Home Wong Nga and Black Cty: October 2011

Monday, October 31, 2011

CC on Staying in The Bronx

“I was confident that we would get to an agreement," Sabathia said. "I wanted to stay here. I want to be here. I love it here. I love pitching here. I love being a part of the Yankees organization, and I’m just so happy to be able to come to an agreement.”

Sabathia said he didn't want to go through the free-agent process, something he got a good feel for three years ago before signing with the Yankees.

“It was a big motivation," Sabathia said. "I didn’t want to be a part of being a free agent and doing everything, opting out and doing all that stuff. It was clear to everybody that I wanted to be a Yankee, wanted to end my career as a Yankee, and hopefully I can do that.”

Here are a few other nuggets from Sabathia's conference call:

On his family: “Our family is comfortable here. We have a good time. We love it here. We relax here. This is our home. I never really bought into what was going on or if we would opt out or if we wouldn’t. This is our home. We’re here as a family, and we’ll continue to grow here and be a part of the community.”

On why he loves pitching in New York: “The energy. What you get coming out of the bullpen. The fans, the energy, everything it is to be pitching in New York, in the Bronx. It’s just so much fun, and to be a part of this organization is a dream for me.”

...

On what was most important to him during the negotiations: “It was just more time. That’s all it was. It was never a question about money or anything like that; it was just being more time. I want to end my career here, make sure I end my career as a Yankee. Hopefully I’ve done that.”

Glad he's staying around and even happier it happened so quickly. Now the Yankees can actually focus on improving the team.

http://twitter.com/#!/Buster_ESPN/status/131151171023933440

http://twitter.com/#!/CC_Sabathia/status/131149202830000128

I first noticed Dietlind Wolf's picture on her blog that looked so light and carefree that it stopped me in my tracks.

Dietlind works as a stylist and occasionally as a photographer. In her spare time (!) she also makes stunning porcelain, that she worked out how to dye instead of glaze - I love it!!

I'm always interested in someone with a job I think I would have enjoyed, so I asked her a few questions.

Hi Dietlind, thank you for letting me show your work. Would you describe yourself first as a stylist or as a photographer?

Thank you for inviting me! I am first of all a visual designer, I love the stylist's part of putting a shoot together, playing with a look, then I love the photographer's role of discovering how that look works. I like inventing feeling concepts and then filling them reality.

How did you get into this line of work?

I used to teach in a private art school where I loved working with the students, but I missed being in business. A friend told me about the role of stylists, something I knew nothing about! I was very excited and told all of my friends about my new career, and I got two bookings straight away!

You seem to work for magazines, but I see there is also a book out, can you tell us about that?

That's right, I work mostly for magazines, but the Teatime book came via my blog. I loved this project, I was able to do all of the styling and visual concept, and even the illustrations.

Teatime can be found here

To create this sort of book we work as a team of three. The stylist, the food stylist and the photographer. We work for a week or so solidly, and it's always amazing to start off with nothing and seel that after 10 days non-stop work you have 50 or 80 pages filled.

Does your blog play a big role in your work, has it brought you new clients for example?

Yes it really helps and in a very unexpected way. the amazing feedback.( thank you to you all!!!). I started the blog in the year Donna Hay magazine printed our Heaven and Earth Christmas Cookie story. Up till then I had never published on line because I didn't know how I wanted to use a website. After the Donna Hay article I decided to use the blog as a portfolio where I should showcase work when a story was in print.

concept + styling : dietlind wolf

photos : walter cimbal : in print : billa issue 4

Is it easy to 'turn off' at home , or do you find yourself aranging things as if you wre on a photoshoot?!

You wouldn't believe how I live, in between my ateliers and my collections of props. The only arranging I am able to do at home is to place my props onto shelves. At least they look reasonable and I can find what I need! If I invite friends over then its like on a shooting. Attention focussed on the moment to make things look just right.

styling : dietlind wolf : photos : julia hoersch

food : hermann rottmann /petra speckmann : assistance: anka rehbock / felicitas grunenberg

in print : freundin issue 8

Do you think that your work is very 'female', is it a job you'd recommend to a young artistic woman?

There is a clear masculine side to the work, but funnily it seems that women slip more easily into the role of stylist which is often in second row.

