fivetrees additions

New softies making their way to the fivetrees etsy shop this weekend and probably into next week.  I'm working on a new project--a simple sweet project to be revealed soon--but in the meantime, I need to get completed work into the shop.

Yesterday, I did a little photoshoot out in the garden. The air is so crisp and clear and downright autumnal this summer (good and bad. . . like summer never even happened), that it has been really nice to take photos outdoors.

So, the weather cooperated, but my helper kept sneaking into the photos:

He sneaks in all nonchalant, slowly filling the viewfinder. He doesn't make eye contact and makes it all look like it's not intentional.  And when I laugh and tell him to get out, he looks at me with surprise as if to say, "Oh, sorry, I didn't see you there!"

Oh, L.P., you're simultaneously the best and the worst.

Thank you, Chicago Magazine

Somehow my Etsy shop, fivetrees, has made it into this year's Chicago Magazine Best of Chicago 2014 list. Crazy.

And flattering and so lovely.  I've had a year, to be sure, and I've made some big scary decisions, and so that this big happy unexpected honor has come along right now in the midst of all my other new happiness?  It's a generous and overwhelming gift.  (Total honesty? There was a night just recently when I was so excited I couldn't sleep)

So, thanks, Chicago Magazine!

And here's a link to the proof online...

Embroidery Warm Up

I have a plan inside of me for a larger embroidery project that I would like to work on. I don't totally know what that means yet, but something illustrative on a larger scale than usual. Still cute, but maybe a little dark, too.

But I haven't been embroidering much of late, so I've been knocking out a bunch of small pieces to get my hands back in shape--available on etsy soon.

Tree full of cute

A bunch of new toys for the fivetrees shop. A mouse, a bunny, an elephant, and an alien.

Oh my!

New critters at fivetrees. . .

A New Raft of Critters at Fivetrees

Check out my new little buddies in my fivetrees shop!

Havel

Ulla

Artur

and the photo shoot was going very well right up until someone jumped on me and bumped my arm so that I got this picture. . .

the cutest critter I know. . .

New Critters

They need pants or skirts or something, but they're hanging around my office at home until I figure out the plan. . .





I love this little girl's bell-shaped sweater. She will need, I think, a similarly full sweet skirt to go with.

Brigid

New at my fivetrees etsy shop. . . Miss Brigid!

Bertram

New pachyderm at fivetrees + a few other new toys appearing soon.

Embroidery Bug

I've got the bug and I enjoy every part of it--setting up the canvasses, picking embroidery thread colors, making a plan, embroidering it.

Usually, I'm a much more illustrative embroiderer and work on pre-painted canvasses that give my work depth, but I've been trying something a little more free form this past week. And now two new pieces and a number on the way as a result:

Jasper Panda

The fabulous Jill Huntsberger mused out loud over lunch one day that it was unusual that I hadn't tried making a panda yet--after a few years of making a bunch of other animals.

So, here you are, tfJH! Pandarama!

Franny Bluepants

Hot off the crochet hooks and already on Etsy at the fivetrees shop: Franny Bluepants.

El Pollo

I was busy this last weekend--so there's a preponderance of fivetrees critters on the blog in the last few days. But this is probably the last little guy for a while.

I don't know what got me started on making luchadores. This little hombre is my fourth. I've loved Mexican wrestling for years. . . Okay, not the actual wrestling, because I don't really like any kind of violence. . . not even staged violence. It's more about the costumes. They're more romantic and beautiful than American wrestlers' costumes. And the colors are so brilliant and dramatic and cool.

So, luchadores and crochet. And wrestlers as too cute toys also seemed to demand cute names and personas as well. None of my guys have tough names, because they're not really for fighting. They're for snuggling. I've made el Choco (because he was chocolatey brown), la Leche (because many friends have been pregnant of late and those folks in la Leche League are wicked tenacious), and la Pasa (the raisin. . . just because a wrestler named "the Raisin" is redonkulously cute). And now el Pollo, because what's sweeter than a wrestler that's chicken? Cute and ironic. . .

How bout them apples?

I don't know if these little guys will make it to full adult applehood or if I will get to eat them in the Fall. But these are the first to appear on our five trees and I'm just so super excited.

Here's hoping that I have a picture in September of me eating one of these. . . but the happiness of expectancy is good enough for now!

Brighton

the perfect gentleman bunny

fivetrees spring

This is our third year of owning five tiny apple trees.  When the man and I bought our little bungalow, we planted five colonnade apple trees from Stark Bros in the backyard.  We joked that we would have our own orchard.  But so far, only the central crab apple tree has bloomed. . . until now!

For the first time, we have buds on all of the trees this year. . . so maybe we'll get apples.

crab apple

apple apple

New Bun

Jean Pierre!

New Critter

Bernardo!

I can't stop making these striped cuties. . . so I'm forcing myself to concentrate on a few luchadores next.

Spring is coming

Magnolia bud and apple tree bud (the apple is one of the "five trees")--starting to fatten up for the coming spring. I'm wearing a turtleneck wool sweater today. . . but the trees in the backyard are helping to keep hope alive. Magic.