Today we went to the Thatcham Nature Discovery Centre, for a wildlife photography course.
I learnt far more on this course than I did at the Twilight Photography one. I think the course and the teacher were just better suited to the way I like to learn.
I’m really pleased with today’s pictures (which are here, on Flickr), plus I had a lovely day out with Paul. We’re really looking forward to our holiday now, and contemplating buying another big zoom lens that we can fight over!
Last weekend we paid a visit to Broadlands, where there was a multi-period historical re-enactment weekend going on. As you can see, the weather was absolutely ideal for a British summer’s day out.
As it turned out the Victorian Redcoats didn’t have to shelter for very long, but it was certainly very wet while it lasted!
This is Professor Leonidas C. Grymm, and his Mermaid. He represented part of Grymm Tooms Travelling Museum, which I very much enjoyed. The gentleman above represents a Victorian explorer and collector, and he told us about various famous collections and artifacts. His colleague, Doctor Lazarus Tooms, demonstrates a history of the advancements made in medicine, including surgery and anatomy.
I only took a few photos – partly because of the rain, and partly because I accidentally became increasingly laden with shopping as the afternoon wore on. I picked up two large felt hat blanks for steaming into shape (one black, one bright pink), and was very restrained at the fabric stall. I came away with just five metres of a lovely woven wool fabric in cream and brown, with a little blue spot running through the diamond pattern. That will be perfect for a pair of trousers and a jacket, and I rather wish I’d bought some more!
These are all the things I’ve made during 2009 – or at least all the ones I’ve remembered to photograph!
There doesn’t seem to be very much knitting in there, which surprises me, although I did spend most of the summer working on two large items which aren’t finished yet.
I also still haven’t really shown you very many photos of all the things that we made for the wedding. We do have the official photos back now, so I’ll be able to show you some of those very soon.
What’s really strange is that I can’t decide whether this represents a heck of a lot of sewing, or a really quiet year!
I went for a walk in the snow this morning. I took a grand total of 99 pictures, then came back and edited them down to just 9. I went out rather early, so although there was a lot of light reflecting from the snow, it wasn’t really daylight yet. As a result a lot of the pictures were rather grainy. I also took a lens that I’m not really used to using (70mm macro), so it took me a while to get the hang of it.
I ended up concentrating mainly on single leaves. Some were still just about clinging on to the trees, others were lying in the snow. I’m honestly not sure what’s going on with this one! It’s clearly not attached to a tree, so it must be lying on the ground, but somehow it looks as though it’s floating.
I particularly like looking at the largest version of this one. It’s still rather grainy, but you can see an absolutely amazing amount of detail of the structure of the leaf.
This is the big fat frog that hopped out from underneath the broken fence as we were pulling it down. He didn’t seem too keen to get out of our way – Paul had to rather unceremoniously pick him up and plop him down in next door’s plant pot!
This morning, whilst wandering around on Flickr, I joined a group for square format photographs. I tend to crop my nature photos into squares, so it seemed like an interesting place to look around and see what other people were doing.
In one of the discussion threads there was a conversation about square format digital cameras. That’s where I found out about the Rollieflex MiniDigi. It’s styled exactly like the original Rollei twin lens reflex camera, but it’s teeny-tiny! (Smaller than this frog, in fact.) Unfortunately it costs over £350, and the resolution’s only 3 megapixels, but it does look as though it would be fun to use. Also, cute!
(Not that “cute” is my primary criterion for choosing things. Of course not. “Does it come in pink?” is much more important. Obviously.)
These are the photos from Centre Parcs – mostly of owls.
I’m quite pleased with these, although I missed a lot of great shots of the owls by being much too slow!
These are the photos from London – mostly of the aquarium and the zoo.
Sadly a lot of these are either out of focus, or focussed in slightly the wrong place. I’m going to blame the poor light conditions, the fact that most of them were taken through glass, water or mesh, and the fact that I’ve never really worked out how to make the most of the 200mm lens.
