmas gifts and it helps spread the Christmas cheer. :) Choose from one of our different themes, answer a couple of questions, and then check out. It’s that easy! Your child will receive a specially personalized letter from Santa in the mail. Each letter is sealed with an embossed Santa seal and comes with an authentic postmark from the North Pole. You know I love supporting my friends so please spread the word about this one. It’s such a cute idea.

I just finished reading a fantastic book. It was one of those books that kept me up until midnight every night until I finished it. The book is called Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay.

“An American journalist researches the notorious roundup of Parisian Jews and uncovers her French family’s war-era secrets, in this page-turning, interconnected novel of modern-day Paris and occupied France Paris.” Just trust me when I say you should get this book and read it.

Well kids, I think that’s it for today. T. took the day off to help with the kids so I can write. I am almost done with chapter 4 so my goal for the day is to be done done done!  Hope you are well!

Posted in Buy this!, Cool Stuff, Have You Seen This?, photography | Comments (13)

as promised……

November 5, 2008 – 1:20 pm

it’s November 5th and Cynthia (even though she lives in Canada) and I are thrilled to share these calendars with you.

Posted in Hula Swag, photography | Comments (31)

Green Couch Swag Calendars - November 2008

November 2, 2008 – 11:51 am

There might be two new ones on November 5th too. We’ll see! As always, we love hearing which ones you like best! gives us direction for the following months. Simply click on the image to get the larger size to download onto your desktop!

Posted in Hula Swag, photography | Comments (32)

happy bokeh wednesday!

October 29, 2008 – 3:57 pm

have you voted yet?

you will right?

Posted in photography | Comments (25)

Rhinebeck Part II

October 26, 2008 – 1:08 pm

Sorry about not coming right back to do that. Life took over for a bit! So day two was spent mostly in the author’s tent with Melanie Falick and the STC Craft Publishers. There was Lynn Barr of Knitting New Scarves:

And Andrea Berman Price of Knitspeak

And many other authors too!

1. Melanie Falick, 2. the Mason Dixon girls, 3. Hannah Fettig, 4. Stephanie

There is no way I can remember all of the people I met/saw over the weekend so I’ll name a few I’ve known forever who I got to finally meet in person. I know I will forget half of the people I met. Here are the few I can think of - Norma, Margene, Jessalu, Carole, Caro, Leslie, her sister, Kate, Jennie, Mel, David, Sean, Franklin, Joe, Gale & Joan, Laurie, Ann & Kay, Kellee, Michelle, cosmicpluto, wannabe, minty, Jody, Jodi….. ummmmm. crap. I’m stuck! Who else? Remind me someone?

And if you want to know what I bought? Not one single ounce of yarn. I don’t spin so no fiber either. I bought a coffee mug from Jennie the potter and two bowls for the kids from her too. THAT’S IT! Well, wait. I did buy two beers and a bottle of wine for my friends I stayed with. But otherwise this mug is the only thing I bought!

Of course I got mine in purple. I love it so much. Jennie and I are going to work together soon for me to carry something of hers in the shop. Until then, go and buy stuff from her at her website! Rhinebeck was awesome. For me it was all about meeting so many people I’ve known for a long time but have never met in person. I think some people I’ve known for over 5 years and have never met! All in all it was such a great trip.  Not sure if I will go next year but definitely 2010 because my book will be out then!! I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around that whole thing…..

In shop news I wanted to show you the new line of Haiku Bags I have. They are part of the Karma Neutral collection that is made out of 50% jute % 50% cotton. The collection is called Hana. If any of you saw me in Rhinebeck I was carrying the Hana- Ume. (bottom left)

There are also new colors of the Calligraphy bags in the To-Go and Grab bags as well as a cool new swirly To-Go. There is a new Bordeaux color and a Midnight Black color. They are SO pretty. In the Hana collection there is the Ume & the Ginger which are the new colors. The Hana in Nori is new as well.  I use the To-Go as a purse and camera bag and it’s really such a great bag. I can even fit my D300 on with my 18-200mm lens. It’s that big.

Wow, I need a nap after all of that linking! Oh wait. I can’t. I have to go play soccer in an hour! Have a great Sunday everyone. It’s gorgeous here today. Tomorrow I’ll share some of my Barack Obama shots from the rally I went to last night with Mary-Heather!

Posted in Rhinebeck, photography | Comments (11)