I made–necklaces

continuing my tales of crafting past with bead jewellery

about 10 years ago, when I had been living in Wellington (NZ) for about 6 months I was exploring the fabulous central library and discovered their comprehensive collection of crafting magazines.  I picked up some beading magazines and leafed through them enjoying all the colours and the different techniques.  I generally wore a colourful necklace and brooch to work so I though I would give it a go.  There was a big bead shop nearby so I borrowed 2 of the magazines and went off to buy supplies.  I was hooked and quickly built up a good stash of beads and supplies.

I enjoyed the different techniques -

threading beads onto tiger wire or thread

threading beads with a needle and thread (and learning the difference between peyote and dutch twist)

and bending wire to create little charms to attach to chain (each fo those beads has a wire through it that I then bent into a hook.

I still have a decent stash of beads and all the related tools but, as with so many crafts, I rarely wear all the lovely pieces I made – in part because I no longer dress for work in an office.  I do make thinks with beads occasionally but no longer buy the magazine each month and so am not up with the latest trends and techniques. 

Any other current or former bead workers out there? and anyone else discovered a new craft through browsing magazines?

softly, softly with 3rd colours of summer

Kirstin’s trio of colours in summer of colour this week offer a contrast from previous weeks by not being contrasting and instead are nearly 3 shades of purple – the grey is a warm one

subconsciously I must have been thinking soft with these colours as I was drawn to my photo of a feather covered in raindrops.  After extracting the image and colouring it in grey and lavender I played with several ways of displaying the feather against a plum background

I had some wool in a similar set of hues so was able to make another charity blanket square too

I’m really enjoying the different types of colour trios Kirstin is giving us for this challenge and look forward to seeing how others have used them.

zoom in on hidden treasure

admiring the lush leaves on the raspberry and strawberry plants in my garden I almost missed the hidden treasure - some ripe strawberries (delicious).  Now I know, I'm carefully checking under the leaves for more red.

This is week 26 so half way through the year - can hardly believe it.  I know there will be more treasures shared by you all this week - thank you all for participating.

Scavenger hunt progress

when I read through the summer scavenger hunt list from Rinda I was dividing them in my mind into 3 categories

* I know where to find that

* keep my eyes open

* good luck

So far I have gone to capture 4 of those in the ‘know where to find them category’ – the gnome and these 3

and I spotted this from the ‘eyes wide open’ category when we were at the aquarium (with amphibians)

enjoying the hunt and keeping my eyes open for a tattoo that I can photograph, a bakery and birds on a wire.

summer of colour jewels

lovely rich jewel colours for this weeks summer of colour plus a splash of pure white

I altered a photo again and used this one from March as my starting point

and this is what I created

this one I will be printing off and I think it would make a great postcard too

I found some wool in approximate colours too so was able to make another square for a charity blanket to be sent for blankets for AIDS orphans in South Africa

I enjoyed looking at all the lovely summer of colour creations last week and know they will be fantastic this week too across a wide range of styles and mediums

Zoom in on the sharks

a visit to the shark tunnels at DeepSea World was the perfect place for a zoom in zoom out capture

and they say the glass makes them look smaller!

next week is week 26 - half way through the year, loving that so many of you have shared every week and that some of you have joined in for the first time recently, great that it works both ways

bunting and toxoplasmosis

not often you find a link between bunting and parasites but they are some of the things I’ve been creating with my crochet hook recently

the bunting pattern was in my crochet magazine, created by the lovely attic24 whose blog I follow too for all the lovely colours she uses and the fun things she hooks.

I chose the oranges, yellow and blue for a bright summer feel

and ordered a set of autumn colours at the same time for another string to hang later in the year, between this summery set and my christmas decorations.

And then there are the parasites that I crocheted

the pink and yellow one is  Leishmaniasis (associated with sand fly bites); the green one is sleeping sickness; and the pink and blue one is toxoplasmosis which is transmitted through cat urine.

I’m making them for a crafty critters project based at the University of Glasgow which is creating education games and packs about parasites and how to avoid them for use in places where they are rife and cause problems.  They have more info on their facebook page. 

love that crochet can be so diverse

summer of colour week 1

Kristin provided us with a lovely palette for week 1 that is based on the primary colours trio but takes a summery version of each.