These are the honeymoon photos of a certain Mr & Mrs Smith – who travelled with us wherever we went.
My Mum knitted these little figures for us, and we thought they deserved a little holiday of their own!
I realise that I haven’t shown you any photos of the wedding yet. We haven’t had the pictures back from the official photographer, and we’re waiting for those before we compile an online album. There are quite a few pictures starting to show up on Facebook, and I do have photos of everything that Paul and I made ourselves, so we should have something to show you very soon.
I’m just dropping in for a flying visit to upload the photos from the first part of our honeymoon – you can see them all here.
Yesterday we had a Falconry session in the morning, and an Encounter With Owls in the afternoon. This enormous chap was featured in both. His name’s Woolly, and he’s an Eagle Owl.
We also met a Merlin called Angel, a Gyr/Peregrine Falcon called Romeo, a Harris Hawk called Miller, and lots and lots of owls.
I have to confess that I am a huge fan of birds in general, and birds of prey in particular, so getting to spend a couple of hours getting to feed them and fly them to the glove was absolutely amazing.
You can tell how much I enjoyed it by my enormous grin – that’s Woolly on my arm. I’m leaning slightly away from him because I’d already learnt the hard way that his wings were long enough to hit me in the face!
I don’t know of anywhere local that rescues or rehabilitates birds, but I might have to do a bit of research when I get home. It would be brilliant to be able to have contact with birds like this more often.
Look who I met today. Isn’t he adorable?
This little grey squirrel spent all morning running about in the rain, digging holes in my back garden and burying his stash of winter goodies.
When he’d finished, he decided that it would be a good idea to sit on my fence and bark/honk/screech at me for a good five minutes. Thanks, Mr Squirrel.
It wasn’t until fairly recently that I knew what noise a squirrel made. I’d heard the sound before, plenty of times, but because it was coming from up a tree I always assumed it was made by a bird. Here’s a short video (not mine) where you can hear it for yourself. Doesn’t he sound cross?!
You can see from the picture that it’s pretty dark and wet here today. It was properly dark when I got up this morning, for the first time this year, and I guess the squirrels have decided that it’s going to be winter soon.
I don’t mind seeing this little fellow around the garden – but I’d like him to be a little quieter next time! It’s difficult to concentrate on sewing when you’re being yelled at by a squirrel…
No, not tiny little woollies to keep them warm. Instead, Seasalt in Cornwall are holding their annual “Go Knit!” charity drive.
This year they’re collecting donations of hand knitted scarves, and all proceeds from their sale will go to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.
Bees and knitting are two of my passions, so obviously I’ve sent my scarf down to Cornwall. If you’d like to do the same, you can find the details here.
While I was thinking about scarves, I’ve re-listed a few on Etsy.
I have a whole pile of things that I’ve made which I haven’t got around to listing yet, so I should probably do that quite soon. Those badges and wheat bags aren’t going to sell themselves from the depths of my Shed!
Pink Salamander made a skirt, using my Gathered Skirt Tutorial.
The bird fabric is from IKEA – isn’t it adorable?
You can read all about the project over on Burda Style.
Ariane had a go at the Flower Brooch Tutorial, and came up with these gorgeous creations.
Not having a huge stash of buttons, she got creative and gathered up a strip of fabric to make the centre of the flowers. Beautiful, and clever!
You can see how Ariane did it over at her LiveJournal, British Cowgirl.
This is why I like writing tutorials – because I get to see what comes back from them. All of my projects use the absolute simplest of techniques, but you can come up with such an amazing variety of results. As Ariane demonstrated with her flower brooches, it doesn’t even matter if you don’t have all the “right” materials! You can use your own imagination and ingenuity, to make exactly what you want.
That, for me, is what sewing’s all about.
If you want to, you can learn professional techniques and make astonishingly complicated things. But these simple projects show that even as a complete beginner, you can pick up a needle and thread and make something beautiful.
