Developing B&W Negatives

I finally purchased the chemicals I needed to develop black and white negatives. On Monday I processed a roll of 35 mm from a trip to Cambridge last year and two medium format rolls shot with my Hasselblad a few weekends ago in Felixstowe.

When I was a teenager, developing negatives was my least favorite part of hand development. The agitation with my old tanks used to do my head in but now I have better tanks and all, with darkroom gear super cheap these days, I have all the bells and whistles to make it a bit easier. And now with the stopwatch feature on my iPhone its a cinch. I'm even thinking about putting together a basic tutorial on how-to develop the negs for my photo blog.

You can see the rest on my photo website or on Flickr.

***

Also, my quilt is nearing completion. I had to wait ages for my walking foot to come in at my local sewing shop and I ordered my wadding (or batting in the US) on line. Now all I need is my backing material and thread, which I'm hoping to pick up this weekend.

I think I am going to end up getting plain white backing material as I can't find any fabric used in the patchwork that is wide enough (or cheap enough) and I'm still not sure how I will bind it. Hopefully it will be done soon and I will have a lovely post for my neglected blog.

2012

This year started off with a round of redundancies at work, my husband unhappy with his job and lots of anxiety about not knowing what was going to happen.

This year ended pretty good. Both my husband and I got down to our goal weights (I lost twenty pounds!) though its shifted up a bit with all the Christmas food. Billy is happy with his job and no longer leaves a 6am and returns at 9pm as he did at his old job in London.

Here are the highlights of my year:

I stopped eatting meat for five months to make the most of our orgainic veg box and in the process started taking loads of vitamins that I still take. (That is always a new year's resolution that I forget to do). I'm now back to a carnavore.

In January we went to the Cotswolds to visit friends:

We took our annual May holiday in Copenhagen home to my great grandfather.

In July, Olympic fever took over and I got to follow the torch around England.

In August I got to fly over Suffolk in a helicopter which made a centre spread in my paper.

 In September we went home to Florida to see my family and had a few days to ourselves in Key West for our fourth wedding anniversary.

For Billy's birthday on December 23rd we went on the London Eye and ate Danish pancakes before meeting friends for bowling on Brick Lane.

It was a pretty good year and I hope next year is even better! Click here to see my work photos of the year.

Cross Stitch Project #2-5 / Embroidery Project #3

I've sorely neglected this blog in the last few months and now I have to play massive catch-up. I made these projects a few months ago and now they are hanging on my bedroom wall. My bedroom will be a post on its own as it is undergoing serious style refurbishment as it was also very neglected (see a theme here). I got bored with the cross stitching after awhile so I added in a little embroidered salsa lady that kind of reminds me of my sassy Mo'ma.

I really like embroidery but I feel like my cross stitch always looks better because I use the Aida fabric specifically made for the craft. I use left over fabric for embroidery (this one was a cotton sheet with fusible webbing to make it stronger) but I don't love it. I think if I bought linen I might like the results better.

I have red Aida fabric and was going to cross stitch some Christmas ornaments but I bought it off a roll and ended up getting the kind with smaller holes that are really hard to see and not very fun to work with so we'll see if I can handle it.

I 've also knitted myself a hat and a cowl, but that will wait for a future post. I am crocheting covers for stools we just bought to go with our new kitchen island. And lastly I finished the top of my quilt and have to wait until Christmas is over and I can afford the batting and back fabric.

So you see I haven't just been sitting here in the cold doing nothing!

One day to go! And Quilt Project #1

Only one day to go until FLORIDA!! I am so excited to be going home to see MoMa. It feels like I haven't had a holiday in ages but really its only been since May. Two glorious weeks in the sun sounds amazing now that the Autumn word has been bandied about around here. If I wasn't going home I'd feel absolutely cheated by not having a real summer.

***

I've been working on a quilt for awhile (well I got this much done and it's been sitting in a pile in my living room waiting to be completed) and I'm really liking how its coming along. As its my first quilt I chose I simple patchwork design inspired by this quilt. I have loads of squares cut out already but I've been sneaking in cross stitch projects between the quilt as I can sit on the couch while Billy watches football.

This will be for our bedroom as it is the only room that we don't actually like. It is really small so much so that Billy as to walk sideways around his side of the bed and we never really got around to decorating it as we focussed on the rest of the flat. I chose yellow and blue because they are not overly feminine yet I could still through some pretty patterns into it.

