texture tuesday ~ little things

well that was a fast week... it's texture tuesday again already!

this week ms. kim didn't give us a topic, just asked that we use at least one layer of her beautiful and subtle texture "Little Things"

my pal duffy and i have taken advantage of the few sunny days we've had to head out to the beaches and gather some fresh new springtime sea glass. it's still cold and my fingers froze, but it sure feels good to see those glistening gems in the sun on the beach. and duff does love his ice water swims.

here's a bit of what we came home with:



and here it is after a photoshop spa treatment:

i set the image on soft light blend and adjusted the levels and contrast a bit. i added a cooling filter at 17%. then i placed one layer of kim's "little things" texture set on multiply at 74%, and one more set soft light at 45%. i like the grungy-beachy look.

now click here to go see what my fellow texture friends have done this week!

texture tuesday ~ soft

it's been far too long since i've had some texture in my life...so i'm back to linking up with ms. kim klassen's texture tuesday group.

i'm excited to sink back in and start seeing things with a camera eye again. since getting my new iphone, i am very guilty of leaving my camera on the shelf - i love everything i can do with that phone!

but i also love my camera, and here's what we came up with for ms. kim's prompt for this week ~ soft

i set the background on soft light blend. adjusted the levels & contrast a bit, then added a layer

of kim's "little things" texture set on multiply at 53% opacity.

removed a bit of the texture from the eggs. that's it.

how lucky are we to have friends who share their fresh eggs with us!

just in time for easter!

here it is before:

now click here to see what everyone else has done! it's all fabulous!

it's all about the pin~

i managed to resist it for months. scorned the very thought of the time wasted with it. felt so smug knowing i wasn't being lured in. then one morning something caught my eye on a blog i was visiting. i clicked to get a closer look and  BAM - just like that -  that fast, i was reeled in on a barbed hook and landed in a bucket of pinterest.

oh how far i've fallen. i had just managed to overcome the shakes of etsy addiction. i'm back to setting the timer on my stove so i have to physically remove myself from my computer. oh wait - now i have the dang pinterest app on my phone.

for pete's sake.

as if i didn't have enough ideas of my own banging around in my head, now i can add hundreds more in a matter of minutes. i've accumulated enough pins to build 17 dream houses, four just for duffy. 

i have, however, drawn the line on food. i will not pin photos of food. i pin enough food to myself as it is, i don't need to do it electronically.

at any rate, there are some amazing things out there. thanks to pinterest i recently found a fabulous artist i would invite you to go visit. her name is thespoena mclaughlin, her blog is here. i came across one of her dolls on pinterest at the same time the new "studios" magazine came out, and she is one of the featured artists this spring. wonderful mixed media pieces using found objects and my all-time favorite item - rusty bits.

thanks to pinterest, i haven't started any of the large and looming projects that are on my list for this winter. i have found all kinds of crafty things to do though. like this:

 

no more boring earbuds for me & my new phone

thanks to the nifty tutorial i found here.

 

all it took was a few skeins of embroidery thread and my

hands were kept busy while watching Hoarders four nights in a row...

 

fun, huh? there is the added bonus that the wires don't tangle anymore, i love that.

i also made a few of these:

 

 

what's so special about a little round pouch? look what goes inside!

 

 

so dang slick! all they take are four charm squares (or if you're like me,

some of your hoarded fabric scraps,) a 4" zipper and a bit of interfacing.

 

 

i followed the pin for these back to their originator, erin erickson.

her blog, and the tutorial for the earbud pouches can be found here.

go visit, she has a great site. lots of nice sewing.

 

finally, in honor of springtime

(the snow piles are shrinking slowly here)

i made a batch of these little clucks:

 

and several of these:

 

i firmly believe every home needs a hedgehog.

this one is a handy pincushion.

let me know if your home needs one too!

where the heck have i been!?

isn't he the bees knees? he's a year-old cub who was a great source of

entertainment all fall as his mom tried to

teach him the basics of river crossing and fishing for dinner.

holy cow, it's been a while...

i have a hard time finding the words to begin a post.

let me just do a little show & tell of what i did this summer.

such a big huge summer full of  long days in the kitchen. larger-than-life weather.

wonderful, fantastic people from all over the globe - iceland, germany, denmark, even texas!

the first thing i saw every morning...the last thing i saw every night.

God bless the coffee pot.

summer at AlpenView lodge was full of...small events like running low on eggs right before eggs benedict morning... falling short of flour...exploding cornbread (that was a fun one.) i loved being followed to work some mornings by the sweetest little doe & fox...and later in the fall being swooped on by bats...i really don't like bats.

you can't always predict what's going to happen when

sports fishing on kodiak, but you can count on this -

sourdough pancakes for breakfast on sunday mornings!

