Winter Is the Cruelest Month

I WISH it was only a month. I must admit that, this year, we haven't had a hard winter weather-wise, in fact February has been a dream, snow's almost gone.  I think it's the darkness that gets me most. Makes me want to hunker down and hide in my nest.  Cooper and Ben feel the same way.

Coop wants to curl up and sleep on any available woobie.

Ben wants to sit in my lap and watch TV.

And I want to knit and draw and read and distract myself from the fact that the air outside hurts my face.  I haven't been blogging because I haven't been up to much except creating. Then I thought, 'Well, I could post that I guess.' So, for better for worse...

There's been knitting:

Baby mitts (taken before the string was added) for my grandnephew back in Maine.  He has been a bright spot of the winter. What a cutie pie! Working on something for his first birthday in March!

And I knit an owl hat for my Mum for St.Valentine's Day.

Apparently I've been on on owl kick because that's also what I chose for my Tangle of the Day tile for out Wisconsin Tangle Artists Coalition meeting at the beginning of the month. I think he senses my mood these days! 

And I've been doing copious amounts of Ben Kwok templates.  I was devastated to learn recently that I had lost four chances to have my work in print publications because the requests went into a filtered mailbox on my FB account. Ben Kwok's beautiful book, TangleEasy Wildlife Designs. was one of them. 

And of course Gemz. I practiced from tutorials on line at first. Then  I got Eni Oken's online book and have been trying her method. It's all slowly but surely gelling into my own 'style'.

I made these for this sweet little frame I found.

This is from Eni's method...the edges are a little bit too dark for my taste but there is other invaluable info in her book!.

And this is what I'm working on right now. It's in the beginning stages, but I like lightening up those edges a bit. 

Anyway, that's it for today. I did make one sojourn to Chicago to the Field Museum with the Madison Audubon society that I will tell you about next time but other than that, I've been dressed in my footie pajamers in my blanket fort coloring. Things are looking up as the weather gets better and I'll be able to go trompin' in the woods more.  Hope you are all surviving the winter, safe and warm!