I bought most of my fabric as fat quarters, which in hindsight may not of been the best idea because I ran out of some of the fabrics. I have since bought and cut different fabrics to try and add to the mix. I hope to have this finished pretty soon after I get back from holiday and then I have to make curtains. I found this pretty cool material that's navy and a yellowy gold and very nautical. I would also love to make a headboard in a yellowy-goldish like this one here.

***

Well I'm off now to finish packing! See y'all later.

Three weeks to go...

Three agonisingly long weeks are the only thing between me and my holiday! I have had a serious case of holidayitis for the past month as I've longed for sandy beaches instead of the rocky shores of England. It's actually quite nice as summer is winding down here in the UK and I'll get to go home and have two glorious weeks with Moma and maybe even a visit from my favourite friend Arielle from Atlanta!!

Billy and I will celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary while we are there and we have booked a hotel in Key West for a few days. Key West is my favourite spot in the whole of Florida because its so laid back but quite like a mini New Orleans. I love Ernest Hemmingway's house and how you are so close to Cuba but you'd have to fly to Canada to get there and I love the carcass of the original Flagler bridge eerily shadowing the seven-mile bridge.  Oh and did I mention the Key Lime Pie. You can get it on a stick there! And to top it off we are hoping to book a convertible to drive down in.

I have been stocking up of Florida friendly clothes for months as I can't stand wearing certain fabrics in the heat. I wear a lot of jersey as it is really soft on sun burned skin. I have bought a fedora to keep my face out of the sun and I found this adorable one piece honeycombed swimming costume apparently designed by Bettie Page (who lived in Key West for awhile so it was quite suiting- yes that was a bad pun). I also picked up another pair Bensimon Elastique tennis shoes which are essentially an integral part of my summer wardrobe as they are really comfy and slip on quick for spur of the moment bike rides. And they were on sale!! Score.

I have a few skirts and dresses I've acquired at various Gap sales the past few months as well so I'm pretty set. I really wanted some nice flip flops instead of the cheap plastic Old Navy ones I always seem to end up with.

I am seriously beyond excited and Billy and I are in desperate need of down time. Hurry up holiday.

100th Post!!

100th Post!!:
Wow I can't believe I'm writing my 100th post!  It actually feels like it should be more when I look back through my posts from the past few year, which I have been doing the past couple of days.  I started this blog when I was in a haze of anxiety from a job that literally gave me nightmares and this blog was a way to channel the good things in my life and gave me something to focus on. I blame this blog and my eagerness to add posts about baking for gaining twenty odd pounds, which I'm just now getting rid of. But I also am grateful for this blog for the creative outlet it provides. I learned to bake for catharsis, I was inspired to rediscover sewing and to immerse myself in new crafts that I had never the time or ambition to take on.

Catching up:
I have a lot of things to post now since I've been adding up my finished crafts. I haven't cook many new recipes as the past two months at work have been chaotic with the Queen's Jubilee and the Olympics and it's all I can do to whip up something quick. Billy has more time at home now that he isn't commuting into London everyday. We actually go for bike rides in the countryside after work now when he had been getting home at 8 or 9 o'clock at night only to wake back up for 5:30 at his last job. I'm still not eating meat, though I did have bacon for the first time a few weeks ago, which I thoroughly regretted. We still get our veg box weekly but now we get a smaller veg and additionally a small fruit supply that's quite refreshing in the summertime.

Summertime:
Speaking of summertime… On our afternoon bike rides in the English countryside I have been nostalgic for porches and lemonade. Its only now getting hot and it feels like summer is almost over and loads of blogs are already talking about Autumn!! NOOO NOT YET! I definitely think that summer is my favourite time of the year again (it ceased being my favourite season when i managed a firework store for many years whilst in my teens and I would work for two months straight without a day off for a meagre amount of money). But it really hasn't felt like summer. Its almost the end of July and I haven't gone strawberry picking yet and I'm reading the second in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series because I wanted to mindless summer book to get me in the mood! Billy and I are going home to Florida at the end of September, which also happens to coincide with our fourth wedding anniversary. This trip will extend our summer as its always hot in September in Florida though it is still technically hurricane season. I really just want to get a book, sip some sweet tea on the hammock in the shade of my momma's back yard. That is going to be summer for me.

Projects:

Here are some of the projects I've been working on. I crocheted a rug. Well I tried to crochet a rug. I tested out several patterns and they all start curling up when they get bigger. I wanted a really big rug but I had to stop because of the puckering. I used this pattern which looks great on a smaller rug as does most of the items Pickles create.

