Wait for 6 word story

Thank you Miriam for a fun weekly challenge with photo and 6 words

Snap and Hunt with animals

My set this week was the result of a family discussion of sets to photograph in Edinburgh – we mentioned several more animal sculptures so I may have a part 2 of this later in the year.

And animal statue is one of the alternates on the winter scavenger hunt so another ticked of that list too.

I’m enjoying all the ways in which you are using snap and look forward to more creativity this week

Memorandum Monday on Burns Night

Several new things this weekend – 2 crochet related that I can’t share picture of yet as they are gifts – but the colours are scrummy and the hat fun (I’ll share pictures when I can)

A taste discovery – the fresh pieces of coconut sold in tubs in the chill counter of my supermarket – it tastes really fresh and has a lovely texture – nicer than dried coconut

A technology discovery.  I’ve been frustrated because LiveWriter, which I use to write blog posts, has stopped working and Microsoft it not supporting it anymore.  I went searching for an alternative and found an opensource version which feels just the same and is being supported. My only grumble is that the spell checker does not seem to be active.  So if you too have been wanting an alternative to Live Writer I recommend Open Live Writer – working well so far this weekend.

And seeing as none of my new things have an illustration here are two that I captured for the winter scavenger hunt – more bare trees

and lots of chimneys – all of these are on one house

Looking forward to haggis for dinner today – I won’t be attending a Burns Night dinner with all the pageantry, poetry and speeches but I will be eating haggis.

A big wave to you all and it seems appropriate to use a Burns wish for a good week – bless us with content 

a story in 6 words will BE created

I'm joining Miriam in her lovely new weekly meme - a photo and 6 words - with a different focus word each week - and she has shared her list of words for the year.  This week the word is BE.

Snap footprints

I walk over these footprints in concrete most days and I knew I would find some in the sand on the beach and hoped the weather would deliver either mud or snow - as it happened I found both.

Loving all the different visual sets that you are capturing and I'm storing up several ideas for future sets.

my big crochet project

over the last few months I've been working on a big crochet project that I couldn't share because it was a gift - but now it is in its new home I can share.

It all started last August when I was talking about my crafting for charity group looking for new recipients for blankets and my nephew said we could always deliver to his house.  I filed away that thought and mentioned it to my sister who asked him if he really wanted a granny square blanket and he said that he did want a colourful one.  My sister has several so he has grown up with them.

My sister and I agreed we could make one between us and used one of Attic24s colour packs as a starting point for the colours and added a few others which I had left over giving us 19 colours to make squares

 

I made all of the centre pieces and gave half to my sister

 

My approach to colour choice was to add one row to each square, using each of the colours - our only rule was that no square had one colour appearing twice.  The colour swatch pegs were really useful for making the colour choices and then remembering them

 

 I did a lot of the crochet while watching the rugby world cup - all those bits when they are setting up a scrum or watching replays.  By the end I had my pile of finished squares - just needing the final row.  We decided that to tie together all the colours we would use the same colour for the final row on every square and chose an off white for this

 My sister brought me her finished squares and we laid some out to see what it would look like

And by mid November I had all of the squares, ready to join together

Tada the final blanket, all joined with some edging rows too

My sister and I were pleased with the result and my nephew was pleased with the blanket when he opened it at Christmas. 

Snap on my coffee

Lovely to see so many joining in with snap last week - thank you all.  I enjoyed the variety of interpretations and think we are set for an interesting year.  I know that I have been paying attention to detail a lot in the last week as I store away ideas for future snap sets.

If you are new to snap my idea is to share a set of between 2 and 4 images that have a visual link such as colour or shape or subject or that form a photo essay (or anything else you care to share as a visual set)

This week I was thinking about a # that Miriam uses a lot on her Instagram feed  - 'nothing is ordinary'.  So I decided to create a snap set with photos of a nice decoration that is made for me most days

my barista coffee of choice is a flat white and the way in which the milk is added to the coffee means that there is usually a nice pattern made from the brown of the coffee and the white of the steamed milk.  My local cafe has some trainee baristas at the moment who have not mastered the perfect pattern (but the coffee still tastes good).  I do compliment the baristas when they make a particularly pretty design. I have a flat white most days so this was an easy set to collect.

I'm hoping to find inspiration for more snap sets in the idea that nothing is ordinary

Looking forward to seeing what you have collected this week

Monday Memorandum : 2 firsts for the year and metaphor

Waving to Sian and all the Monday people.  Sian has suggested that this year we share something new we did or learnt and she deployed the ‘memorandum’ word.  I’m old enough to remember using a memo pad at work for sending notes that we would now send as an email – they were orange for some reason.  When I did typing classes as school the memo format was one of the key ones we had to learn – all those :’s .  So of course I take any mention of a memorandum seriously.
So – this weekend I bought my first daffodils for the year – so cheery on a grey day

and on Saturday I spied my first snow of the year – non fell here but I saw cars with snow on their roof and I could see some white on the hills (all gone by Sunday)

I also learnt something new – an interesting metaphor description of a common component of dyslexia and dyspraxia: like trying to run Photoshop on an old computer with little RAM, resulting in long pauses and frozen actions.  The suggestion is that part of dyslexia and dyspraxia is an in-balance between intellectual perception and comprehension on one side and immediate working memory and processing speed on the other.
Have a great week.

5 in 5 after the rain

Joining Sandie for her lovely monthly 5 in 5 meme and ticking off another item for the scavenger hunt.  After so much rain there are plenty of puddles (item 6) and a sunny interval meant lovely reflections in them too - I took so many photos on one stretch of path that when I was back at my computer I realised they would be perfect for my January 5 in 5

Snap 1

A new year and a new theme for Wednesday.  My idea for Snap is a visually linked set of between 2 and 4 images.  The set can be based on colour or shape or subject or ... let's see what we collectively come up with over the year.

I was thinking about what I would use for my first snap while on my daily walk and looked at the clock on top of the school sport pavilion - and thought it would make a good subject as I also regularly see several other clock towers.  I liked the idea of using clocks given how important the clock face is for marking the new year.

Top left is the one I see on my walk, top right is in the city and clock which we gathered near for New Year when I was a student in Edinburgh, bottom left is on the old town hall on my local high street and for the last I went to my photo archive for the lovely clock tower at the University of Auckland (NZ) where I worked for 15 years.

Looking forward to seeing how everyone uses this new theme.

Happy New Year

and my item for number 21 on the scavenger hunt list - my own handwriting.