Horsing Around...

Last Friday we had most splendid weather with crisp air and blue skies, a rarity in this area. I brought my camera to Little Bit and took a few lovely shots of one of our Fjords. Let me introduce you to Zorro:

Today I will be working with him again after about a 9 months hiatus...  {smile}

PS As you can see I've done another blog re-do. Hope you likey-likey?  <wink> The picture was made on the same day as the pictures above, just half an hour earlier in fact, but it was in our Valley and so so foggy. What a difference a few miles make...

Gerbera...

Finally, some Spring Time Feelings!

I made a ton more photos today (mainly of this beautiful flower), but those will have to wait until later. All this editing takes a lot of time and right now the sun is still shining!

Now it is time for a hot glass of Glogg, it is still winter after all...

Happy Weekend everyone!  {smile}

Promises...

It promises to become a lovely day out today so I'm planning on taking lots of pictures. Here is the first set of hopefully a few more to come...

Photoscape editing recipe on all:
-Greyscale
-Auto Contrast
-Backlight
-Filter, Film Effect,  Agfa low

Some Sewing...

It has been a while since I last showed you some sewing so here we go. I decided to try and make this fun vintage inspired dress, designed by Lisette patterns. This is what it is supposed to look like:

And this is the fabric I choose for the whole dress. (so not two fabrics like they have on the picture) It is a cotton from the line called 'Antique Treasures' and you can find it at Fabric.com. The bodice so far: (so without the collar or the buttonhole plackets)

And one of the sleeves:

So far so good. I'm taking very small steps at a time since I find sleeves the most difficult. Especially if they need gathering and these puffy babies gather both at the top and the bottom! (and of course every garment has two sleeves so difficulty times two...)

Grey...

Drizzle, drizzle, clouds and more clouds: A typical Northwest Day...

But, as I was driving to school to pick up Master C. this afternoon, I saw absolutely beautiful photographs in the surrounding landscape. I did bring my camera but it was pouring so hard, I just couldn't find it in me to get out of the car alongside the wet road. Lots of pretty pics in my mind though!  {smile}

I decided to make some pictures close to the comfort of my own home. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, et voila!

This says something like 'Lost Glory' in Dutch...

Blue...

I'm feeling a little bit 'blue' today so I give you a blue-toned picture. No particular reason for feeling blue, these things just happen. Last week was full of (mostly) fun excitement, but this week I'm realizing that we're still in January...

I've been fiddling a bit in Photoshop, I'm working on actually sewing a muslin (= a try-out version out of cheap cotton) of a dress first before I cut into the actual fabric, I've done and put away some laundry etc. Nothing bad, just nothing inspired. I'm lacking Oempf so to say...

I will be back once I've found some more Oempf ok?  Let me know if you find any in the mean time...  <wink>

30 Very Long Hours...

Yes, the power, internet, tv cable and heat are back on!!!! 

That was pretty darn awful but we've made it through. This was the first time we got to try out our generator and it worked like a charm. No heat though so we walked around in several layers of clothes with winter hats and gloves on in the house. We had enough power to keep the fridge going and one lamp or so. We did have warm water (showers!) and a gas stove so we could heat things up.

At least most of the roads are back open (still a few trees down) and we should hopefully start a normal week again on Monday. We passed a whole group of electricity workers' trucks in our town all the way from Colorado!

Bah, it was just plain yukkie and I feel rather exhausted from it all. I think I'm going to take a little nap now under my heated blanket that now works again...  <wink>

No Power!

Well, the power went out at 5am this morning and we're going crazy already. Our generator is on for a bit but the heater isn't working. Let's hope that get the power fixed SOON!

Snowy Nights...

Yes, I can hardly believe it either, but it is still snowing! 

We had a huge amount of ice coming down until about 2pm or so and it has been snowing ever since. It is beautiful outside but oh so dangerous. Over 200.000 households are without power, trees are snapping like matchsticks all over the place. Gas stations are without gas, grocery stores are running on empty and the Governor has declared a State of Emergency. This is not fun anymore!

These guys are leaning quite precariously over our shed and there is an even bigger one in our neighbor's yard that seems to be tipping as well. When I was taking these pictures just now I kept on hearing these eerie sounds coming out of the trees... Hopefully we won't wake up with one of those trees on our roof!

Inside it is nice and cozy (since our power is still on) and my newly painted table and chairs are looking just lovely in the icy light...

I made these simple  place-mats to keep the table safe from scratches...

And I couldn't resist showing you another little birdie picture:

I've started my 'Beyond Layers' class for real today and I've added a page at the top of this blog for you to  follow my progress. Go and have a look if you want, there are several beauties in there already!  {smile}

Ice, Ice, Baby!

You guys knew this was coming, tons of pictures because all the ice is just Amazing!

(picture me outside in my morning robe, big boots and a big woolly hat with ear flaps with my camera around my neck and ice pellets pelting down my back...)

Red Bird Sings...

Or is it "Blackbird sings in the dead of night"?  <wink> 

Anyway, I wanted to show you this picture because I was quite proud of it. I made it using the tutorials I'm following over at Kim Klassen. I used two textures and several adjustment modes and  a layer mask etc. Doesn't that sound impressive? (joking once again) 

The picture itself I took from the home-office window through the slats. It was quite the active little fellow so it was hard to 'pin him down' so to speak. What a cutie!  {smile}

That was all I was going to show you for today, but then we woke up at 5 am this morning with our Weather Alarm Radio going off, warning us that we were in the middle of an ice storm!

And indeed, just look at my poor plants in the yard...

All the plants and trees are super heavy with all the snow from the last few days, but now with all this ice covering them, they might not make it! 

Yesterday, when we were walking toward the river we heard a very loud 'Pang' and it sounded like somebody was shooting a gun (they hunt in this area so that wouldn't be the strangest thing to hear), but then we actually saw a huge branch of an evergreen just snapping off of the top of tree!

All this ice makes for a lot of power outages and apparently we had one whilst we were sleeping so that wasn't too bad, but hopefully we will not have any more outages today. I'll post this quickly so that at least this post will be on it's way to you.

Have a great day you guys!  {smile)

Snowy Days Part Trois...

Mr. G. and I took a long walk through the forest and along the river: it was just glorious!  At least 7 inches had fallen so it was quite the work-out!

Please follow along on our stroll along the Tolt River....