Daily Drivel

I'm still here!

Been a bit quiet on here recently - we've been busy settling in an unexpected new member of the family - a 4yo dog called Pippin. I've set up a separate blog for him. Take a look here: http://webdzine.typepad.com/pip_the_dog if you want to know more!

I haven't done any knitting/spinning/sewing etc. since we got him. Think I might do a bit of crochet later. We will need to have a bit of a move round and put my big table in the spare room so I can sew in there. Dogs and pins etc. don't mix too well. Having said that - he's very good at staying away from you if you tell him to.

I was planning to get my crochet club blanket finished this month but I don't think that's going to happen now. Only a few smallish pieces to finish making but lots of sewing up! Oh well - maybe next month. I'm blaming the dog ;-)

Finished something!

I bought most of the fabric for this quilt back in October 2010 in a nice little shop in Axminster (I'm not sure if it is still there - they don't have a website). I decided I needed more fabric if I was going to make a reasonable sized quilt so I bought some more bits at a local shop. The squares are 8" - I quilted them individually before joining them together. The joining was very time consuming but I quite like the method. Next time I'll make bigger squares! I washed it at 30C on a cotton cycle and used 6 colour catcher sheets which all came out quite pink, so it was well worth using them! Really pleased with how it's turned out. Next I want to make a double bed sized quilt. Eeek!

The other side:

Happy New Year!

Another year sneaks by! I feel like I lost a few months waiting for my leg to heel and there were quite a few things I'd planned to do last year but couldn't because of the leg :-( Hoping to try and make up for that this year.

I always have some resolutions for the new year but I'm not usually very good at keeping them. My main one last year was to lose weight. I started going to a local Rosemary Conley class in Jan. last year and in Feb. I started going to Zumba.  The RC class was ok - her diet suits me pretty well and it works but I did start to find the exercise part a bit boring after a few weeks of Zumba so I ended up going to Zumba 3 times a week and I stopped going to the RC class (it was costing too much to do everything!) and just carried on following the diet at home. Unfortunately, breaking my leg at the end of May put a halt to my Zumba classes and I didn't worry too much about sticking to my diet either. I just wanted to get better! I'd lost just over a stone before I broke my leg.

I put on about 5lb while I was getting better - could have been a lot worse! Anyway, we are now both on the diet and I'm now 1st13lb lighter than I was this time last year. I'm aiming to get down to my target weight by the end of June.

Another of my resolutions was  to read more. A bought me a Kindle for my birthday and I've really enjoyed using it and probably read more books in 2011 than I have for years. I don't know why because I always had my nose in a book as a kid. I guess you get out of the habit. I've already finished my first book of the year. Wesley - it's about a barn owl and was an enjoyable and interesting read.

A few of my favourite bits of this year: making my first quilt; visiting Portmeirion; hand feeding a baby robin (didn't manage to get photos of this); my first trip out to take photos after breaking my leg; going to the Festival of Quilts at the NEC - I wasn't sure I'd be ok as it was only 11 weeks since I broke my leg and I was still using a crutch to help me walk. It was SO tiring but a great show. In September we went to Mallorca and had a lovely time.

I've made quite a few resolutions/goals for this year. I won't list them all here - some are small things some are quite big. One of them is to try and take a photo a day using my new phone camera. I've tried doing this in the past but failed. I love taking photos but I don't really like the pressure of trying to take something every day and then having to process and upload the photo(s). I do admire my friend Helen - she has been taking and posting a photo a day on her blog for ages now. So - to keep the pressure down I am going to use my phone to do this. I won't be trying to take fantastic photos because it's not a fantastic camera but I can edit the photos a bit and post to my blog straight from the phone. I've set up a separate blog here. We'll see how long I can keep going!

A belated Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas! Bit late but it's the thought that counts, right?!

We've had a relaxing time - just the 2 of us at home. Been trying not to over indulge too much - don't want to wreck the diet as we've done really well so far. I had some lovely pressies including some Zumba DVDs and the new Zumba game for the Wii (didn't you know I like Zumba?!). The new game seems much better than the old one - so relieved they got rid of the weird 'ready brek glow' dancers. It was quite often difficult to see what they were doing! I haven't played it properly yet - just had a quick look. I did the toning part of the DVD set yesterday which was ok. Think I need another couple of goes to get the hang of some of the moves. The game/DVDs won't be replacing my classes because I love going. I'll just be able to do some extra sessions at home now :-)

We popped out yesterday to have a look round the shops. Didn't buy much although I did get a new phone! Unusually for me I didn't do much research first. I wanted an Android phone for less than 70.00 so was quite happy to get a Huawei Blaze for 50.00 It's a great improvement on my old Nokia which was not very smart at all! The final straw was really a couple of weeks ago when a friend sent me a photo from her iPhone and my phone couldn't cope! Anyway - really like it so far and looking forward to making use of all the new features :-) I made a case for it today - bit botched but it seems to work. Will post a photo soon. Too dark for photos now.

Must go and drink my cup of tea and have a mince pie :-)

Robin in progress...

I started a new drawing today, based on a photo I took earlier in the year. I guess I cheated a bit to get the outline right. I traced the photo in Photoshop Elements (really old version - guess I'll upgrade one day!) using a wacom tablet which a friend has kindly loaned to me :-) It was quite tricky to get a smooth line but I only wanted the main features. I then printed the outline and transfered it to my paper using the school kid method of covering the back of the line with soft pencil and then tracing over the front. I really should get some graphite transfer paper for this.

I've used my Inktense pencils and a couple of other colours from an old set of Derwent watercolour pencils to do some light underpainting and am now working over again with the pencils. I wasn't too happy with how it was looking a few hours ago but I worked over the robin again and I think it's looking ok (sorry - should have taken a photo earlier). I think it's going to take me a while to finish this!