Life LackaDaisiCal

This is an American Goldfinch.....not to be confused with this guy.. the Northern Oriole - Male (formerly known as a Baltimore Oriole) I think this is a young one.....because of the head not being totally black... there is another one with a coal black head - very striking! Front view..... Here he is after a bath.... This is his partner I believe.  Not quite as bright. It's taken me quite a while to get photos of these two....I knew they were around, catching flashes of their bright colour....but not being able to capture them in a photograph.  But ARE they Northern Orioles, aka Baltimore Orioles....which I thought were more orange....it depends on the light.....sometimes they look more orange than they do in these photos. Now the challenge is to photograph the Indigo Buntings before they disappear - I expect that when it gets really hot they will head North.......

Pattern:   Bias Before and After Scarf by Churchmouse Yarns and Teas Yarn:   Classic Elite Silky Alpaca Lace Lots of projects on Ravelry to look at! The only thing I questioned was the suggestion to go up to an 8mm needle when binding off - maybe it was just me, but this made the edge rather loose.  This might have been sorted out if I had blocking wire to block the edges as suggested in the pattern.  It doesn't matter as this is a lovely light decorative scarf - almost like a knitted necklace - and I wore it today and loved it! I shall try something else with beads I think! Happy Knitting!

At home last night we watched this!  Great Movie... I was excited about this scene - look at the Westie!  ahum...look at the lovely fair isle sweater! Reminiscent of that famous portrait of the Prince of Wales wearing a Fair Isle sweater, holding his Cairn do you think? The colours in this shot are so similar to the painting. Last scene for this guy....it was fun to see a Westie in a movie! This was a good movie - not great, but good.  What WAS great, was the fact that we were at HOME, on-line, using our Apple TV, we wanted to rent the movie, we clicked on it......and it said that the movie would be ready to watch in.....wait for it......2 minutes!!!! Now this may not be such a surprise for you, but for us - well, the only time we'd tried this before....we started the movie and it had to download it overnight for us to watch the next day! Yes here at Shades of Shetland we have a new broadband internet provider - 15kbps download!  That is well, 15x faster than what w...

After 3 days of intense mind boggling heat, today is absolutely gorgeous.....So I decided to take it outside - do some "en plein air" painting as they say in the art world. I brought all of my portable materials out to the deck and set myself up. This set of half-pan paints has a long history.  I bought this set of paints probably 20 years ago in a lovely little art shop in Whitby while on vacation in the UK.  I bought 3 brushes and a small paint book - the idea being I could do some painting while on vacation. For one reason or another - my art supplies stayed wrapped up in the lovely brown paper bag......no, I didn't use them. I gifted them to my Uncle when he moved into a retirement home - because he had loved to paint with watercolours, and he hoped to get back into it.   My love for stationery and art supplies was inherited from my Mom's side of the family -  from my Grandfather and my Uncle. M y Uncle and I shared a strange little quirk....we love our supplies...

The Premiere issue of Noro Knitting Magazine! Published by Soho who publish Vogue Knitting.....it seems this is the first of annual publications.  That's good, because if you are a fan of Noro - you'll want to knit almost everything inside this magazine - it is beautiful! I'm trying to paint in a "loose" style....water flowing, dropping colours in here and there. "The Hummer" by Anne Featonby, Watercolourist How are these two inspirations related?  Well.....Noro is a totally unique yarn....the way it is processed, the colour combinations, the way it flows depending on the stitch used and the pattern repeats.  You would be hard pressed to replicate something exactly...even using the same pattern and yarn. I could paint a Hummingbird every day for a week - and they would never be the same - I could TRY to make it the same, but even trying wouldn't make it so. This hummingbird was inspired by the Ruby Throated Hummingbird who is monopolizing our feeder ...

Puppy Walk was cancelled on Friday - because of the rain.....pooh.... So on Saturday this group of 6 got together for a photo shoot.....6 sisters....all going to their new homes this week.......aaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.......