Happy New Year 2016

So I know a lot of people post highlights of their year at this time on blogs. I would love to join in, but I don't think I blogged enough in 2015 to make it worthwhile! I'll just have to enjoy reading everyone else's highlights this year. But instead, I thought I would share a funny, technology related highlight of the year story with you.

I'm not a person that loves social media. I know that's sort of ironic coming from someone who has a blog. But blogging always seems different to me, I'm here writing about something specific, and it's mainly for myself, to create my own space amid everyday life - something I can control and shape how I want. I don't really tend to go in to great depth about the minutiae of my life here. Mainly because I can't imagine who would want to read it, or ever be interested! I do have a Facebook and Twitter account, but I'm a 'lurker'. I don't really post on either of them, but use them more as news services. I love the Internet - it's such a great resource for craft - but I sort of hate the insidiousness (is that a word?) of social media and the world of internet on phones. I know I'm a mass of contradictions here, but it's just how I feel. Google ads bug me - I hate that they track what web pages you've visited and then use the info to advertise things to you when you're trying to do something else. I hate the fact that we're all now constantly expected to be contactable because of mobiles.

I am going somewhere with this rant I promise! Amid all my dislike of some aspects of modern technology, I have a smartphone, like pretty much all of us do now. I use my phone to take the occasional picture, again like pretty much all of us do (though I mainly use a proper camera - better picture quality).


Well, just as I was heading off to bed on New Years Day, post champagne celebration of midnight with S, I noticed a little message on my phone. It was a video clip. Creepily, some software on my phone had decided to create a little film of what it thought were my highlights of 2015, by splicing together all the photos I had taken and stored on my phone, with some backing music. As I say, I found this very creepy...until suddenly it became hilarious, when, as I watched the video scroll through my photos, complete with plinky plunky music backing, I realised that the software had picked up and included some pictures which I had taken for our plumber, of a leak on our toilet!! It was so hilarious - whatever my phone thought, I can tell you that a leaky toilet was definitely not one of my year highlights!!

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One of my New Year resolutions was to finish every craft project I start. Yeah, I know, good luck with that! Well so far I am on track, I have finished my Nanook cardigan. The peach colour seems less peach now that it's knitted into a full garment. The light here has been rubbish though, so no pics yet.

I also finished a shawl over Christmas. Again, sorry for the slightly lurid colour of the pink, it's the bad light.

My latest make, which actually I am starting to regret a little, is the Rose top, from Rowan Filigree crochet book 3. Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely design. It's just that working with 4 ply cotton and a 2.5mm hook is really crampling my hands and fingers, and the motif design, though lovely is quite painstaking...and there are 140 to make! I really wish the published had included crochet charts in the book too. I can't understand why there are only written instructions. I know some people prefer that, but I find a chart so much easier, especially with quite a fiddly motif. And I know I can't take a break and work on something else, because I just won't start again! So must press on to completion. Sigh. At least it is pretty.

Happy New Year!