I have also grown a slew of herbs from seeds in the past few months. I was given seeds whilst on an assignment and I picked up a few other on my own. I have coriander, parsley, chives, dill and the plant shown is a chilli plant (which was actually in Billy's Xmas stocking that he never bothered to plant). I am also growing lettuce and have a Calamondin plant. This is the first time in my life I have grown something successfully!! I always say I have a black thumb instead of a green thumb due to all the foliage i have murdered in my life. I did the same science experiment every year in elementary school: Which one grows better: Marigolds grown in full sunlight or Marigolds grown in the dark. My Hypothesis: Marigolds need sun to create photosynthesis. (Seriously thats pretty much verbatim from what I did and needless to say it garnered me seriously average grades).

And lastly, the thing that made me giddy like a little girl: Billy bought me a darkroom!! I got a black and white enlarger with all the fixings and I am so incredibly eager to use it but alas chemicals are taking FOREVER to arrive. So until then my lovely darkroom kit is sitting in our spare bedroom. I am lucky that we have two bathrooms and the one we don't use often is large enough that we keep our bikes in there. There aren't any windows either so it will be really light tight. I set up my first darkroom in my house in Florida not long after my dad died and I would spend hours in there. I'd go in at 4pm and come out with sore eyes at 4am not knowing where the time went.

I think my 100th post may be my longest, but that's what happens when i put it off for ages!!

Sewing Project #13

I'm so excited this will be my third weekend off in a row! First it was because we were in Copenhagen, then last weekend I took off mainly because of the Queen's Jubilee. I am so sick of Union Jacks and everything to do with queenie.

Instead of working Billy and I went to a music festival in London called Field Day. It was an amazing line-up and I got to see Andrew Bird (swoon) and Beirut, and I found I really like The Savages, an all girl, intense quartet. Also the in-laws were in London so Sunday was spent entertaining.

Today is Billy's last day at his job at a law firm in London and next week he starts a job for the council so we are going into London tomorrow to do a celebratory wine tasting (Billy's birthday gift from December!), a good curry on Brick Lane and some record and vintage shopping. Yay.

With all that's been going on, I forgot to post a photo of a dress I made for Copenhagen. It's a simple pattern from Burda called Anda and some stripy fabric, but I used elastic at the waist instead of a drawstring. It was the first piece of clothing I've sewn in ages! I am being crafty now too. I'm crocheting a colourful rug and I am going to do my first quilt for our bedroom (more on that one later).

I'm really enjoying my quiet Friday night with some wine, Nina Simone and my crocheting until my husband gets home from his after work drinks!

We got back from Copenhagen yesterday with sunburned skin, full tummies and two souvenirs, a pen and a card. Copenhagen, or Kopenhavn as it is called in Denmark, is a city very similar to Amsterdam with bicycles outnumbering cars almost 3-1 but without the charming Dutch architecture (though it can be found here and there).

Copenhagen is also the birthplace of my great-grandfather Johan Petersen, or George Petersen as he changed it after immigrated to the US in 1900, who incidentally invented the Petersen flusher, which can be found in most toilets!

The highlights of our holiday were the Carlsberg brewery, the Vesterbro Music Festival and renting bikes and cycling across the city. Our hotel, the Axel, was pretty great as well. It was a completely organic operation and the only bad thing was the less than fluffy yet eco-friendly towels.

Vesterbro was an amazing neighborhood to stay in, only a block from the central station and really close to hip restaurants and the aforementioned music festival, which we just happened upon. It is also the Copenhagen’s red light district so there was an area called the Erotic Triangle with shady people.

I think if you had to go to Amsterdam or Copenhagen I would pick Amsterdam for its sheer beauty, but I definitely have a soft spot for Copenhagen now.

My new font

I'm really excited about my new font. I made it by printing a template, writing all my letters with my favorite pen, scanning it high-res, massively photoshopping and hours worth of scaling and sizing each character in font creating software. Was it worth it? YES!! Its pretty weird seeing your handwriting as a font. Its not quite the same as when I write because I connect most of my letters but its pretty darn close. I am using it as my header on my professional site and its nice knowing that no one else is using the same font. If anyone else whats to make their own, here's the tutorial I used. You do need basic photoshop skills and the font software.

Adventures in Polaroid...

I've been playing around with my new landcamera and here are some of the photos from this weekend. Billy and I went for a walk in the countryside (which is about five minutes from where we live). We saw cows, a tree with a hole in it where I'm sure fairytale creatures lurk, a dog belly flopping into the river (Billy has those photos), and the gorgeous rapeseed fields. I can not express how incredibly beautiful rapeseed is when its blooming. I know it doesn't have the best name but it is such a vibrant yellow and its also our oil of choice being far better than olive oil.