2000 Blips

Today I will be posting my 2000th blip on the Blipfoto site. I have blipped every day without interruption since November 2010 and although I keep thinking I should give it a rest I seem to be addicted. I never have trouble finding a picture to suit the day. Very often it's something to do with my art as, truth be told, that's what I do most days but there is also the garden, the beautiful Borders landscape, Edinburgh, musea and much, much more.

 I do have trouble with the commenting as it takes up much valuable time which I would rather use to make more art but the stars and hearts on the site allow me to show my appreciation for the photographs of fellow blippers. I'm just going to continue as I have done,  specially as I've become a share holder in the company.

You can't go wrong with tulips and that's why a tulip steals the 2000th blip show. 

Chrystalia

This is another of the fabrics I found irresistible while in New York and I'm featuring it today as part of the Abstract Challenge taking place every Thursday on the Blipfoto site. I don't always participate in the challenges there but as I was putting away all the treasures I bought during the trip this fabric seemed very suitable for the challenge today.

I bought what they had left on the bolt at The City Quilter and I'm so pleased I did. I have no idea yet when or how I'm going to use it but the fact that I have 1.1/2 yards of it makes me happy! It's called Crystalia and was produced by Hoffman California International Fabrics in 2015.

The Miracle of a Single Flower

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly...........our whole life would change.(Buddha)

Daffodil Friday

It's FlowerFriday on the Blipfoto site, as it is every Friday. I don't always participate but we have this gorgeous bunch of daffodils around at the moment so it seemed a shame not to take a picture or two. 

Flower Friday

Every Friday is Flower Friday on the Blipfoto site. This can be quite a challenge at this time of year and I don't always participate. But this morning I ventured outside to see what I could discover in the way of flowers in our garden. Firs stop was the greenhouse where this tiny primrose (the flower is only about 1/2") has started to put on a show.

Then I went and checked out our various hellebores and found this rather dilapidated flower. Still looks good from a distance with that purple ring around the outside but close up it's clear that the weather and snow have taken their toll.

Lily

A dying Tulip

This is the exact same tulip I blipped a week ago for the FlowerFriday challenge on the Blipfoto site. The tulips are now on their very last leg, hanging their heads till they reach the floor. But even in this state, they have a unique beauty. I don't think they will last another week, or even a day!

Spring Bouquet

I'm almost (but not quite!) ashamed to admit that this bouquet was bought from our Post Office this morning with the sole intention of using it for the Flower Friday challenge on Blipfoto. Of course it's also  lovely to see these spring flowers in the house while outside storm Gertrude rages on. She is most definitely not a nice girl!

Focus

HAPPY NEW YEAR

A word of warning! This is going to be a long post so perhaps you want to get yourself a cup of tea. Or a glass of wine! It is New Year's Day after all. The start of many new things and I'm beginning by showing you my word for this year which will be: FOCUS.  After choosing COURAGE last year I was a bit more careful in selecting my word for 2016 so that I would not be tempting the universe to test me on the subject. I know it's superstitious, but still! Better to be safe than sorry. 

I choose FOCUS because I want to live even more mindful, paying attention not just to the special moments in the coming year but to all moments, however mundane they might be. Also to the moments that maybe would be better forgotten in the hope of finding something worthwhile even in them. I want to FOCUS on learning more (that's a perennial resolution!), enjoying working in my journals, making my art, stitching my quilts, walking the dog, reading books, enjoying the sunshine (hope there will be lots!), being in New York, working in the garden and posting this blog, as well as on anything else that comes along. I also want to FOCUS with my camera, more about that later. 

This 9 x 12" page was done on heavy duty watercolour paper and will probably be part of Life Book 2016 in due course. It's fairly sure we will be asked to choose our word for 2016 there. It's a collage made by tearing up parts of my gelli plate printed papers. I have a huge pile of these and most of them also use Stencilgirl stencils. Don't ask me which ones though, these pages were made ages ago. The only additional paper I used was the sparkly black wrapping paper.

After I was happy with the composition on the page I added the circles that were made using 3 different sizes of circle punches and more gelli plate printed papers. They were outlined with a black marker.  The page is also covered in sparkles to imitate the fireworks for a New Year. So much for how I made the page. 

Here is a detail of it with the word BLIP added to the mix. No digital wizardry was used, just a piece of folded masking tape to hold the extra circle I made with the word BLIP stamped on it, onto the page! The whole Blip site has been asked to feature the word BLIP on their blips. Here is the reason why:

as most of you will know I have been posting a daily photograph on the Blipfoto site for more than 5 years now. The only "rule" of the site is that the picture has to be posted to the day it was taken. I love the site and am an enthousiastic user, not just because it's fascinating to see how all those pictures add up to my life but also to see what I was doing on any given day for those 5 years. I love getting a glimpse into other blippers' lives on a daily basis too. I have met many wonderful people on the site and have gone on to meet many of them in person too. However the Blip site has been in trouble for more than a year now, financially speaking. .

