January Swap Partner Make

Howdy,

Remember a few weeks ago I took part in a swap organised by Jordan of In it to knit it?

In the parcel I sent her were some cute Hello Kitty buttons that I found online. Jordan's been pretty busy and made some slippers finished with the buttons, and if you visit her blog post here you can see them!

Have an awesome Friday!

xx

Darkroom Shenanigans

Afternoon :)

I'm a happy little bunny today. Yesterday I had my darkroom induction and I was kinda dreading it. The whole loading film in the dark and screwing it up thing.... when I worry about things I worry about them far in advance!

I met Andy at 9.30am at the only spot on the Reading Uni campus I know, which is where our meetings are usually held. The Darkroom is housed in an old nuclear bunker building though, which involves walking to the other side of the campus, crossing the lake and then finding the 1960s building with a water tower on top of it! I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to get there smoothly when I go on my own for the first time!

Regardless, we got there and then got settled in. The room's fairly small, but will fit 2 people quite comfortably. Three would be pushing it! The door to get in is a tiny corridor with a lightproof door. It's the lightproof door that the fun lies behind!

Andy started off with showing me things one step at a time. So the first step was to load my film onto a spiral and place it in a developing tank. Andy demonstrated, then I practised twice and then it was time for the actual thing. Off went all the lights! 

Things went pretty smoothly as you can start to feed in the film to the spiral using the feeder before you need to turn the light on. However I did manage to get the film to pop out of the holder at one point, so Andy intervened to fix it. The second time it popped out I did it myself :) It's really wierd trying to pass something in the dark to someone that you know is stood in front of you but you cannot see at all! 

Once it was loaded, the lights got switched back on. Then we mixed up the developer and it was time to start! This stage goes pretty smoothly, so long as you keep an eye on the timer! Once the developer, stop bath and fixer have been done, the tank is flooded with running water for 5-10 minutes to wash away any remaining chemicals and silver. 

Half the water is poured away, and two drops of wetting agent are added to the remainder, and the tank is shaken for 30 seconds. The tank can be opened with the light on because the film has been fixed. The spiral opens and two clips are attached to the film on either end. One is weighted and placed at the bottom, the film is then squeegeed and hung up to dry in a drying cabinet. It's then cut into strips of 6 negatives.

That's the film developing done!

xx

Productive Morning

Howdy :)

I've been busy so far today (for me, on a rare weekend off)! I definitely didn't buy 4 skeins of wonderful yarn, but I definitely did finish my roll of colour film while taking pictures of random things around the house. And I definitely have just (hopefully) successfully loaded and started a new roll of black & white film. I've showered, eaten and theoretically I'm now ready to leave the house and start my photography trip.

Aim of the day: Take at least 5 photos to be entered into a competition for the local university's history department, using the list of places I've been picking out this week.

Realistic aim of the day: Wait for the rain to go, then venture out to the river at the bottom of my road and take pictures of the two 'historic' bridges, wander into town and take a few more but not all the ones on my list.

I really don't like being out and about taking photos on my own. It's a confidence and scared of being challenged thing. If I'm with someone else, or in a group that's perfect but I'm worried (hopefully for nothing) that I'll be stopped and asked why I'm taking pictures of landmarks! It's the same in London, I don't like taking pictures of things too much because the terrorism paranoia is even bigger there. I don't imagine Reading gets many tourists taking pictures, so I should stick out like a sore thumb!

Wish me luck! :)

xx

Trying to get the Mojo back

Morning :)

Shameful confession of the week time! I haven't done any knitting in at least a week. I was knitting Theodora, a mystery Knit-a-Long, and progressed very nicely twice. Then I dropped a stitch and just could not for the life of me figure out how to get it back! It's a kerchief/neck warmer thing, and the first half is worked in linen stitch which looks great.

I received an *amazing* parcel on the weekend. A month back I bought a Let's Knit magazine that came with 2 free skeins of Cookie yarn, a brown/beige and white yarn with various slubs and tufts along it. I didn't like it, however on Ravely a couple of people were asking if there were any spare to be sent their way. I sent mine to Marie and did not expect to receive anything back. However Marie is a lovely soul, and insisted that she did. A week or so later, 6 balls of wool turn up on my doorstep! (In the post, obviously ;)) I was gobsmacked, so a MASSIVE thank you to Marie, I really, really appreciate it. It was such a nice thing for her to do :)

The only knitting related thing I have done this week is to wind my very first yarn cake! Last week a skein from my monthly Sock yarn club from YarnAddict arrived, and while the colour wasn't too my taste I quite fancy making some nice and cozy socks for Mam out of it. It's made of 70% superwash Bluefaced Leicester wool, 20% silk and 10% cashmere, so it should make a lovely treat for Mam :)

I'm also still taking part in the February YOSS club so I'm thinking I'll knit them up in stocking stitch as 'plain vanilla' socks.

I also have a pair of gloves on the go, an apple cosy, and Gu's shawl - which is nearly finished but I kinda want to turn it into a cape.

It's all just gonna have to wait until Monday because this weekend is already booked as a photography weekend! Need to use up the rest of my colour film and then use a roll of B&W for my darkroom induction on Wednesday, plus there's a competition with a Sunday deadline that I should like to enter...

xx

Darkroom Fun!

I finally made it to a PhotoSoc meeting last night and made friends with the lovely Andy who has booked a darkroom induction with me for next week. Excited!

xx

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Folksy Lustings!

Morning :)

I've woke up with a horrible pounding headache today after staying up until 3am knitting the first half of Clue #1 of the Criminal Knits Mystery Knit-A-Long so I thought I'd have a browse on Folksy and easy my pain!

If you weren't already aware, you can follow Folksy on Twitter which is how I found the tweet about some of the latest featured sellers who I went to visit...

So here is CoCo Crafts of www.cococrafts.co.uk. I love their bags! I've picked out about 8 that I would be very, very happy to buy if I wasn't skint - always the way! I have my own little wish list with what I would use each bag for!

(All photos are from the item descriptions, and copyrights belong to the shop owners, not me.)

This Dawn clutch is gorgeous. A lot more grown up than I normally go for, but perfect for nights out or when I'm dressing up, I just love it! 

This is Bethan who is just lovely. I love this style of bag, and the longer handles means that it's easier to put the bag on your shoulder, and the roomy bag means I can put everything I need for work in it!

Bethan even comes in a range of gorgeous colours and fabric combinations!

This is Laura who would live inside my Bethan bag :)

Laura also comes in awesome different colours and fabrics, which just means that I want to buy them all!

This is Gemma, who is very cute and perky! She'd be a knitting project bag, for an awesome pair of socks!

Sian would be awesome to wear on nights out because I always wear little bags that go across my body so that I can dance for hours without having to the awful 'dance around your bag' huddle, or the 'keep one arm tightly pulled in on your handbag' dance!

I realise that I could have just said at the top 'GO SEE THIS SHOP!' but that wouldn't have been half as fun as this post! Why do I always find gorgeous things on Folksy when I can't afford to buy things?! I'm just my own worst enemy lol.

xx