Knitting....

It's been ages since I took up the needles but I found these really sweet patterns using Sublime yarn, a mixture of Marino wool and Cashmere, which is just soft and lovely to knit with.
The little cardi's were easy to knit and fast, about a week of evenings each - but they turned out lovely and my friend was thrilled with them. The little booties are just fab and I can't wait to see them on Millie's feet. If you do buy the patterns and like the knit them, the hat is different from the pattern, did't like their hat so I adjusted the pattern to suit my taste.

I also was given the OK by Millie's mum to post the photo of her, the little bean slept from midnight to 8am for them on her first night home.... (I am secretly disgusted as my foster baby never slept and I was up all night most nights and days and the crying nearly killed me, but hey ho!)

More to post tomorrow - so will be back then....

Ta M

weekend fun...

I had a lovely day on Saturday with my crafty friends at our local crop, only a 5 min walk from my house. Instead of taking the class, I decided to work on the all bits of things that I wanted to get done and had a lovely few hours of crafting, shopping and chatting (thanks to Julie and Marlen for keeping me company!). I worked on finishing a book for baby Layla (see blog posts below) and I started a book for my DD who just started school with a page per school year to mark all her teachers and photos of her each year.... Will post soon both as soon as I clear my camera down.

I also visited my friend who just had the most adorable baby Millie on Friday morning. Wow what a stunning baby, will ask her if I can post some of her baby photos that I took at the hospital on Saturday night, but wow what a little stunner... Above is the card that I made for her mum with my homemade wings, not sure if they look like wings but they worked for the card.


On Sunday the sun was shining and I got them all out of bed and we headed into town for a walk along the river Liffey and had brunch before we headed off for DD (age 5) birthday party. The grumpy nearly-teenager was in a strop and took off and I snapped this one of her "Walking the line!" on the new Luas tram tracks. We found out that this section of the tram track opened yesterday just as we arrived, so the first tram was just about due when she was walking on it.


DD got a new bike for her Birthday, and OMG what hard work it is getting her to ride it, she has a few issues and this makes this sort of skill hard to do, but DH was on hand to provide her a steady hand and with time she will get it - just adding to her bruises on her legs, she really looks like a boy who has been playing football all day long!
On the way back to the car we stopped by CHQ to have a look in the expensive shops that these nut and bolt monsters and robots were on display. They were just fab to look at but the little ones did not like them at all, I just snapped and snapped but won't bore you with all the images, but these ones were just the sort of details that I love - wow to be able to make stuff like this out of junk is quite a skill, something that I would love to be left to do someday....
Knitting like mad at the moment, hand feeling better and now that baby Mille is here, have to have her gifts ready for her, so hopefully will be able to share all my crafty stuff with you tomorrow.

Ta M

Lisa's Parents Ruby Wedding Anniversary....

A few months ago I was asked by my friend Lisa if I would take some photos of her parents and the party for their 40th Wedding Anniversary celebration. It was ages ago, and as the days approached I had some real concerns that I may not be able to do justice to the event, the only photo training I've had has been via CJ and the online classes, and the Masterclass - I've learned lots via CJ but my confidence has not developed yet.

The girls put on an amazing party for the parents, nothing was missed, beautiful room, lovely flowers, fab food. You girls really should be proud of yourselves.

I took nearly 350 photos on the night and drained the battery to the last photo. The only problem was that when I uploaded the photos to the laptop and edited half of them, the next day the laptop had developed a fatal error, and is now not even repairable. I had also started to delete the photos from the camera so I lost the first 30 photos.... Hopefully not forever - as we hope to get the photos from the hard drive, there was not much on it anway and it was DH laptop!!

The family were really happy with the photos and my gift to the newly-weds was a book of the photos all printed and bound for them.

Thanks for reading....

& more.....

More Layla Jayne

Meet baby Layla - 4 weeks old...

I had the opportunity to photograph my cousin Lara's new baby girl Layla who is just a real charm. I have a real thing for new borns and just love them to bits - makes me want to take another one but DH not happy as we tend to foster the ones with "issues" -

As part of the masterclass we needed to show the images and the converstions. Most of the baby photos I took of Layla look so much better in B&W in my opinion. Second image has been adjusted with a bit of "glow" added.

More to come....

MIA - again

This summer has been hard on us all here, with the traumas of the Italy holiday (read first post!) and then I took the month of August off to be with the kids, there was a series of incidents that makes me believe I have a hex on me..... I lost my car keys in Ikea, our very expensive top of the range Sat Nav was stolen from our car and then in a my de-cluttering mode I was sorting and cleaning out our medicine box and when I put it up on the shelf a very large (much loved) serving bowl fell off the top of the cupboard in the utility room and hit me on the head, broke and cut my arm, left the utility room like a blood bath... Stitches and concussion and a little problem with the nerves in my hand mean I have been sitting quietly, staying still and hoping nothing more happens....

Not much else has been done - but here are some random photos - camera and I will be reunited very soon....

Birthday card for my father in law - quickly made but he appreciated it...
We went to our holiday home and while out for a walk we saw this helicopter, the lovely pilots allowed my DD 4 to sit inside and I got to take photos but can't post these to you as she is only in our care. The helicopter belongs to Ireland's second richest man.

Arty-farty shot taken on a horrible day, but I like it, love the DOF (depth of field...)...

Hopefully the hand will heal a bit more and I will have time to spend with my best friend.

Ta M