365 Project

Morning,

A quick post before I try and force myself to sleep. Swapping back to days tomorrow, and I already know it's going to be horrible trying to make it to work by 8.30!

I've started a 365 project today with Leah and G. They are both on day 4, so I'm 3 days behind but that's not such a big deal. I wanted to do one back in January, but a 52 version - one for each week instead of each day. I thought it would be much more manageable, but I just wasn't getting the 'big' pictures I thought it needed, and I also struggled to motivate myself to use Lightroom as it involves fighting my laptop. But I want to get into my photography more, and I need to get into the habit of using my cameras more often.

So I've decided this time that my 365 is going to be random. As in, it's not going to restricted to anything. Some purists would argue that a 365 project has to have at least part, if not all of you in the pictures, a self-portraiture 365. I'm not quite ready for that yet!!

I'm going to use it as a way of charting the days, almost as a visual diary. If I've done nothing but drink miso soup all day, I'm gonna take a picture of miso soup, or it could be something totally different. It depends on my mood! I'll also be taking pictures on my phone and uploading them straight if I'm out and about and nowhere near my laptop. If I don't, I'm not sure I'll remember to upload them and then I'll fall behind.

Fingers crossed with the three of us doing it, that will be enough prodding to keep us on the straight and narrow!

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

Crafty New Year Resolutions

Morning,

I've decided to make some crafting new year resolutions. Care to join in?

This year I intend to:

- learn to use my sewing machine properly, and make a garment that I can wear
- knit more socks!
- complete my knitting course, and my project for it
- update this blog more often
- complete a 52 photography project (1 picture a week, minimum)

At the moment it's fairly open ended, which for me is good because I get tied down in specifics and then if it doesn't look like I can do it then I give up.

I'm going to join and knit up more socks as part of the Ravelry group 'Year of Stash Socks 2011' which aims to get people using all the lovely yarn hidden away in stashes and make some lovely socks to display them.

I'm going to sign up because as of right now;

- I have 5 skeins of sock wool that I need to use before I buy more in the next Knitting & Stitching shows, and so that I can get better at knitting overall.
- At least one pattern of the 2 provided each month will be free, so that will help budget wise - and I won't be buying yarn and then not using it, which will also be better for my budget as it will (supposedly) stop me from buying any new yarn!
- I liked knitting my first sock, and I want to see where it goes :)

I also subscribed to Making magazine yesterday, so that will provide lots of lovely inspiration for dressmaking ideas, and the more crafting I do the more pictures I take of what I make, and the more the blog gets updated!

It all ties in very nicely! What are your new year resolutions?

xx

Have a look at these beauties!

Evening :)

How cool are these?!

I randomly found this link and saved it so that I could post it on here, they are fab!

Last night's knitting class was fun. Three people couldn't make it so we pulled the tables together and sat ourselves around one giant one, instead of around 4 separate ones. It made a big difference, and it was much nicer and easier to talk to everyone.

I showed Fabba my trick of picking up dropped stitches, or whenever I need a helping hand by using a knitting marker pin that one of the class leaders hadn't seen before. In turn, they checked my pattern and made sure it was okay, helped me work out my right and wrong sides for my knitting and I got stuck in with my sleeve!

Tonight was Photography night (PhotoSoc). It's the first one I've been to this academic year, as I've just been busy in work, ill or just didn't feel up to it! Bad habits :( Tonight was a practical studio session which was unlike the one last year in that last years was specifically so that the DramaSoc could get shots done for an upcoming play programme. Tonight's was more on different types of lighting, different ways of setting the shoot up to achieve different effects etc. And I got to have a go! Last year I only had my digital compact, which while fully manual is not ideal! I couldn't attach the flash sync, so had to try and time my shots to catch the flash set off by those doing the photography with SLRs using the flash sync. Kinda difficult! Plus at the end of it all, even thought I got some good shots, the ISO noise rendered them useless.

Tonight I had my (borrowed) SLR and now I just need to have a look and maybe do some tweaks before I can put them on Flickr :)

Happy Sara :)

xx

New Pictures

Evening,

These are some of the pictures I took on the weekend in Newquay recently. While out and about Tom and I found a bug we'd never seen before, so naturally we took lots of pictures of it! For some reason my blog doesn't like displaying HTML from Flickr so please click on the pictures to see them properly.



After some comments on Flickr I found out that it's a Six-Spot/Red Burnett Moth. It's one of the few moths that come out during the day.



A little bee to break up the monotony... :)



xx

Holidays!

Howdy,

I'm going to go visit the boyfriends parents this weekend in Cornwall. I'm taking both digital and film SLRs, and my digital Point & Shoot camera - I'm ready!! (Oh and film, and about 20 new batteries hehe.)

I hope you have a great weekend, and hopefully I'll be able to post some new photos.

This week has not been great. My grandmother is currently in hospital and her official diagnosis is that she's to receive palliative care. Not great. My mam has also been in hospital as she's had a Multiple Sclerosis relapse, thankfully they have given her some steroidal tablets which should sort that out.

On one hand I really need to get away, and on the other I'm likely to brood and this could lead to some arguments. Fingers crossed it all goes well.

xx

A 'New' Toy!

Evening,

I have a new toy I'm quite proud of. A while ago while at a friends house I spied a rather old 35mm film camera. My friend told me I could have it, as he didn't use it any more. He was the President of the Photographic Society I'm a member of. He's now graduated and moved back home but was in Reading last night and I picked up my toy.

I managed to find a website with a full manual on how to use it, so I've been reading that today while playing. I love taking pictures and then winding it on to the next frame. Spent a long time playing with that :) It's also really cool as once you take the lens off, and take a picture you can poke your finger straight through the camera! Which I've also spent a fair amount of time doing. My boyfriend thought I was a bit nuts for that but there's no way that it's possible to do it with a digital SLR and while I'd always vaguely known how SLRs work after doing it as part of a course I completed, I know definitely know and could quite happily explain it to anyone. Which I did, to my housemate :)

Anything that improves knowledge has to be a good thing, right?



Here he is!! My 'new' 1979 Canon AV-1 camera.

I'll hopefully be able to upload some of my film pictures when I buy a printer/scanner which is a pipeline dream. The Photosoc has it's own darkroom, so I'm going to have some lessons in how to use it so I can develop the film myself. I bought 3 rolls of film off the internet this morning, which are due to arrive on Tuesday.

I see an interesting summer ahead!!

xx

Musings

Afternoon,

I've been wondering how best to use this blog. I already have a blog that I use to post about day-to-day things, adventures, musings, ramblings etc. I like to take pictures and it links to my Flickr account etc. Should I also duplicate those posts on here, or go into more detail on here? There are things that I wouldn't consider crafting but others do...

xx