The good news is that the Blip community itself has come up with a solution. We, the users, could buy and run the site. In order to do this we need to raise at least £180.000 by investing  ourselves and becoming shareholders of the Blipfuture Community Interest Company.Today we have been urged by Blipfuture (the name of the new Company to be) to spread the word far and wide and I'm doing it here on my blog.  I have pledged my bit and now the waiting and fingers crossing is on! Let's hope for a fabulous new beginning for Blipfoto in 2016!

I am also spreading the word on Blip itself today using the word Blip in my picture for the day. All Blippers have been asked to do this and you can see the resulting pictures all together here. 

A Memory

I was hard to decide what to photograph today. The weather is awful, there is a dusting of snow and the light is very low. Not a good day for photography purposes which is a shame as today is my 5th Blip anniversary. Yes, I have been blipping for 5 whole years, since November 2010, without missing a single day. It seems amazing.

It all started with seeing a small notice in the Scotland on Sunday newspaper about Blipfoto. I decided to give it a go as I was taking lots of photographs anyway. The more or less only rule for the site is that the photo you upload on a certain day has to be taken on that day. Back then I was still on a dial-up connection so I have no idea what I was thinking of, adding uploading a picture as well as the blog I was already writing. But I progressed to broadband (May 2012) with a speed (if that is the right word!) of less than 1Mb to a satellite connection of 22Mb. That has made life and blipping so much easier.

Taking the daily picture has never given me much trouble. I use my garden, flowers,  our beautiful surroundings in the Scottish Borders, the dog walks and of course my own art. Plenty of inspiration in all of that. I have in the past months toned down my commenting on the site and given myself permission to do a lot of it if I'm in the mood and to leave it be, if I'm not. That seems to work.

This collage (made as part of my daily collage activity) seemed to fit the bill for today. The quotation reads:

Wherever I travel I always bring something back with me. It can be the smallest thing, but it's a MEMORY".

For me those memories are always visual ones, in the shape of photographs. As long as the Blipfoto site keeps on going, so will I!

Derelict Sunday

There used to be a challenge on the Blipfoto site called Derelict Thursday and I participate as much as I could. We took a rest of that over the summer months. It has now been resurrected but on a Sunday.

The day started gloriously sunny and the dog walk took place with the camera in tow. I spotted these remnants of the railway which once ran where we now walk and it looked suitably derelict against the light.

In Memoriam

 

Laburnum

Jacob's Ladder pictured above, and Geum below

In memory of fellow blipper Alma, who loved flowers as much as I do.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Derelict Thursday

There were once plans to develop this site at Halmyre Mains nearby, and a large sign used to advertise the wonderful executive homes that would be erected there but sadly that was just before the crash. Since ;then this group of barns and buildings have been surrounded by huge fences with signs warning of dire consequences and dangerous instability. So I didn't venture in (there is apparently also 24 hour security) but took pictures looking up. as that was the only direction unfenced. This is my contribution for the last DerelictThursday challenge on the Blipfoto site before our summer break, dereliction looking a lot more derelict in winter time. 

As you can tell it's a wonderfully sunny day although there was frost on the ground still this morning.

Not Sew Good

Years ago when we first moved here I was in the habit of visiting auctions (very dangerous!) and whenever an old Singer came up for sale and no one bought i,t I felt morally obliged to put in a bit for these old, sturdy machines. In the case of this one the actual sewing machine was long gone and only the hull and table left. I think I paid about a fiver. Of course we didn't have room to put them all inside the house and in fact quite a few were passed on to other deserving owners but this one ended up outside in the courtyard and serves as a plant stand in the summer.

Wind and weather have taken their toll and it's anyone's guess how long this will remain upright but it seemed a good subject for the Derelict Thursday challenge on the Blipfoto site.

There is good news (at least that seems to be the general consensus) on the Blipfoto saga as the site has been bought out of liquidation by two American venture capitalists, also involved with Polaroid. It means that the site will continue although there will undoubtedly be changes of which so far we know nothing. I have said, and continue to say, that while the site is up and running I will continue to post my daily photograph there but have to admit that my blip mojo is in hiding. Whereas in the past I went out on regular photo expeditions with no other purpose than to find that daily picture I now simply carry a camera whenever I go out somewhere and try and capture something, which is not the same thing. But it might be the same situation as when my art mojo disappears. That always returns very quickly and for no apparent reason other than that I keep on arting regardless, so I will continue to photograph in the hope that too will bring back my enthousiasm for taking pictures.

Beauty in Dereliction

Yesterday's blip hand holding event was a great success and looking at us all reaching out to each other and to the Blipfoto site and it's, now no longer with us, staff members was hugely satisfying. We will have to wait and see who is going to buy the site and what will happen in the future but we showed an amazing amount of solidarity. 

It did however mean that one single line of stitching (30" long) was achieved in the studio yesterday, and nothing else. I spend the entire day online looking at all the pictures and leaving comments as much as I could and that in turn resulted (as I almost already knew it would) in a horrible migraine. So today I'm treating myself with kid gloves. A bit of gentle machine quilting and some playing with paint was on the agenda, and joy of joys, the sun was out and we were able to drink coffee outside. A real treat. The dog walk this morning was equally lovely and I decided to try and find dereliction (for the DerelictThursday challenge on Blip) close by. Fortunately there is plenty of it along the old railway line, starting with the image above.

