moved to wordpress

as I can no longer paste into this blog so I have decided to stop having 2 blogs and put it all on the island threads at wordpress, I tried to get help from google/blogger but no replies, I think what made me finally decide was wordpress having a 'paste from word' button, not only do they allow me to paste but encourage/make it easier,

thank you for following on this blog, I hope you will visit me at island threads wordpress,
if the link does not work this is the url http://islandthreads.wordpress.com

revisiting my garden

tried to do this post this morning but blogger won't let me paste any more, after blogger swallowed a post years ago I write all my posts in word and copy and paste them in but blogger just isn't cooperating, so I've just published the post on my wordpress blog, if you want the story behind the photos you will have to read it on wordpress, sorry,

at last

I have 'at last' started reading some blogs again and I thought I should 'at last' post some photos of the ufo's I was working on in my last post so here they are, nothing arty, very crafty,

UFO diversion

I had cut out some harris tweed landscapes years ago and they have been waiting to be stitched, well I finally stitched them and needed to chose some fabric for the borders,

this is what my draw of Harris tweed small pieces looked like,


so I just felt in the mood and decided to pull the draw out and organise it all, which meant ironing most of it, strange how I do not mind even enjoy ironing my stash but hate ironing domestic stuff like clothes, curtains etc.
anyway this is how it looked when finished, which helped a lot in finding suitable colours for the borders,

UFO’S

I finally got into a sewing mood and finished some postcards I had printed ‘years’ ago, I joined the ufo group on stitchin fingers to encourage me to finish some of the many, many ufo’s I have, even though it is only 6 postcards it feels good to have finally ‘done them!’

wow.....photo uploader came up first click this time.....

mainland

there should be some photos in this post but my pop up blocker won't let the photo uploader show, does anyone else have this problem???

I’ve been away on the mainland visiting family which is why I have not posted on either of my blogs for sometime, I had a lovely time with my son and his family, then I spent a few days with my mother, I love them all but the south east of England seems to be rush, rush, rush, it is so nice to get back to island life where the only honking you hear are the geese flying overhead………

Proud grandma photos, this is the youngest who is a star wars fanatic but likes cooking too,

Older grandson who loves art and craft things :o) we walked to the village store and I said I was not buying sweets but they could choose a comic and this lovely boy chose an Art magazine for children (with all the star wars stuff I was soooo surprised),

One day we went to Battle, east Sussex to the museum of yesterday and I highly recommend it for all age groups of children, as well as the museum there are gardens with a lovely play model village (children can go in the house, shop, castle, etc.) great fun, there is a tearoom but it is only open in summer, not to worry as there are several tearooms near by and we had lunch in one just along the high street which had good food including children’s menus,

Inside the model village church,

I really seem to have slipped away from sewing/art etc. and would like to get going again, the garden has been neglected too but part of the reason for that is the weather, wet, in previous years I have been able to do some winter work in the garden but not much this year, if global warming means wet, wet, wet, I would rather have cold, a good downfall of snow and some fairyland frost,

displacement maps

I have been going to find out about displacement maps for sometime and I have finally done it, most of the photos on the altered photo blog are displacement maps, here are a few of the photos I have used as displacement maps,

When I started this I didn’t really think about categories for posts so just made a design play cat. but I think now I might change and add more categories like, displacement maps, gradient maps, layers, etc. I am still enjoying it and learning as well,

Lews castle grounds

I had to go into Stornoway this morning and when I had finished I decided to go for a walk in the grounds around Lews castle college, the day was misty rain and sun early but was becoming more sun and less rain, it was a nice walk I am glad I went, I walked up to the top of gallows hill from where you get an almost birds eye view of Stornoway and surrounds,

Stornoway,



across the moor to the hills of west Lewis, the tops are covered in cloud,


across the minch to the mainland,



some gorse already in flower! it has been mild (just wish it was less wet),

I have been doing a little hand sewing on some ufos so I guess they are now wips, nothing great just some strip landscape scenes in Harris tweed that I cut out over 7 years ago (I know this because I did them when I was on Scalpay and I have been on Lewis 7 years now, time flies), I am enjoying playing/learning photoshop elements and am thinking of some as pieces of fabric, starting points,

altered photo a day

sorry I know I’m a week late but good new years wishes to all,
I thought I would post the source photos for my altered photo a day blog, incase anyone was interested to see how much the photos were changed, I am really enjoying playing with photoshop elements and finding out what all those filters etc. do, I have given details under one photo showing what I did and which photo it is on the other blog,



Design play two, I used auto contrast to give more depth then changed hue and saturation, I love changing hue and saturation the colours are amazing, hue was -170 and saturation was +100, then I tried a few other things but when I tried spherize I liked it, the settings were as they come up 100% normal, then I thought what does solarize do and wow I liked it so kept it, then I thought enough now stop, so I saved and posted,

These are the other six photos from the first week,