Archive for Uncategorized
You might think by now I would be in the throws of writing the book. A year ago if you told me I had gotten a book deal what would I be doing a few weeks later I would say “swatching, and knitting and sketching oh my!” my first deliverable was a LIST! It was very exciting, let me tell you! Okay actually it was exciting because it will effect everything I do for the next 9 months but I just thought it was funny, very anti-climactic. It was still fun though, and I quiet enjoyed writing that list.
Continue reading “Book writing is slow business” »
November 18, 2010 · Filed under Life, Uncategorized |
In this family, it’s all-tinker-bell, all the time. Okay well it’s also a lot of cinderella. Which I actually find to be a really perfect movie for a 3 year old, accept I don’t like telling her the “bad guy” is a step-mom, it’s just seriously messed up how many of the fairly-tales have evil women as the main bad guy. I just call her the “mean lady” and I don’t like telling her the sisters are mean to Cinderalla, because then she would start projecting or imitating that onto her baby sister I think. I’ve found I like to be really careful in what she watches. I’ve given in to a bit of the princess stuff but not too much and the weather has been so lovely most evenings (when it’s not raining) that we love to go outside for a few hours in the afternoon. I’ve tried convincing her to wear something other then one of her costumes, but it’s not worth the war. I was able to get her to put jeans on though with socks and shoes so she wouldn’t be too cold. She was completely blissed-out on life.
Continue reading “Are you a tinker too?” »
November 15, 2010 · Filed under Life, Uncategorized |
A few days ago a good friend of mine and I went to a local tree farm (wonderful place) so that I could take some test/prep shots for some upcoming christmas photos I am taking for a few families. I was wearing some thin cargo pants, and my birkinstocks (and socks because I am lame and don’t care). So we had myself and BG/LG and my friend and her 12 year old son, and twin toddler boys. Walking along I felt something on my leg below the knee. I remember shaking my leg, and whatever it was crept up HIGHER and touched my knee. It felt BIG, it was crawling up my pants. I put LG down away form me and began jumping up and down and screaming. I remember looking at my friends face while I did this. She looked at me in shock, I don’t even think she said anything accept maybe “are you okay”. The THING crept up to my thigh. In the space of about 2 seconds I remember thinking, “I can’t take my pants off in public”, and then as I felt it creep up higher, my thoughts went to “oh heck YES I AM TAKING OFF MY PANTS RIGHT NOW BEFORE THIS THING GETS UP HIGHER!”.
So I did, as quickly and spastically as one can manage while screaming, I took my pants off, and while I did this the 12 year old boy turned around which in the moment was just really hilarious but at the time I remember seeing him turn around but I didn’t really care. So there I am standing in the middle of a dirt path on a tree farm, with 5 kids and my friend starring at me in shock, as I stand in my shirt and underwear. It was one of those moments in life, one of those moments that anytime you begin to remember it, you simple can not stop smiling and laughing.
Continue reading “Those crazy moments” »
November 9, 2010 · Filed under Uncategorized |
On my quest to learn more about manual photography this past year, I’ve tried a lot of forums. I even sucked it up and tried some of the paid forums, so I thought I would share my experience with you.
I’ve been on the internet a long time, I started off in mIRC chat rooms way back in the day (1997) and I have to say the phenomenon of paid forums seems to be very much centered around moms. I’ve seen parenting forums that are paid, and breast-feeding forums that are paid, and photography forums that are paid (lots of them mom togs aka Mom Photographers). In all my years as a front end coder, it was always extremely easy to find forums with access to random strangers willing to help a fellow geek out, able to get answers to many very complex questions. Photography, breast-feeding and being a mom? Ya gotta pay for that apparently. I’ve always found it rather disappointing but I was left frustrated with the free photography forums so I decided to test a few out.
Continue reading “Photography Forum Review” »
I’ve been sitting on some very exciting news for about a week now, but I was away on vacation when I received it. Back in June when I went to TNNA, I did something crazy! I put together a book proposal about two days before I left, with the kids at my knees all the while. I printed out a few color copies, put together a notebook with some yarn and photo inspiration and showed up at the Potter Craft booth with it in hand. I set a time to speak to an editor, and we spoke for about an hour. I had a really good time talking with her, and left with a very happy feeling in my heart. Six months of very patient (hah!) waiting and I now can share with you the very happy news that I have accepted an offer from Potter Craft (a division of Random House) to produce my book!
I have to thank my good friend and partner over at Petite Purls, Allegra as it was her suggestion in the first place. I had been telling her for months I had wanted to publish a book of kids knits but that I lacked a really solid idea, something to make it special. I was then working on a little side project, a small idea I had and I e-mailed her photos of the FO, to which she replied “you should do a book of those”. It was like a little light bulb went off and I realized, my goodness she is right, that would make the perfect book (in fact I am hoping that little project makes it into the book). So off I went putting together my book proposal, which consisted of many photos, a few sketches, a portfolio/bio of my knitting patterns, market research on the particular idea and lots of other examples, it was 7 pages long. I also had a few family and friends review it for me, checking for any errors. I was very pleased with it, just like Petite Purls, it had come together with a bit of serendipity. I don’t want to give away too many details, I want to leave some surprises for later but I do promise you I will be documenting the process here on my personal blog, as well as a few posts over at Petite Purls. It is of course, kid-centric and will be a wonderful collection of knits for kids of various ages.
This is an incredible opportunity for me, and I feel so pleased that Potter Craft is as excited as I am, they are an amazing publisher and I feel very lucky to be working with them. I also need to thank Allegra for telling me I needed to go for it, to my fantastic Agent Linda for getting me through the last bit of the process with lots of support, and to my family and friends for putting up with my anxiety these past 3 months as things slowly came to a close. And of course to my published friends for all of their advice. Now I get to actually write and do all the designing, the next 12 months are going to be crazy and I could not be more excited to get started!
My name is Brandy Fortune, and I design knit-wear for kids. I love Crème Brulée, Sci-Fi, 70 degree weather and reading a good book in bed. I spend my time knitting, sewing, taking pictures, co-editing the web-zine 
