February Favourites

 Once again are thin on the ground...

We had such dismal weather - it was making the news headlines when some parts of the country had seen no sunshine for 10 days. So my sister and I decided that last weekend was probably a better bet than the previous one for me to go down to Cork. It probably was - Sunday was very wild, wet and windy but we had a lovely walk along the Lee in the afternoon on Saturday, and with the tide going out, got to see more than just seagulls. It was especially lovely to see two curlews - we heard them on one of our walks elsewhere last year but didn't see them. This time it was see but not here. I still haven't edited my photos from that walk yet, so I'll just add a few photos here and then (hopefully) have a link to an album next time I manage to make a post. 

Curlew, curlew with oystercatchers, turnstone, plover, and a painted drainage something or other - the little ladybird was painted over a protrusion in the pipework. If I'd known that we were likely to see so many birds I'd either have brought my Nikon or a longer lens for my Olympus, but with the weather forecast being what it was, I had no great expectations. 

This month's blog header is some snakeshead fritillaries in Farmleigh, taken last March. 

January favourites

are very slim pickings...I like the first one which was almost entirely scraps from various containers on my desk, apart from the crimped ATC base, crimping being what was called for.  And the third one was fun because while looking for something to create a background for the dolphin, I spotted the cover of a pad of watercolour paper.

I visited my sister for a weekend in the middle of the months. Days were still shorter then (loving the already noticeable lengthening in the days) and the weather wasn't very inspiring, but we did go for a walk along the Marina Walk by the Lee. They're doing a lot of flood relief works so not all of the paths were accessible, but it was somewhere I'd never been before and it was a pleasant outing. Small (15 photos) album is HERE. 

The blog header is from a February visit to my sister last year - again, pretty dismal weather. As I recall, at that stage my sister had put her camera away, it not being in any way weatherproof. 

December favourites

 Wishing everyone a peaceful new year, and as good health as possible. 

My header is taken from a day trip my sister and I took on her birthday last January, to Castlefreke strand. 

Cards include one I made for one of my aunt's good friends/carers/dog sitter, and the one I finally finished for C on Christmas Eve. The stitched toadstool was a purchase with money for making cards for my sister-in-law and her husband. It was way out of scale with the snowmen but I wanted to include it. came down with my third cough and cold in as many months the day after I finished work, so everything has been a bit of a drag. 

 The first one is by way of being a vintage depiction of a local attraction, so it represents the Phoenix Park with its gas lights and herd of deer. I just ordered, and am in the middle of reading, a book called "The Lamplighters of the Phoenix Park", which is in part a general history of the park and more specifically the family which provided four generations of lamp lighters. The two elderly gentlemen I used to see are now retired from active service but I was told that they still help out in the workshop. 

November Favourites

 Not a lot of cardmaking till near the end of the month, when I had to fill an order for sympathy and Christmas cards for C's sister and her husband. But - we finally have new staff in work and from now on I should have a bit more free time. The last three cards are some of the designs I made for John. Printy the Snowman  was a one-off using a dictionary page with part of the definition of snow - afterwards I thought I should have scanned and saved the page. But then I thought - it's an old dictionary (it was my mother's, the Shorter Oxford Dictionary in two volumes, and it's been part of my life for as long as I can remember), and nothing could replicate the feel of old paper. And it's not as if I'm short on dictionary pages, it was just fun to use a relevant definition. The split circles is a nice technique because it automatically gives you two for the price of one. 

It was also hard to find a header from last December, which was pretty busy between work and visits to my sister. I had a couple of photos from work, several of my sister's kitty and the one I used which is a pedestrian bridge over the Liffey in the centre of Dublin, and which I must have taken one of the nights I got the bus back up after spending time down with my sister and her husband.  Oh - the other photos were of our huge array of begged, borrowed and bought jerry-cans after C filled our (diesel) car with petrol and we had to empty the entire tank. That, at the time, was doubly stressful because exceptionally we really needed a car over Christmas as we were spending it with my sister, but fortunately there were no ill effects. We still haven't finished using all the slightly contaminated petrol (gas) - C is happy to use it in the lawnmower but a bit reluctant to put it in his more thoroughbred motorbike, so there are still three or four jerrycans in the back yard. 