But then women bring a a deeper understanding of what the client wants. There is an unspoken hidden responsibility, it's a world of "I like", " I don't like", and a lot depends on moods.

It's difficult to recommend a career that is so artistic and is still a journey of development on the inside as on the outside. Success depends on so many things, mostly on support of friends and family who trust in you. Sometimes the team doesn't fit, but you are booked for the result and you have to find a way to be creative even when it's difficult.

If you need the safety and security of a 9 to 5 workday week , with fixed weekly appointments, then this job is not for you, but if you like your freedom more than the above, and you like the body fitness that's comes with racing around putting shoots together then yes, you'd love it!!

Thank you Dietlind!

I hope you enjoyed this little insight into the creative world of an artisitic blogger,

pop on over to Dietlind's site and say hi!

and if you are in Hamburg on 5 November, you can even meet her in person

at Haller 6 where she'll be showing her work

Hope your week is getting off to a creative start!

I took this photo prior to drilling holes into it (see this post). I thought it was so beautiful. The man who sold it to me, called it a Cinderella Pumpkin and it brought to mind the wonderful story of the pumpkin transforming into a carriage. I googled it and found the following refrence to Cinderella Pumpkins:

"Cinderella Pumpkins are a unique French heirloom whose correct name is "Rouge vif D'Etampes". The source of their nickname it that they resemble the pumpkin that Cinderella's fairy godmother transformed into a carriage." Via All About Pumpkins

What Should I Do?

While I am waiting for the dark stain to come in so I can finish my hutch, I started working on the French Settee.

Since I have never done an upholstery job of this size before, I am carefully removing each piece of fabric and gimp to use as a pattern when I put it back together. In the picture above you can see the front of the back has the fabric removed.

I started removing the one gazillion, billion staples with a screw driver and pliers. It was taking forever. I thought there must be a "tool" for this, and guess what? There is!! So I ordered it and am waiting for it to come in.

Now, I have two projects on hold :-)

In the meantime, I have been looking for inspiration on what fabric to use on the settee.

Should I use a linen like material?

or a toile?

How about a check?

I love the look of the patterned fabrics, but the neutral linen type fabric would go with everything...

If you were doing this, what would you do?

Oh! I am taking tons of pictures of this, because a few of you have asked for a tutorial. So when it is finished, I show you step by step how I did it.

Welcome Home,

Penny

My Life Beyond the Blog

Frost on the pumpkin? So it was...though I have no pumpkins. We've already had several frosts here and I'm way behind on my fall gardening. Life happens—wonderful things as well as the not so good.

I'm now on day twelve of a cold. It's behaved more like the flu, though I received my annual flu shot on October third. At any rate, I missed one glorious week of weather before the frost arrived.

Cabo San Lucas
View from our room.

Prior to my plague, we were in Cabo San Lucas for the wedding of son, Chris and his stunning bride, Nicole. I need to request permission to post their photos, but I have to share with you that the private beach ceremony, followed by a champagne brunch was marvelous! Richard and I spent a few extra days in Cabo and will definitely be going back. More about all of this in a future post.

Prior to the wedding, I was writing furiously. One day, I just began writing a fiction novel and couldn't stop! I wrote 60,000+ words in 30 days. Then, I decided the second half was so much better written than the first half of the book, that I spent another 30 days writing the novel again—changing the plot, too. Writing the novel has been so addictive that I now find it difficult to blog as my creative writing has been consumed.

Prior to the novel, I wrote a few pieces for www.visitnc.com, the North Carolina tourism website. I link to those here on my blog. It's free reading and might inspire you to visit our gorgeous state.

Just today, Richard and I finalized our plans for our annual spring vacation to France. We're going back for the third time to Antibes, followed by another visit to Paris. We have to book these trips in advance because we can only afford to go by using frequent flier miles for one or two free tickets.

I could write several stories on how to make travel to Europe affordable. Perhaps soon? Would you like to know that renting an apartment is far less expensive than hotels? You also get to immerse yourself in the culture by shopping for toilet paper in a grocery store or cough drops in a pharmacy—and attempting to do so by speaking the local language—not perfectly, but enough to be understood.

Food trucks! There's new world for foodies and I must tell you all about the amazing food available from food trucks in our area. In addition to the delicious restaurant choices around here, I love the options from the trucks.