When I first saw them an image of Andy Warhol portraits came to mind that didn’t budge so I went with some pixel magic colour blocked landscape

and the colour combo was still in my head when I chose the wools for a charity blanket square

I’ll try to keep up this second aspect as long as I have the wool colours.

Loving the variety of artistic mediums people use in summer of colour, you can check them out on on Twinkle, Twinkle

Zoom in on the baggage tent

Saturday evening my Dad and I set out in the rain, across a muddy park to the big pink tent.  I didn't think I could complete a moonwalk (marathon length) or even a half but they needed volunteers so several months ago we signed up and were assigned to the baggage tent - given the rain that was a lucky allocation.

We were in bright yellow t-shirts and the walkers were mostly in bra and super-hero themed costumes.  We collected their bags and stored them ready for when they had finished.

We watched the first batch set off at 11.30 pm then set off for home while they walked through the night to raise money to fight breast cancer.  Glad to have done a small bit to help.

Looking forward to seeing what else has caught the eye for zoom in and out this week.

5 in a break in the rain

after more than 24 hours of rain I was glad of a break to get out for a nice walk and to capture my 5 in 5 to join Sandie with her monthly meme.

I cheated this month as my first image is a collage of 5 pictures of the big raindrops on things – couldn’t resist the range of colours and textures

the river was running high

with a tantalizing strip of light sky on the horizon

and some great puddles for reflections

and lots of wonderfully big raindrops catching reflections of their surrounds (the orange and white line is the barriers on the bridge)

I enjoyed capturing the details and the big picture during a break in the rain – thank you Sandie for the monthly prompt.

May’s maths

a new set of numbers on the calendar heralds another opportunity to look back on the last month while wearing my counting hat (imaginary for now), safe in the knowledge that Julie and others are doing the same.

In May I celebrated 1 birthday by visiting 2 kelpie sculptures, after enjoying a 7 item big breakfast

I went to Glasgow twice in relation to my upcoming volunteer role at the Commonwealth Games – 1st to collect my pass and uniform and then for a 10 hour training day.  In the afternoon we were let loose on the city in games cars to practice radio use (control, control, message received, over) and appreciate where the 14 venues are in relation to each other.  I still don’t know which of the 71 country teams I will be working with.

I read 6.5 books – unusually I abandoned a book a few chapters in when I realised I did not care about the characters and was avoiding it.  Of the 6 I completed, 4 involved crime solving, 1 was also in an imagined future and so combined my 2 favourite fiction genre (Ken Macleod for anyone else who loves crime solving and sci-fi).

I took 367 photos, of which 81 feature gees, swans or ducks.  I’ve spotted 4 goslings families, 2 duckling families and 1 batch of 7 cygnets.  The largest swan count during the month was 93 and on one day there were 56 swans congregated on this one stone islet

I crocheted a lot, including 1 mandala for Yarndale, 2 yellow ducks for the little yellow duck project promoting organ donor awareness and 6 small animal prototypes to sell to raise money for our crafting for charity (which I shared in this post).  I crocheted while chatting and drinking excellent coffee on all 4 of the Wednesdays in May in our crafting for charity group.

Thanks Julie for marshalling our monthly counts.

Zoom in on the stitches

these fabulous panels are from the new Scottish Disporia Tapestry which is being premiered at the local arts festival.

Each panel tells a story of scots' impact in another country.  The images above are some of the New Zealand panels - I love all the samll details like the tent at the bottom right of the zoom in photo.

I took lots of photos and couldn't resist sharing another example from the panels celebrating John Muir, especially as my normal daily walk includes a small part of the Scottish John Muir walkway

Waiting to be delighted and suprised by the range of topics in the zooms you all share this week.

off to a good start with a gnome capture

before you start calling up the gnome protection society or thinking that I’m involved in some fantasy game hunt, relax

a garden gnome is one of the item’s in Rinda’s just released list for this summer’s scavenger hunt 

looking forward to keeping my eyes open, an outing to see a waterfall and remembering to capture a few local sights.  Think I’ll be leaving the sunrise until last as by then sunrise should be 7am   instead of 4.30  at present (according to the internet – I haven’t been up and about in the dark for some time).  Thanks Rinda for another great list.