October Favourites

 The first two were made for a challenge to use ephemera. The iris folded one took me back to my early card-making days. 

It's been a busy month, I haven't had time to do anything about sharing photos from my trip to Cork in September yet, and here we are looking at November. I'm hoping for a bit more free time from now on, though. 

My header is the only photo I have on my phone from last November, as I haven't had time to get up to the computer all week to see if I had anything else to choose from. It's the  Parkgate Street entrance gates to Phoenix Park on the day of Storm Debi.

 

September favourites

 ...are extremely thin on the ground, two attempts at image transfer using inkjet printed images and Applicraft transfer glaze, and one shabby chic. Work has been busy.  Weekends have been busy. When I get time next week I hope to upload photos from my last visit to my sister, two weekends ago. It was the tail end on an Indian summer week, we spent Friday afternoon doing gardening stuff that required two people, and then went for an outing on Saturday. 

Photos from last September are also in short supply - I think I was still spending all my days off out at my aunt's house. Sadly the initial sale fell through recently so we're back to scratch on that one. I'm hoping it will be sold by Christmas! So for my header I'm using a photo of the Japanese anemone my sister gave me. We had pink ones in the garden growing up, but the ones I already had myself are white. 

I also have a couple of photos from a very misty morning a couple of weeks ago. I was hoping for a bit more sunshine by the time I was going through the park, but it was still very dense. In fact I kept having to stop to wipe my glasses dry enough to see, and I'm glad it wasn't the day C was driving to the Ploughing Championships, it would have been awful driving in those conditions. Having taken time to bring my camera with me, I thought I should at least try a couple of shots. 

August Favourites

 are very thin on the ground - I made quite a few Christmas cards I was very happy with, but I don't tend to share those off-season. Apart from that, there are only these few that stand out as being favourites...

I just missed running over a caterpillar on the way home from work - and then went back to take a closer look at it. My sister and I both think it must be a white ermine moth. The patterning down its spine is quite beautiful.

The header photo is what I remember thinking was a very late moorhen chick. I had been saying that it was the first year I hadn't got to see any mallard (or other chicks) along the canal or in the park, and then we spotted this family down on the lily ponds. 

July Favourites

 Not very many - it's been a busy month in work and I had a couple of family events on.

I appear to have no photos from last August - again probably because I was still in the thick of dealing with my aunt's house and that was taking all my time and energy and days off.

The hummingbird is a ruby-topaz, from the book of kirigami paper birds I bought in France a few years ago. The head and breast are base layers covered with tiny punched circles - but it went faster than I thought it might. 

This is cold off the needles, and very unseasonable. I used up a lot of the leftovers from various socks to knit a scarf for C. It was something like 500 or 600 stitches on the needle, as it's knit sideways. Nice to get a lot of scraps used up, although I had a bright red that wasn't suitable to incorporate. You break the wool at the end of each row and leave enough to tie the fringe, so there was practically no darning in of loose ends - a big bonus. Currently finishing off a pair of socks and I've just started a winter cardigan. 

June Favourites

 I have more cards than I expected - I think because we only went on holidays for two weeks instead of our normal three.

It was also our laziest holiday in a LONG time, we stayed in one location just beside a beach. So most of my photos are sunsets, and they need some serious culling but I hope to get a few uploaded soon.

What I couldn't find was a single photo from last year to use as a blog header. I was starting to wonder if I had accidentally deleted a folder, but then I remembered that we came straight back from holidays to my aunt being in hospital, and July was a pretty hectic and exhausting month. Instead I used an older photo taken in Farmleigh.