...huge events like sewing up gerry's leg after a power tool fiasco (and we did it - outside, on a deck bucket by the woodshed, with a continuous shower of bug spray, a needle, thread, and the quintessential bottle of whisky)...

we had a couple of downtime days between clients, mr. dave & the boys drilled a new well at AlpenView...and amy and myself got to make homemade tamales for "the family."

my favorite event- a surprise visit from my dear friend & hair fixer, valene, who boated down for a weekend to cut and wash that grey right out of my life. i love valene.

fresh silver salmon caviar & buckwheat blini appetizer

sizzling crab puffs never sit long enough to cool off

assistant guide connor patiently waits for the clients to head in for sushi

thanks to mr. dave's green thumb, this year i had a beautiful crop of fresh herbs, a large variety of lettuces & greens, and some stunning beets & peas to cook with. nothing's better than the aroma of just-picked cilantro in a just-caught halibut ceviche...

 

 

this year we had several wives & daughters join their fishing husbands and dads. it was really nice having ladies at the lodge, and even nicer that one of them now holds the season record for largest halibut caught!

guests always enjoy AlpenView's formal "tie night" dinner and

the traditional poker game that follows

the end of the lodge season was followed by four weeks working at the outcamp on the ayakulik river...surrounded by fishermen, bears, beautiful country, and very little else. the silvers were running great, and i finally got to see some beautiful steelhead.

see the camp? it's the group of tents just left of center of the photo, perched on the river bank.
yes, the plane lands on that twisty windy river. we have some awesome pilots on kodiak!

fresh, beautiful silvers headed for the smoker...

 i got to watch flock after flock of geese & swans migrate. so many i lost count. i could hear them coming for miles before i could spot them, and then the sky would go dark there were so many.i shared my tent with a tiny little ermine who loved hiding in the bounty paper towels and would wake me up at night scampering across my cot... (too fast for photos)

 my "room" ~ home sweet home!

assistant guide craig olsen and mr. joe from north carolina
reluctently give up fishing rights in the home pool to momma bear

there were beautiful sunny autumn afternoons of total silence with that wonderful fall smell in the air. i had the company of big fuzzy bear who joined me many afternoons for a nap in the sun behind my tent. i read out loud to her just to hear a voice...

tundra cotton

we had huge storms, with wind gusts that blew my pots & pans off the shelves and the tents back off the platforms.

we had some magnificent rainbows this fall...

honest, this is not photoshop

 i watched the thermometer drop lower and lower. some mornings i woke up to a ring of ice frozen around the "breathing hole" of my sleeping bag and my tent zipper would be frozen shut.

those mornings were very hard to get out of my sleeping bag, and frankly, around my last week mid-october, the only reason my fishermen friends got their coffee in the morning was thanks to my sorry full bladder....

that's frost he's walking through...it was such a cold morning...

the cold didn't bother my little pal at all...

when the termination dust appeared on the mountains,  i was really ready to head home. there's a point when there simply can't be enough layers of long johns, fleece and smart wool. my hands were chapped and bleeding and i couldn't knit anymore. i never want to smell bag balm again. should "Survivor" ever want to film an episode on the ayakulik river, however, i will be ready.

at any rate, the last switchout day finally came, and i was one happy happy camper when this landed and one of the seats was for ME:

i love pilot stan...

assistant guide isaac, myself and mr. dave.

it was hard to say goodbye to these guys! they both stayed another week to break camp and do some hunting. i was very happy to not do that. i was very happy to get get to see valene again.

returning to town, and everyday life, after a few months of remote living can take the breath right out of a person. when i got off the plane back in kodiak i was overwhelmed with the noise, the smell of vehicles (and as i walked across the bridge - mcdonald's - ohh those greasy fries).

back at home i had to figure out who the person in the back room was...turns out it was my son cullan but lord how can a boy grow so much so fast...
i had to face the fact that my dear mom had really aged and could no longer live on her own.
i had to find out why my pal duffy the small white dog thought it was okay to nest on my side of the bed...

it took me awhile to get used to how warm the house was. it felt odd not having 3 pairs of socks and rubber boots on all day. i wept when i reunited with my bathroom, and hot running water, that came out of a faucet.

for weeks it was wonderful to...sleep til 8 a.m.....read for hours....never leave the house...drink really good coffee...see the new geico commercials... i haven't done a lot of artwork yet, and this is really the first quality time i've spent on my computer. it's just been nice simply being.

now it's time to get the lead out. i've visited my favorite blog friends and see spring is happening everywhere but kodiak. we still have several inches of snow, lots of ice, frequent flurries. but it's all good. i've got sheets hanging on the line, maybe we'll be able to smell the snow on them in july...

in ending this very long post i have one last thing to share with you. i know many of you gals out there have wonderful spouses who gift you with thoughtful things like fine jewelry or lovely dinners out for special occasions. i would urge you to not take those things for granted, because you could be the wife of gerry. see what i got for my birthday this year:

a lovely new seat for the outcamp outhouse. oh yeah.

