a spare hand

#176/366 spare hand, originally uploaded by gramarye.

would be handy sometimes....

Winter Magic Festival, Katoomba 2008

Winter Magic Festival, Katoomba 2008, originally uploaded by gramarye.

We went to the winter solstice festival at Katoomba on Saturday.

It was a wonderful day, after a solid week of rain and drizzle, the sun came out for a clear day, a wee bit nippy but not uncomfortable.
We had a good spot for the parade and I took lots of short movies that I'm trying to edit into one I can put on flickr but bit limited with the space allowed.

This pic is the puppetmaster, they spent the whole day in character, his arm must have been so sore next day.

There's more photos from the festival on my Winter Magic set on flickr

charm swap

#172/366 charm swap, originally uploaded by gramarye.

another piece I've just finished for our textile group's charm swap.

This is quite large compared to the previous pieces, it is for the 14 year old son of one of our members, not sure what he has planned for the finished pieces.

It was quite different making something for a young man, I'd planned on using several large felt balls, til my daughter said "you're making dangling felt balls....for a boy???"

so I settled on one felt ball and lots of wire....

in a fog

I’ve been in a fog the last few months, deep heavy fog – I’ve emerged now and then to do what needed doing but not long enough to get anything really good happening.

This year I’ve been trying to take part in the 366 group on Flickr, taking a photo a day for the whole year – that’s not been easy, wasting so much time setting up still life things, then downloading and I hate the photos, they are fuzzy, blurry, out of focus, wrong light wrong everything.

So then I set up yet another blog just for the daily photos, problems happen
when I post a week of photos together and blogger puts them all under the one day, then I have to log in and separate them, anal I know, but I have to have them ‘right’ then that’s all too hard, so I scrub that blog.

I wander the halls of Flickr, peering into doors which lead me to other doors and other halls and everyone is SO smart, so artistic, so creative. I spend so much time there that I have no time for anything else.

Flickr leads me to blogs where I spend more time….and they lead me to groups that I join, which means more internet, more more more.

I leave my real life groups because their days come around so fast and I can’t rouse myself to make the effort to leave the house and go to them.

My days are counted now not by what I’ve achieved but by how many hours I sit in front of the computer

My friend says I’ve caught her depression, maybe, don’t know, I’ve never had it before.

I know about the Blogging without Obligation thing, but I do feel an obligation (The Blog has been a small part of my life since I started on LJ in 2002) and I feel a need to apologise when I disappear.
Especially when I come back and find that Annica and Paula have both been to visit and have very sweetly given me the Sweet Home blogger award - thank you both.

So I'll give myself a good shake, stop whining, brush out some cobwebs (or maybe spray them silver) and try to get moving again