Year of Learning and Creativity - 2015 photo challenge week 1

Instead of making a resolution this year, I'm setting a theme to guide me. A twitter friend mentioned they have been doing this for a few years and after some thought I decided I liked it. A late night walk or two later I decided that 2015 will be a year of Learning and Creativity. I chose this theme as learning and creativity are things I value and want to improve on. My learning of the last year or two has been haphazard and disjointed, I want to change that. I have let my creative endeavours slip too - exhaustion and other concerns got in the way. Once again, this needs changing. I'll do this several ways, but here's the first.

As of the first of January I'm setting off on a 365 photo challenge. On a previous blog I did one of these that eventually rocketed on past 500 consecutive days. Ultimately I quit because I was exhausted and it had become a chore. As a result and haven't been doing all that much with my photos or even taking them very often since.This time I have a plan that I hope will be less of a chore and help me rediscover why I love taking photos. So rather than blogging daily as last time, I'll put the photos to Instagram most days with a weekly post here, if I do take any that I want to display in full resolution/not square-ness I might post here a little more. Some days might be more serious photography but there's nothing wrong with happy snaps either. 

This month I'm going sort of... free-spirited with the photo challenge. I think I might try out various organised ones with daily themes in some of the other months. They look like an interesting inspiration.

1 - 2014 ended well - I had good company and went to the cricket, had delicious dessert and watched fireworks before cycling home shortly after midnight. I was pleasantly surprised by how nice it was out on the bike at that hour. Continuing on, 2015 got off to a good start, playing cricket in the nets with friends, excellent Indian dinner, watching the new Hobbit movie and last but not least, a swim at Glenelg late at night. I've never seen the water so clear and calm. It was cool, but I adjusted quickly. I could gladly have stayed a long time.

2 - January 2 was especially hot - I farewelled Amy and Barnaby's kitten and got on my way back home. Once inside I stayed there - air conditioning and movies (Dark Star, Flying High, How to Train Your Dragon 2). The day peaked at 44.7 C at the nearest weather station so I only ventured out for dinner - I wasn't cooking in that.

3 - Terrible bushfires in the Adelaide Hills, some not all that far away, so I spent the day keeping an eye on reports and warnings. I stitched a bit while I did so - this is a project that I've been working on for a long time and needs finishing. Towards evening I could smell the fires but thankfully they've stayed a good distance away. Also, a bonus photo because the sky was beautiful.

4 - When I headed back up here two days ago I brought some Christmas leftover perishable goods that won't last until holidaying folk return. The quantities are still kind of large so I'll definitely get my recommended fruit and veg intake for a few days... though I'm not yet sure how I'll use all the parsley and corriander. Some of it went into this salad. Lacking the ingredients for my favourite cous cous recipe I made it up as I went along. Not bad, though I think I'd make the dressing from my favourite to put on it next time. I've still got crazy volumes of these herbs left and other things besides. Slightly overwhelmed but really not complaining, this really is a delicious conundrum.

A is for... Applique

Applique is a less familiar craft than the last few have been and my experience with blanket stitch is extremely limited so this isn't perfect - but I don't mind. Which is good because I'm usually a perfectionist and it's nice to find some not-perfectionism.

I chose my colours and got to work. I wanted a more electric blue but couldn't find one, I think this one turned out very well all the same. I chose felt over fabric to avoid fraying issues.

As with the other letters I didn't use a pre-made template but worked my own out. I had to adjust it a little and if I want to do any more small felt cut-outs I'll need to get a more suited set of scissors (an xacto knife just didn't work out).

I'm tempted to get an early start on the next letter which I hope to have done tomorrow - the technique I've chosen can be time-consuming to do on the scale I usually use. For that one I'll go totally pattern-and-template free...

Edit: slightly further on than tomorrow, perhaps... I chose to use a very fine canvas. No regrets as the progress is looking great but it's 4x more work so please bear with me!

Matryoshkas and Melbourne

Quite a few things have happened since my last post, and some things that I had made but could not yet show off can now be shown.

There have been two farewells from work and I made cards for both. One card was very much like those in my previous post, the other quite different. I modified an image from My Sparkle's matryoshka doll ornament tutorial to make it suitable for stitching into a card.

I do love making cards, but I hope not to have to make another farewell card TOO soon.

I also took a trip to Melbourne - travel is another thing I love, though this time going on a grand adventure was not an option. I saw many sights and relaxed for four days which was well needed. I went to the Esplanade Market at St Kilda where I found these fantastic geeky earrings. There were many single earrings to choose my pair from, but this pair just worked so well?

Of course, the food in Melbourne was amazing too. I had meals from all corners of the world and even found a cupcake bakery with more than twenty varieties of cupcakes, that decision was a hard one! The best meal I had was from Xpresso Mondo in Degraves Street. Such a small restaurant that there were no indoor tables, but on a clear night the outdoor tables were very atmospheric. Braised lamb shanks from the specials menu were absolutely delicious and cooked beautifully. I might have missed out on Mum's Sunday roast, but this went some way to making up for it!

I did many other things in Melbourne - visited ACMI and played fantastic games at the Best of the Independent Games Festival 2012 display and got to call it a cultural experience! I also visited NGV, wandered around the Fitzroy Gardens and generally had a wonderful time.

Now I've got some knitting to do - I bought some sashay yarn at Clegs and am working on making a fabulous frilly scarf.

Until next time!

Triple Threat Librarian

Hello there.

This is not my first blog, but I hope this new one will allow me to share some of my interests - my previous blog adventures have had a more personal flavour.

I'm a librarian - of sorts (qualification - check!, job to match - hmm...)

I'm a crafter - of jewellery, cards, fabric objects and more

And I'm a geek - interested in almost all things geeky

I hope that here I can share all of those things with you. For starters, let me show you the cards I made for Mother's Day last week using the free design found here...

... and tell you that my favourite authors include Terry Pratchett, Jim Butcher, Neil Gaiman and Jasper Fforde, though I certainly don't limit my reading to these.

Now, back to working on another card - this time I'm using an image I've found but determining stitch placement myself.