The 2011 collection of photo mosaics/samplers (with a little how-to).

I started this on impulse late last night and ended up not going to bed until the wee small hours. It's the first time I've done a year in pictures round-up and I found it to be time consuming and rather addictive but I greatly enjoyed my trip down memory lane and the results provide a wonderful snapshot of the year.

--------------------January

--------------------February

--------------------March

--------------------April

--------------------May

--------------------June

--------------------July

--------------------August

--------------------September

--------------------October

--------------------November

--------------------December

January:- I crocheted two shawls! The beginning of an addiction. Part of our bedroom was actually tidy enough for a photo of it to be included in a blog post

February:- Another crochet shawl, and my first (and only) crocheted cardigan. I found a good snowdrop spot, I'll be back to visit it in a few weeks.

March:- Some late snow. A fancy cake -I placed a stencil (an old decorating mag freebie) over the cake before dusting with icing sugar. I joined in with the Japanese Flower Shawl mania.

April:- An unusually gorgeously sunny, warm and colourful month. We had icecream on the beach. I finally finished my African flower crochet blanket, it took 11 months altogether.

May:- We had a lots of rain in May 2011. However, there were good days too as these photos show. It's still my favourite month, so green and fresh and full of promise.

June:- Daisies, elderflower champagne, the agricultural show, birthdays. Also a special quilt was completed - a joint effort with friends.

July:- We went on holiday, it was beautiful. I recommend you take the Road to The Isles if you ever get the chance (and good luck with the weather!).

August:- I madly started a hexagon quilt. I madly finished my second crochet blanket, I madly started and finished a crescent moon shawl. I wonder what happened to the housework in August!

September:- It seems I couldn't live without another blanket on the go. Number 3 was begun.

October:- We took a short holiday to gorgeous Robin Hoods Bay. Later, once back home, some Halloween crafting. Wild geese, so evocative of October.

November:- A parliament of felt owls. Beautiful Autumn colours. The lavender mouse survives the addition of a cat to the household.

December:- Mincemeat and mince pies. There are still many left. I'm not fed up of them, yet. Snow, gone before Christmas. I finish the year as I began, with yet another crocheted shawl - I've started giving them away.

I hope you enjoyed this little meander through 2011. I'll take a better look at the ones other bloggers have created now I know how long it takes! I'm a little fussy with my photos though, here's how I do mine...

1. I look at the thumbnail images of my photos for each month and pick the best nine - ones which have a strong feature which stands out in a small image size and which would fit a square size frame.
2. I crop the selected photos so that they are square (I use microsoft photo editor)
3. I upload the photos to flickr. I create a set for each month with nine photos.
4. I use BigHugeLabs (free!) to create the mosaics. I set the mosaic size to be 3x3 and the image source to be the relevant flickr photoset. I do this for each month.
5. I eventually go to bed far too late and feeling too cold after sitting in an unheated room for several hours at the computer in the middle of winter, which means it takes me even longer to fall asleep. Today I feel a little tired!

Here's to many more colourful days to photograph in 2012. Happy New Year to you when it comes!