("not just any seat," his note said to me. "it's blue foam. the Cadillac of outhouse seats.")

i have to hand it to him, it did ward off the chill.

fair winds~

this was one beautiful evening on the bay. as we looked up from our hammering and painting, we were gifted with this stunning sight. i like to think it was our much loved and very missed friend erling smiling down on us.

this will be my last post until i return in late october. i'm headed out to alpenview to cook for the visiting fishermen & ladies. in mid-september i'll be relocating to the outcamp on the ayakulik river, to get reaquainted with my friends the bears, the cook tent, and the outhouse. alpenview has a great website here, go take a look at all the beauty!

while many folks will be enjoying the warm harvest days of october, i will be here

chipping the ice out of my contact lens case and watching my pal sweetpea fish in the home pool:

i really wouldn't want to be anywhere else!

i hope you all have a wonderful late summer, and i look forward to catching up in october.

texture tuesday~ it's the little things

kim klassen gave us the theme "the little things" for this week's texture tuesday. i love the little things. the stuff inside the xmas stockings...the prize in the cereal box...the tattoo in the cracker jacks. life's little diamonds.

i think this photo i took a couple weeks ago while cutting wood for the woodpile fits the bill just perfect.

keeping the woodpile full is one of those jobs that just has to happen. no matter what. we all try to be really busy all the time, because the person who isn't...gets woodpile duty. i lost. i took a minute to pull up my socks, and was accused of loitering.

but look at the gift i got! i didn't even notice until i was carrying the wood into the cabin! then i had to go through it all to pull out all the pieces that looked like this. because, how could we ever burn them?

i shot the photo using the color accent feature, keeping only the dark greens. i adjusted the contrast a bit and added a layer of kim's luminous texture set on multiply blend at 54% opacity. that's it.

here's the before:

take a moment to go visit all the other folks taking part in texture tuesday by clicking here!



stitching on the dock of the bay

well, our weekend at the cabin turned into two weeks at the cabin. there was a lot to be done.

i managed to sneak a few sunny moments on my dear dock with my new obsession, embroidery.

i brought a leftover piece of my favorite avocado-dyed cotton, and went to work with my new book "doodle stitching" by aimee ray. what a great book, full of fun inspiring things to stitch.

 i think with time i may get it. i will need more time than i got from my husband.

you know the saying - it takes a lot of work to live on a farm.

we don't live on a farm, and i'm glad for it.

after i snapped these photos i heard the whip crack,

that was the end of the fun for me.

some of us got to ride cute orange tractors and dig in the dirt.

some of us got to lay in the sun and watch...

or take a little dip in the bay...

 i got a paintbrush and a ladder,

and got to practice my multimedia art techniques.

we didn't do too bad for two old people by ourselves.

i even figured out how to use the timer thing on my camera.

this shot was taken right before gerry told me my next job was

climbing under the cabin to dig out all  the nasty land otter nests and stuff.

you can tell he was thinking about how he was going to tell me

by the look on his face - just look at him up there, mr. i ride the tractor.

we had the most glorious weather, and when it got warm enough the no-see-ums went away and we could take off the bug nets and put on shorts. shorts! amazing. i have a tan line!

every once in a while the clouds would roll over the mountains...

that really helped keep us motivated.

before we knew it, we had replaced the foundation,

put up new skirting,

and for a moment, i had my white seaside cottage~

well, a gal can dream, right?

i had my 50th birthday during this work week,

and i am here to tell you

my husband put me on a pedestal for the entire day:

not a happy warm fuzzy feeling for me.

at least i talked him into giving me a 2x6

instead of the 2x4 he originally had up there for me.

but, we finished! next trip we paint the trim and start building the new deck.

(see the blurs in the photo? no-see-ums. they'll bite anything)

in the end, the two of us loaded over 6,000 lbs. of lumber plus the compressor and all the tools & paint in and out of the boat twice, onto the 4 wheeler trailer and up to the cabin from the beach.

my pal duffy did a lot of this:

we should have got a st. bernard.