fully bullies

Yikes, did I miss last week?  It's been so busy here that it's hard to stay on schedule!  We had an amazing Valentine's Day hike at Eagle Creek.

When the trees are bare, you can really see the bird nests!

We had a small celebration at home, with fudgy brownies...

...and lots of board games.  I decorated the whole downstairs in streamers...Frances was a huge help in taking them down!

We continue to have a bounty of birds in these late winter weeks. I've been at the window so much that I've tried to justify it as a "bonding experience" with the cats...

You can usually find them on their window perch.

We see bluebirds daily...hopefully they'll inhabit the new nest boxes soon.

The big pileated woodpecker comes every day too.

We've had some trouble with the European starlings that live around here.  They're invasive and definitely "bully birds." A flock will descend on our suet feeders and they'll be empty within 2 days. They fight with each other...

...and with our other birds.

When the suet feeders are empty, they stare accusingly through the window.

There are ways to starling-proof your suet feeders, but that would make it difficult for the woodpeckers to feed.  We've just resigned ourselves to refilling the feeders...a lot.

Yesterday it got down to 27 degrees, and tomorrow it will be 70.  As I wait for temperatures to moderate, I'm inside baking...

chocolate cupcakes with sweetened peanut butter filling and vanilla frosting

...and finishing up some last-minute knitting.  I haven't been knitting too much lately...just a pair of socks for a Christmas gift...

...and this cowl for myself.  I love a very tight two-loop cowl and found a great pattern right before Christmas.  I knitted over the holidays and finished in January, but as usual, I drag my feet on finishing.  The cowl was a tube that had to be grafted together like the toe of a sock.  The graft was a bit clumsy, but I'm really pleased with the final product.

I love chevron stripes!

Todd modeled it for me.

It probably won't be cold enough to wear it this winter, but I packed it carefully away for the end of the year.  I love finishing projects, especially ones where I dread the finishing.  Hooray!  

Have a great week!  

Crystalline Entities

The winter is toying with us.  It's almost February, and still no snow to speak of...just a heavy dusting that's usually gone by midday.  

In the most recent "snow," the snowflakes were fantastically large...so much so that you could actually see the crystalline shape without the aid of magnification.  

I need some camera equipment that will allow me to take better, more crisp macro photos, but you can get a sense of them here:

My "winter interest" plants give them a pleasing place to accumulate.

We had just enough snow - briefly - for me to spot a mouse path by the back garden!

The temporary snow is nice.  Better than the frayed dead grass and barren fields.  Clean, bright.

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote in The Long Winter, "Snow had blown under the door and across the floor and every nail in the walls was white with frost."  It's the same with our porch roof nails!  The frosty spiderwebs make beautiful constellations, too.

Even without snow, it's been so cold that the birds are all puffed up on their branches...

...or eating greedily at the feeders.

We have more blue jays than any other birds here - sometimes big flocks will descend and argue noisily just beyond the front porch.  Their blue color is so vibrant - and welcome! - at this time of year.

Even menace birds like European starlings have a little to contribute.  Their feathers are so beautiful in the sun!

The sky has been blue, too.

Frost makes intricate patterns on the glass of our screen door.

It's not the crystalline entity from Star Trek...

photo courtesy of massivelyop.com

...but still pretty nice!

I finally finished my Funchal Moebius cowl this week. 

It was just a matter of grafting this...

...into a tube.

The graft did not go well.  I wasn't able to distinguish between actual stitches and the "floats," or the carried strands of yarn, on the end of the tube where I'd secured with temporary stitches, and so the join was lumpy, bumpy, and uneven.

I even broke the yarn at one point, so there's a tumorous lump on one side where I tried to weave in an extra two strands of yarn.  I'm bitter, but not bitter enough to unravel the join and do it again.  Close enough, I say, and the back bit will be under my hair.  Happy to have it completed and am already halfway through my next project!

And happy coincidence...the camera strap that I just bought (made from a recycled '70s couch) mimics this pattern a bit!  I love bright colors in winter.

The cats (who still despise each other) are enjoying these sunny days...

...and we're waiting to see if February will usher in some real winter weather.

Have a great week!

a "grate" week

I finally finished my Yumiko Higuchi embroidery panel!  I took her center design of the red snake and contiguous designs and then augmented with random patterns taken from her books.

photo is askew...sides are straight in the original project!

It was originally meant to be a sampler for me to learn different stitches, but I tended to stick to my favorites...stem, chain, and french knot.

Since I did the transferring of design with charcoal, I now need to CAREFULLY wash it and dry it without distorting the stitches.  Another issue is wrinkling in tight spaces.  I'm hoping that I can get it washed, ironed, and stretched over a wooden frame within a week or two.  

Another stitch project completed just in time for Christmas - Todd's "NASA nerd" t-shirt.  

It's cross stitched...not one of my favorite things to do, but I worked on it a little every day and got done in plenty of time.   

This was my first time cross-stitching on a knitted (store bought) t-shirt.  One of the problems with cross stitch is working on the stiff woven fabric that forms the guiding Xs for your needle.  It's great if you want a bookmark or maybe a wall hanging, but not for much else.  But now you can buy a water soluble sheet to stitch through.  Attach it to anything, stitch, wash, and the sheet just melts away.

It's a little bit awkward, but I love that it opens up a whole world of possibilities!

Another Christmas project:  a long knitted cowl for a friend.  It's designed to puddle under your coat collar and also be pulled up over your nose if it's extra cold outside!

My favorite feature is the little leather tabs for the drawstring ends.  I picked them up on Etsy and I think they are fantastic!

I'm already almost halfway through another knitting project.  I started a cowl for myself, a beautiful stranded knitting design inspired by Portuguese tiles.

photo courtesy of Kate Davies

I'm knitting one long tube...fifty inches!...and when completed, I'll block it and then stitch together the ends to create an enclosed circle.  One side of the pattern is light-prominent...

...and the other side is dark-prominent.

You can see the contrast if you turn the work on its side:

It's really pleasant work and nice to stitch on for maybe an hour every night.  Now that my hands aren't getting sore from knitting, it's a delight.  I already have my next project picked out!

So, the Christmas pie has been put away...

(SOMEONE couldn't wait for Christmas lunch!)

...and our mischievous elf has packed up his bags...and threats...for another year.

Now life will take on a slower pace for a while.  I'm ready for it.

Have a "grate" week!