Ok, that might be a bit of an overstatement.

This week, my Sister-in-Law Maura came to visit.  Two of the kiddles were in a musical, so she flew up to Rhode Island to attend.

 Here she is in her Newsies swag, with my two oldest kiddos after the final show

Now Maura has a very nice camera that she enjoys playing around with, growing her skillset as an amateur photographer.  I asked if she wouldn’t mind bringing it along on her visit in order to do a little photoshoot for Jilly & Kiddles.  While trying to get this website off the ground I’ve definitely been struggling with taking decent pictures of my colorways.  Mind you, I get great shots of yarn.  They are (usually) in focus.  They’re bright and colorful, and I love them.  What they aren’t, though, is a decent representation of the actual in-real-life colors of the yarn.  As a person who’s trying to use the internet to sell fiber, I definitely understand the importance of showing my customers the truest representation of the colors that I can.  Capturing the colors without washing them out or making other parts too dark is challenging!

So I googled it.  I researched.  I read articles.  You name it.  My shots were getting better, but not quite what I wanted yet.  Naturally, I thought maybe if I had a really great camera, if would make a difference.  Maura agreed to bring the camera along, and sounded excited to use her new skills to help me out.  Trying out a “professional” camera without having to buy it?  Yes, please!

Our weekend was uber busy with the play, visitors, basketball, cards, movies, and snuggled-up-on-the-couch-time.  Before we knew it, it was the last day and I thought, darn, we didn’t get to the photo shoot!  As luck would have it, Maura’s flight was canceled and she had to stay an extra night.  Perfect!  (Well, for me it was, for her, maybe a little inconvenient)  On Monday, my husband Brian left for work.  All four kids went off to school.  Maura and I found ourselves alone with a whole day in front of us, and decided to get to work.

 Mounds of yarn lined up on my dining table.  It turns out the best light was by the slider in the dining room!

 There was so much yarn to photograph!

 We got through all of this, which is about half of what I wanted to shoot.

 Our little photoshoot really grew into a huge production.  We had to find the perfect spot in the house, with the best light.  We had to set up an area to work (piano bench by the sliders)  We needed a backdrop and a thingy to bounce the light into the shadows.  We had to change F-stops and shutter speeds and the like.  Yeah, this part was WAY more Maura’s job than mine.  It was fun, challenging, and worth every second.  We had a few laughs for sure.  Anyone remember the photoshoot scene at the end of Austin Powers?  And we talked to the yarn like it could hear us and comply.  (It didn't really, to be honest.  Yarn is a punk sometimes.)

My poor SIL Maura worked her butt off and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it!  She's the best and I owe her one, big time.  

 Quick shot of us in the wee hours after a wedding a couple of months ago...

The photos in this post are all mine, taken with my little iPhone.  I'll show you some of the pictures Maura took next time.  I'm still going through them right now.  They all have to be resized in order to be uploaded to the website, so I'm still editing, color correcting, and resizing them right now.  It's a steep learning curve, but I'm getting there.

And the best part is that you'll be looking at true, representative colors of my yarn so I can be sure you'll be getting just what you're expecting!  Hurrah!

I keep thinking that next time I might write about the editing and all of that, but then I realized it is, um, probably not as interesting to you as it is to me.  I'll spare you the nerdy details, I guess...