Still amongst the living....

Lots has happened since last I published to this place...November brought the Pacific Northwest the most horrendous wind storm we have ever been through. Winds in the Category 1 of the Hurricane type, rains that just couldn't quit, all to end up with a snow storm yet! We haven't had snow in early December for I don't know how long...seems like about 30+ years to me! With that of course came below freezing temps, which are not unknown to us up here, but the duration has been something else. It is not neat to see the sun shining and know that your nose will freeze if you go outdoors! Yes, I know it is winter, and I know that means foul weather, but when we have had temperate temps for the past 10 years, we just knew the earth had tilted and we were bound to discover that it was for the warmer! Little did we realize that we had become complacent about the weather.

Well one good thing about the lousy weather is that we will not be having water rationing this coming summer. I can be thankful for that because my lawn has suffered enough for the past few years. Perhaps I will even be able to complain about having to mow it twice a week this year. Those lovers of the snow are rejoicing over the amount of snowfall in the mountains of the Cascades and are enjoying it tremendously. I have noticed that this time of the year does bring us some fantastic colors in the sky.

In the crafting end of things here, I have been busy in that arena as well. I don't think I could go a day without creating something and have created a few small works of my art. I am entering my 3rd year shortly with Fiber Art Traders, and have been the welcoming person to all new members for the past year. I enjoy this task, even when we grow by great leaps and bounds. When I joined there were just a few over 100 members, and we are fast approaching 500 members.

My latest work in progress is a Treasure Box which will hold the fiber art postcards we trade on this list. Well, that is only one of the items that we trade, there is a trade for the Treasure Box as well. I have made cloth dolls, artist trading pins, similar to brooches, but with an artistic twist to them, business card cases, Easter decorations as well as Christmas decor and a multitude of other items too numerous to mention. Here are a few photos of some of the items I have created since last posting....

One of the neater ideas the list mom presented us with for our Journal Quilt project, which is an ongoing year long item. For this one we were to turn a colored print into a black and white journal quilt, ala Ansel Adams. I chose to do a photograph I took of Cape Disappointment Light, located on the border between Washington State and Oregon. I have a love of lighthouses, and this particular light is the oldest still operating light on the Pacific Coast. Quite the achievement for our state! I really enjoyed doing this, and it proved to me that I could do work with a limited palette.

Some other more recent items are shown below...

Wild West post card trade...I created this one using one of my favorite western type designs, a steer skull, embellished in the manner of my forefathers with feathers and Indian paintings, as well as leather covering the horns of the skull.

The following three photos are of a dear friend with her eldest grandson, then one of her youngest grandson, and finally one of her granddaughter. I took a little liberty with her granddaughter, and turned her into a fairie for her journal page! Her youngest GS has a love of dinosaurs, hence his photo with the dino accompaniment.

And finally, my very favorite, a living fairie, such a little cutie she is also!

Well that's about it for today. Hopefully tomorrow will bring the instinct in me to do a little more blogging...

Hugs!