In February this year (2025 if you’re a visitor from the future) I started making daily Instagram posts, I wrote about it in y previous Instagram post. Prior to that I had been a really intermittent poster, sometimes I only made one post in a month. When I first started on Instagram I was a daily poster but it just fizzled out, this is actually my second go at it, I cannot remember my first accounts details at all which is a bummer, I do have some pics from it though because it was before it started to get really difficult to get photos from an Apple device on to a Windows one. There’s some heavy filter use.
Two images. The left hand one is made up of three images of the same macramé wall hanging, it is made of white twine and features an arrangement of square knots. The right image is of a fingerless mitt in progress on a set of double pointed knitting needles, there is a completed mitt behind. The mitt is dark grey with a thick cable pattern running up the centre of it.
Above: December 2016 - A macramé collage and some mitts I was knitting.
A pair of sheep cropping the grass in front of a grey breeze block wall. There are blurred spots because I took the photo through a window and it was raining.
May 2021 - Escaped sheep eating my grass. This is a surprisingly frequent occurrence.
Anyway, I started my current account in December 2016 which I only know because I just downloaded all my data, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
Three images, on the left is a white goose feather quill which has been cut into a pen, it is lying on a spiral bound pad with the word "Quill" written in a calligraphic hand in green ink. The centre image is of the first few rows of a tam style hat being knitted on double pointed needles in a soft pink yarn. The hat ended up being too small and went to a charity shop. The right hand image is of a huge multi-coloured crocheted blanket. I got carried away making this and there is every kind of crocheted square you could think of, I learned a lot making this to be honest.
Above: April 2017 - I made a quill pen! A tam I was knitting and the blanket that has everything.
Three images, the left hand image of a cross stitched Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty (Disney version) it is in the "chibi" style. Middle image is of a small snail, it has a hazelnut brown shell with a black and a cream stripe running round the spiral. The right hand image is of a pedestrianised street in Caernarfon, North Wales. The shops are painted in shades of yellow and they all have a Welsh flag overhanging the street. One has a hanging basket with flowering plants in. Overhanging the street are lots of umbrellas in bright colours.
Above: May 2019 - Big pivot to cross stitch in 2019. Pic on right is Caernarfon.
When I stopped being a regular user was when the algorithm started being really weird and all the suggested posts and ads came in. I went back to it after reading a post on Buzzfeed about the "following feed" where you could just see posts from the people that you follow. That rescued Instagram for me. Apparently if you’re in the U.K. or E.U. they have to offer you a feed without ads and nonsense, I think it’s to do with GDPR but don’t quote me on that.
Three images. On the left is a calm scene on the Menai Strait, in the foreground a single red rowing boat sits moored in the blue-grey of the Irish Sea. Further back is a line of orange buoys and the background is mostly green trees with a few white houses to the right. Centre image is of my self with a pale grey crocheted blanket made up of various different granny squares. I have deliberately left off my head, this seemed a good way of showing off the blanket but was actually a pain in the bum to manage somehow. Right hand image is a blur of sparrows all trying to get at the suet balls in the left hand feeder. The right hand feeder has seeds and a single sparrow has it all to itself.
Above: May 2017 - Y Felinheli (sorry if you're using a screen reader, it's a place in Wales), another crocheted blanket and a sparrow feeding frenzy.
Three images. The left hand one is of a partially knitted sock on double pointed needles, I had just turned the heel. The central image is of a stack of crocheted squares in autumnal colours of orangey reds and dark green. The right hand image has half of the head of a white woman on the right side (it me), the woman has black framed cat eye glasses on and shoulder length red hair.
Above: November 2017 - My first ever sock! Some squares for yet another crocheted blanket, this one is still in hibernation and some new glasses.
Fast forward to now, I opened Instagram a couple of days ago and there’s a notice telling me that I have to submit to cookies and ads or pay £3.99 a month for an ad free experience. That is absolutely not happening, none of the above thanks. Which is how I came to download my data, I have hardly any of the photos that I have taken over the last five years or so because, firstly, my phone was saving them in a format that was not compatible with a Windows PC, secondly, after I sorted out the format, iTunes decided that it didn’t need to be syncing the phone with the PC any more because Windows has it’s own phone software and I should just use that. Have you used it? It’s shocking. Also the new USB-C data cable causes File Explorer to crash so that’s convenient.
Three images. On the left is a (frankly weird) chest shot of a woman wearing a black knitted henley top with red buttons. The central image is a close up of a crocheted square, it is very textured and is dark purple, grey and sage green. The right hand image of a knitted square, it has textured stripes of teal, pink, lime, turquoise, olive, dark purple, cobalt and purple with columns of grey between. It's not as awful as I've made it sound. Honest.
