a little thread work, a little paint

It amazes me how I've managed to fritter a day away and accomplished very little! I was out doing errands twice, the market, a downtown clothing store, home, and then out again, picking up prescriptions and getting ink from Staples. While I was there, I checked out some tablets. I'm thinking (dreaming) of getting one so if anyone has suggestions or comments, I'm open.

Last night I finished up the stitching on the leaf. I think I'm OK with it. I haven't sewn anything down yet as I may do a little more stitching on the birch first.

I really like this batik with  it. I may border it, but I'm thinking it might look good surrounded with some crazy patch blocks using the batik along with some greens and golds.
Around 2:00PM,  I thought I might like to get out the Gelli plate and play around. I started flipping through some pictures doing a few sketches, and pulling out some fabrics, when I came across a flour paste resist that I did some time ago. It reminded me of the lacy looking winter trees outside my window. I ended up pulling out my Neocolor II crayons and (coloring) painting in the background. The first picture shows it half done so you can see what the piece looked like with the flour paste resist and ink on the bottom half.

I'm not completely sure I like the green , maybe it would have been better to stick with the one color. I'll work with it though. The bobbin work snowflakes are calling me.

I took this picture of a flock of robins today at lunch. It is quite amazing because we're always on the look out for the first robin to return in early spring. What these guys are doing here I don't know. There were at least a dozen or so eating the berries in the neighbours mountain ash trees . Did they decide to stay for the winter or were they blown off course? I can only speculate.