As I had my camera I also couldn't resist taking pictures of the beautiful reflections in what is the peat field's draining ditch.

But beauty can be found in unconventional places too and I was very taken with the patterns of the wire around one of the old fence posts, specially seen against the low sun.

 So intricate! And such beauty in decay.

Blipfoto Forever

Those who you who are not blippers and don't live in Scotland might not know that my most favourite website has gone into compulsory liquidation. It was officially announced yesterday although rumours about the situation had been spreading on the site itself for about a fortnight already.

Yesterday we knew the worst and many blippers had started to back up their photographs and more specifically their words. Fortunately my training as a reference librarian makes me quite organized about such things and all my pictures are backed upped religiously on external hard drives while my words on Blipfoto are a condensed version of what appears here on my blog. I have this blog printed into a book every year so those too are safe.

Despite being confident about all that I did feel very depressed about the fact that Blipfoto might go down. I have blipped consistently every day since the 30th November 2010 and it seemed unimaginable to not be able to continue doing so. Fortunately the news is more hopeful by now and it sounds like there are interested parties who want to buy up Blipfoto and keep the site up and running. Fingers crossed the site will continue to exist.

In support of the site and it's staff it was decided that we blippers would do something today to demonstrate how much we love it here and under the hashtag #blipfotoforever we are posting pictures of ourselves with our hands outstretched as if we are holding hands together. All those pictures can be seen here and we are forming one huge, worldwide ring of blippers.

Dereliction Development

It's Dereliction Thursday on the Blipfoto site as it is every Thursday. I don't always participate but I was driving around today meeting up and having lunch with a friend so decided to keep an eye out for dereliction and then when I found some, to stop on the way back home.

I found lots of it but mostly in places where stopping the car would not be such a great idea so I was very pleased when I spotted this near Newlandrig. I'm guessing here but the collection of sheds I spotted looked like the remains of a chicken farm and you're be pleased to know that it is now available to purchase for residential development! Guess it's going to be some time till it's habitable though! I wish I could have gotten a bit closer but first of all the site was padlocked to the hilt and secondly I wasn't dressed for climbing over gates so decided to give that a miss.

For my blip today I have taken the above picture, cropped it and turned it into a dramatic black and white image. You can check it out here.

Amalarian in Tuscany Book

When I first joined the Blipfoto site back in November 2010, one of the first journals I started to follow was that of Amalarian. The first attraction was that this blipper lived in Tuscany and featured many delightful pictures of the countryside and flowers in the area near Lucca. But very soon I realized that she was also a very thoughtful and kind person who was very supportive of me and my photographs, always leaving considerate and insightful comments. Her real name was Molly and we somehow seemed to click even though we never met in person.. My first visit when checking out the site every day was to her journal.

It was therefore such a shock to learn that Molly had died on the 9th May 2011. It seemed beyond belief that someone who was so full of the joy of life was no longer with us. Fortunately her photographs remain on the Blipfoto site as a fitting tribute to her and I have returned to them often over the intervening years.

And that goes specially for the very last picture she ever posted, of Luigi, her dog, as seen above. I don't think I have ever looked at it without crying.

It was therefore wonderful to discover via a fellow blipper that the book,Amalarian in Tuscany, is now available filled to the brim with her stunning pictures and also her beautiful written words, published in her memory by her husband. You can see it at the top of the page. Amalarian was Molly's username on Blipfoto. ,Again I must admit that I have not yet managed to look at it without welling up and I know that I will return to this book time and again.

I have all the necessary information about how to buy this book and if you are interested simply e-mail me using the e-mail address in the sidebar of this blog.

Dereliction in West Linton Graveyard

It's Thursday and that means the ThursdayDereliction challenge for the Blipfoto site. As we needed to to into West Linton I decided to pay a visit to my old haunts in the graveyard. It's been a very long time (more than a year) since I last updated my West Linton Graveyard blog although I have been in the graveyard since then. I usually pop in whenever I have a spare minute when I'm in the village. Most of the gravestones have now been documented but I must make sure I haven't missed any, one of these days.

Sadly dereliction is easy to find as the gravestones have deteriorated a lot since my first visit many years ago. Above the entrance to the Douglas mausoleum.

And I feel it won't be too much longer before this lovely monument will topple over. It was erected by William C. Oliver in memory of his daughter Isabella Oliver who died 12 July 1856 aged 40. You can read about it on the West Linton graveyard blog here.  This will become my blip today after I have converted it digitally into a black and white image.

 This gravestone has already bitten the dust in more ways than one. 

And sadly we will probably never know who lies buried here. Although the metal has survived, the inscription has not.

This cross too has fallen down although all the inscriptions on the stones still make it clear whose grave monument this was.

Making Dereliction

Is it still dereliction when you produce it yourself? I am in the process of making a fabric book in grunge style following the instructions of an online class by Donna Downey. It involves materials such as  poly filler and gesso, and then partly removing it to make it look like an ancient graffiti filled wall.Of course I will  blog more details of the book once it is done but for today this detail looks pretty derelict to me. Hope it counts for DerelictThursday which is a challenge on the blipfoto site every Thursday.