Then, there are the lemurs! I went to the Duke Lemur Center, a non-invasive research, education and conservation center in Durham to write stories about the lemurs. I went back and took Richard over there. We have volunteered to help them take their 45 years of data and consolidate it from disparate systems into a SAS® analytical database. That project is just now starting up, but my cold has sidelined me. Richard is taking the lead. I shall confess that I've fallen in love with the endangered lemurs. If you're on my Facebook page, then you know that I'm always sharing photos and videos from the DLC.

I digress...you want to read about gardening...not my life, right? Okay, the next story will be about all the wonderful seeds that I've purchased for the 2012 flowers....I promise!

Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel. All company or product or patented names mentioned are registered trademarks, copyrights, or patents owned by those respective companies or persons.

I have been going through my house on and off for the last several months. To get rid of things I usually have a system... There are three piles, such as "Donate", "Sell", "Throw away". Any other place in the house is not hard to do this except in Mr. TRH and my closet.

I have a weakness for fabrics, and there is no exception when I am trying to get rid of some clothes. Even though an item hasn't been worn for such a long time, I start to think "uh, I can use this to make this" or "ah, I bet if I do this and this I can still wear it".

So, this is one of those projects that I just had to try and see. :)

I found this old t-shirt on Mr.TRH’s side of closet. It was in good condition, but he hadn’t worn it AT ALL for several years.

1. First cut it apart.

2. Cut 2 -- 15" X 22" rectangles for the pillow, and many 1" wide strips. If the t-shirt you have is smaller, you can cut smaller rectangles to make a smaller pillow.

3. On one of the rectangles, you can start "drawing". When you stretch the strips, they will curl up; I think this gives an interesting effect to the pillow. I didn't have any plans whatsoever, but I just eye balled the middle, and pinned the first strip and started to sew.

Keep drawing with strips...

4. After I did lots of "drawing" with strips, I made some ruffle strips to fill in some spaces. To make ruffles, sew in the middle of the strips with large stitches and pull one of the threads. Gather the fabric to make ruffles.

5. Put the front and back fabrics right sides together. Pin them and sew all around it with 1/4" seam. Make sure to leave 3" - 4" opening for turning.

7. Snip the corners for a neat finish.

8. Turn, press the edges with an iron. Stuff, slip stitch closed...and ta-da!

When the kids came home from school, Rachel noticed the pillow right away; the boys couldn’t care less about such minor details in life. I thought it was so funny to see the difference. Although, the pillow is loved by everyone, it is so soft and cuddly and perfect for a pillow fight. :)

Sketches

A little break today from projects around the house due to a Dentist appointment and getting Oscar ready for Halloween! Yay! Anyhow, I thought that this was kind of neat ....I was sorting through files last week to find a sketch I had done and came across some old illustrations. I don't illustrate much these days, perhaps I'll get back into it someday soon. It brought back so many memories.

Isn't this one perfect for today? :)

The vampire cracks me up.

All illustrations are copyright of me, Lindsay Stephenson. Just sayin'.

Hello everyone,

We had a lot of rain and wind here yesterday but many areas had their first snowfall.I wonder if that is a sign of what kind of a winter we will have. Last year we had a green Christmas so I am hoping for early December snow but not necessarily before then! Speaking of Christmas last year I had a Christmas blog that I started early in November but all the photos accidentally got deleted so on the weekend I spent some time trying to put them back on but I haven't decided yet whether to have a separate blog for Christmas or not.
Hope I am not the only one thinking about Christmas before October is over!
Anyway,today it is time to bid goodbye to our garden for another season. Much of the cleanup is done and the roses will have to be banked in the next couple of weeks so my days of going out to the garden and picking a bouquet are past,except for the late blooming monkshood , the sedum and some hydrangea blossoms everything else has been cut down.So one day last week I picked the last of blooms in the garden.

Farewell my garden-I will look forward to seeing you again come spring! For everything there is a season and I don't mind having a break from the garden chores for awhile as I look forward to a new season of beauty as the garden becomes covered in the pristine beauty of snow!

Macro shots of feverfew and the Fairy rose

Blue campanula

I hope all the little ones have a safe and fun filled halloween tonight!

I am joining the house in the roses for Show off Your Cottage Monday.

Thank you for stopping by.

Carolyn