BloomingPink

Or rather Woodsdog.  While Dave and John mountain biked along a portion of the Rails to Trails project trail in the Poconos, Oliver and I went for a hike on the Glen Onoko trail.  It was a beautiful and very steep trail that meandered along a fast moving stream that led a very tall waterfall. It has quite an intimidating warning sign at the base. To give you an idea of the steepness, there were times I needed to hoist my little guy up some rocks.  Needless to say, I was glad he was wearing his harness and leash. He's a little bold fella. Here's a photo of the stream.  I love the flare the sun cast on my lens. Here's a picture of the first level of the falls.  Very pretty. But there's more!  This is the main falls.  Pretty high, but difficult to discern without a reference point...and Oliver wasn't up to cooperating. After tooling around at the base of the falls (Oliver kept splashing leaves), we discovered a ...

Here is what I worked on last night and today.  I really need to beacon my creative writing muse because I'm having a difficult time coming up with beautiful and melodic names for my artwork.  I thought I might call this Butterfly Dreams, but I don't know.  That sounds too corny.  It is corny. So I settled with Bodywork.  I guess because ... hmmm.  Well, I don't know why. Here's a closeup of the roses I painted on the vine.  Used several colors of heavy body acrylics, swirling with my brush to try and make it look like a rose.  The leaves were made by quick drawing on colored paper...then I added transparent paints and fiddled with india ink brush markers. When I was done, my fingers were coated in paint and color.  Typical look for me on a weekend or evening. I am looking forward to next week.  I only work on Monday and am taking the remaining days off to vacate my mind of business process flows, requirements, a...

Flowers brim even through the cracks in the sidewalk.  I started this several weeks ago and finally got around to finishing it 9in between knitting projects).  There is quite a bit of texture - I used a hardboard panel and first added some papers, then some paint base coats, some coarse pumice  gel medium to add the grains (you can see them the best in the sky) and heavy bodied acrylic paints.  Finished with scribbling using a Copic multiliner pen. An interesting package arrived yesterday...months ago I sent some raw wool to Ohio Valley Natural Fibers to be cleaned and carded for spinning.  Seriously...months ago.  I had called them once to check on it and was thinking I was going to need to check again.  They really have a backlog of wool, it seems! Anyway, the wool returned is a wonderful super dark color...the color of chocolate.  It's fabulous.  I guess I'm going to have to spin some soon!  Maybe I'll even be able to spin some...

I finished another Christmas present this weekend...actually put the buttons on today!  This will be a super cozy and warm sweater.  Of course, now that it's done, I can't wear it, because today it was almost 70 degrees!  Oh, that's right...it is a present for someone else...I almost forgot.  I guess one of these days, I'll have to make myself one. I should block it...but not sure that it's needed...I'll wait until it's tried on before I decide...that way I can make the fit exact. Onto the next project.....I am really going to for the 100% handmade gifting again this year, but as usual....I'm behind. Oh, if you're interested in the pattern, you can find the details HERE , which will give you a link to the F-R-E-E pattern on Knitty.com (I love Knitty....great patterns, all free).

Finally finished this cowl.  I woke up early this morning to little scratching and chewing noises (there is something poking around our attic setting up winter camp, I fear).  All that was left was sewing in the loose ends and positioning the buttons. These buttons are extremely large, real wood buttons.  Such a nice texture that only adds to the splendor of the yarn and pattern (it's a very chunky stitch). You can find out more about the pattern and yarn on my ravelry page.... HERE

Well, I have to say that I'm not ready for the flakes to fly, but I do like them on paper...especially like this lil penguin. It's one of the new images from the ippity release this month.  Isn't he adorable?  I love the good natured fun of the sentiment and aren't the snow flakes and swirl wonderful!