Walking under Purple Skies

Fascinating...the purple sky

behind a huge setting moon

As the sun's rays slowly came up in the East

the Western sky

changed from purple to pink.

With the grey clouds

it kind of looks a bit like a Fauve painting.

Beneath the moon's dance

these two do everything together

Sometimes one takes the lead

Back on the dike RP Shandy always initiates puppy games.

A lovely walk

 but boy it took me all morning to warm up again back in front of the fire!

Perhaps Some Work is Never Finished.

I always liked this piece

but cheeky son thought it was my weakest piece

So I've been reworking it.

Speckled Suet Lovers

Crowds of starlings

Huddle in the crab apple tree

Awaiting their turn at the suet ball.

They fluff up their feathers in the cold

and patiently wait.

Trouble is the hawks also wait higher in the spruce trees.

It's Monday Again

That was the week that was

Just doodling around the green splodges.

No green to be seen here at all at all.

Starting to work out how to approach my next commitment

a huge 7 ft panel for a group show.

Must get cracking on that one

but need to make some decisions first.

Another day of doodles.

Perhaps cabin fever looks like this.

Feeling a bit confined and claustrophobic 

in a cold, cold winter.

Playing with blanket stitch 

was all that came to mind on a quiet Sunday

spent recovering from a late, late night.

Wintry Layers and Discovered Games

Walking through our unruly woods

the Rusty Pups and I found

Wintry layers

a snow capped burl

Summery remnants swaying by the stream

We watched the stream still flowing beneath icy coverings

Rusty Pup, Shandy, discovered a new game...

drop a tennis ball in the stream...

then try and retrieve it without diving in and before it disappears beneath the ice.

Luckily she retrieved it each time.

If she hadn't

she would have looked at me with those big sad eyes

and expected me to do something about it!

Snow on ice on water...

More layers

from a very cold tangled woods!

Sticky Snow

We woke to snow falling

(so what else is new!)

Snow that clings to rusty gates

Snow that clings to frozen faces

Snow that even clings to the sides of things that stand still long enough.

Wintry

They swoop down  from the tops of trees

and we hear the alarm calls of smaller birds.

Sometimes they are successful

more often not.

Such a harsh season of the year

Reverting to the Machine

For a few weeks now I've been

stitching and stitching and stitching

Covering cloth with row upon row of machine made stitch

Meeting a deadline

in a weak attempt to reproduce part of

a JEH MacDonald painting.

I hope I don't have to do something like this again!

Not my cup of tea.

Time Scratched

A muddle of a week

Old Man Winter loosened his hold for just one day

A handsome but, oh so stinky critter

thought he might move in under my studio

making me a very unhappy camper!

Of course Old Man Winter returned

and on Thursday at quilt Guild

we made prayer flags for one of us

Handy Hubby suggested I couldn't just do snow, snow and more snow!

So I made circles but couldn't resist filling them with snowflakes

As the snow still fell on Saturday

a Merlin swooped down and captured a starling.

When we first arrived here we would be shocked

and try to scare off the hawks or falcons

but now we know they too need to eat

and winter is very hard on them.

Studio got a cleaning

so scraps from the cutting room floor

found a home here.

Unlikely Dining Companions

Handsome fellas ain't they.

They were joined at the table by a bunch of pigeons

and just out of my photo a squirrel munched away.

I'm not sure what they talked about among themselves

but they weren't too happy about Rusty Pups watching intently from the window!

Walking Hot and Cold

To the left of us it looked like a warm summery sunrise.

But looking left over the basin it's obviously wintry cool.

Cracked ice covers the tidal grasses in rounded mounds.

(Ha, there was a printed cotton in the 90's we used to call 'cracked ice'.)

(I used it a lot.)

Back to the sewing machine today.

Scratched and Wrapped

Two weeks into a new scratching

and the rolling around a stick has to begin

The sun came out but not strong enough to melt the mountains of snow 

Finally a day at the sewing machine.

A deadline is fast approaching

so I resort to the machine.

Wednesday...a day of row upon row of straight stitch.

Thursday was spent zigzagging over and over.

Friday we travelled up the valley to the eye doctor

then returned for the evening showing of 'Life of Pi'.

We get such good movies in our small community thanks to the hard work of volunteers.

Woodpeckers are getting fat on my suet balls!

I'm very fond of a higgledy-piggledy blanket stitch.