Above: August 2018 - In 2018 I joined a lot of knit-alongs and crochet-alongs. L-R: a henley top I made for a summer garment knit-along, one the blocks from the block a month crochet-along and a knitted block from a blanket knit-along.
Three images. On the left is a rather magnificent mushroom. It has a pinky red cap and a white stem.In the middle is a cross stitch with the word tea in lower case at the top, the a of tea has been styled as a teapot and is tilted forward pouring tea into a cup at the bottom, a couple of drops of tea are splashing out of the cup. The right hand image is of a cemetery (cheery), there are a few graves in the foreground, and a few houses to the left. The main part of the image is the sky where a bright sun shines top centre with rays coming down through the middle. There are wooded hills with dramatic clouds to the back.
Above: October 2019 - That is a cracking mushroom/toadstool, I can't remember where I took that one (edit from the present: I just remembered it was in Menai Bridge).
What a trip down memory lane the data was (it was really quick and easy too, I thought they’d be a right pain in the bumbum about it), I have all my photos back and am peppering them throughout this post.
Three images (again). On the left is a completed tam style hat, it is in pale grey and has a central button with 12 "petals" radiating from it. The edges are in a lacy pattern. The middle image features a hill left of centre, with a smaller, wooded hill in front and to the left of the picture. Most of the image is the sky, which has layers of blue grey with a smudge of pale orange at the top of the hill and a few lighter clouds to the right. The image on the right has a silhouetted sycamore tree centre and right, with the branches of a smaller tree just about screening a house to the left. The sky as seen through the branches of the sycamore is striped orange and mauve at the bottom, lightening towards the top with a bright glow of sun just visible top right.
Above: November 2018 - Another tam, I recall this one was a bit weird in the decreases so I just bodged it, very comfy hat though, the hill I can see from my back door and another sunrise through the sycamore.
A stylised apple filled in the zentangle style. At the right is a sunflower which dominates the design, the rest of the space is filled with spirals, dots and zigzags. I have coloured the image in autumnal shades of gold, oranges, reds and darker greens.
Above: August 2019 - A spot of colouring
To get back to the point, I am thinking of just binning Instagram and using this blog and my extremely neglected BlueSky account to share photos, so far the following feed on Instagram has no ads but as soon as it does it’s going in the bin. Though I will probably still share more photos on the blog (this post has been really fun), it will encourage me to post more regularly. Hopefully without being as rambling as I have here.
Three images. The left image is of a white woman, the image is very over-exposed (on purpose by the way) so the face is largely a blank white with an eye visible. The woman has jet black hair. The middle image is of chickpeas and halved cherry tomatoes with some chopped coriander leaves. On the right is a completed cross stitch of a cartoon style Frida Kahlo. She has a skull and red flowers on her head and there are red and peach coloured leaves in the background.
Above: September 2019 - I dyed my hair black! No idea what I was thinking there, what a nightmare to grow out that proved to be. Middle pic is my chickpea chopped salad which I ate all summer. Right is a lovely Frida Kahlo cross stitch, I got the pattern from Etsy in a bogof with the tea pattern above.
This is a 3x3 collage image of various bits. Top left is a shot of the beach at Llandudno, it is a gravelly sort of beach and there is the bluff in the background. Top middle is close up of a small empty clam shell. Top tight is a close up of an old metal ring in the ground. Centre left is a rusted metal loop on a gravelly ground. Centre image is of a small pier in the Menai Strait, the island of Angelsey is visible across the water and is thick with trees. Centre right is a close up of a crab claw in some rocks. Bottom left is a bit more industrial, there are aluminium, prefabricated buildings in the foreground with a chimney type structure on a hill in the back. Bottom centre is a close up of some pebbles, they are various shade of grey (no, I don't know why I'm like this). Bottom right image is of white and pastel painted houses on the beachfront in Felinheli, the foreground is the slate beach with the tide out.
Above: September 2017 - I can't remember why I posted this, there must've been a hashtag. I do remember that I captioned it with something about missing summer already.
Two images. The left one is of the sky, it is a light blue grey colour with a ring of bright light from which radiate a circle of sunbeams. The bottom of the image features a bunch of dark telegraph wires which is unfortunate but what can you do? The right image is a close up of a baby spider plant on its stem, there is a small white flower to the right of the plant and the background is very dark while the plant is well lit (if I do say so myself).
Above: May 2019 - a hole in the sky and getting arty with plants. I've always been like this, I don't know what to tell you.
I could literally sit here all day posting photographs but we all have things to do so I'll quit now. Well, for now anyway.....
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