Black, white and grey

My quest to try new things and encourage you to do the same continues, so welcome to another New to Me link party.

As it is a new year we have a new button too :)

This month I have tried my hand at making a Fascinator for the first time.

With, I am pleased to report, a more than adequate outcome!

The next competition at the Camera Club is for monochrome photos which, I have to admit, I have never attempted before. Reading the notes I was given on the first meeting of the club I discovered that my camera has a built-in setting for black and white photography. Isn't it amazing what you can learn when you read the manual????

So, of course I had to try it out.

A walk along the prom on a lovely, sunny Sunday recently gave me the opportunity.

Birds feeding on the shoreline

Rocky shore

I was pleasantly surprised by the results, but I think I might need some more practise before I am ready to submit any photos into that competition :)

So, have you tried anything New to You this month? Share your triumphs (and disasters!) here and your fellow bloggers can celebrate (or commiserate!) with you.

As ever the Link Party will remain open until the end of the month, so if you need a nudge to try that new technique or to give that new pattern a go, consider this a virtual nudge from me :)

An InLinkz Link-up

Get ahead, get a hat!

Well not exactly a hat, in truth a Fascinator!

Last weekend my EG branch held a Fascinator workshop, something New to Me so naturally I had to give it a go :)

I don't actually have a need for a Fascinator at the moment but I knew that my daughter-in-law is due to attend a friend's wedding in April as we are babysitting the gorgeous grandson whilst they are there, so I offered to make one for her at the workshop. There was a proviso that she wasn't obliged to wear whatever I produced :)

We started off by making the base of the Fascinator, which comprises a circle of grey Sinamay fabric folded to create a peak then covered with bias binding to cover the raw edges. Millinery wire is then basted around the edge of the Fascinator base and covered again with bias binding, which is then covered again with a double-fold Sinamay bias binding.

That took all of the several hours of the workshop to complete! There may well have been some chatting and tea drinking went on too :)

After tossing several ideas around in my head on how to embellish the base I decided that I needed feathers so one order to Petershams Millinery Supplies later and these beauties arrived in the post.

I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with them, but I knew that I would have fun trying out different ideas!

We had been sent home with lots of extra Sinamay fabric to complete our Fascinators, so I cut a 2.5" bias strip folded in the edges then ironed and stretched the strip to provide the material for a loopy addition to the base.

I had some of the double-fold bias binding from the brim left over so looped that around and added it too. The curled pheasant quill was the perfect addition.

It felt a bit plain still, so I dug out some seed beads and added a few of those too to catch the light when it is worn.

I have enough Sinamay left over to make another Fascinator all I need add is some Millinery wire and a comb, so I think another Fascinator might be in the making.

One thing is for sure if my daughter-in-law does end up wearing this to her friend's wedding, there won't be another one there like it!

I am linking this up to this week's TGIFF hosted by Vera at Negligent Style. If you would like to showcase a finish by hosting the TGIFF link party sign up here to join the fun.

A word to the wise

If like me, you get an email notification when someone decides to follow your blog, do you ever take the time to look at their profile?

I have to confess that I don't always, often I recognise the name from a group that I have joined or a blog that I have commented on, but equally as often they appear to have come out of the blue. Recently, however, I have been checking the profiles and it has definitely been worth it.

In the last few weeks I have had several "new follower" notifications from Bloglovin that when I have checked the profiles this, or similar, is what I have found.

Each time I notified Bloglovin and each time they have responded after a couple of days expressing dismay and informing me that the so-called follower has been deleted. I have asked if there is anything that I can do to stop this happening but they have just ignored that, so I don't know if that means that there isn't or they just can't be bothered to tell me.

The profiles show several other blogs already followed so I am not alone in receiving this kind of attention. Have you ever had this happen to you and, if so, was there anything you could do to stop it?