I have some exciting news to share! In less than a month, Ben & I will be packing up the cats and everything we own to move 2000+ miles across the country. Ben has been offered a job in Seattle and we are incredibly excited to be moving out there. We have actually been wanting to move to that area of the country for awhile now & it is exciting to see it finally happening.

I can’t honestly say I will miss Illinois (no offense to anyone who lives here & loves it, it just isn’t the right place for me)… although I will admit that I am glad we lived here for this period in our lives as we now have Axel and I wouldn’t trade him for anything! :) It just never felt like we were meant to live in Illinois long term, and there is a lot that I have missed since moving here (like water & trees - and a few trees scattered on the flat land around us doesn’t count:).

Cute owl tote from my sister in law, who said she thought of me when she saw it:) It has nothing to do with this entry, I just thought the entry looked weird without a photo & the tote is so cute I wanted to share it.

Anyways there is a ton to get done in the next couple of weeks… it feels a bit stressful at times, but being excited about the move does help the stress of trying to figure it all out so quickly. Although I think a lot of the stress will go away once we find a place to live out there… Today though I think I might escape the to-do lists & sew for awhile, since I want to get some sewing in before I have to pack everything up! Unfortunately I am going to be sewing machine free at the end of this week… I am actually giving my sister my sewing machine before we move, because I am going to be buying a new one finally :) I am excited about getting a new one, but it is going to be strange to be without a sewing machine for a couple weeks. I do plan on finishing a few projects before I pack it all up though, so I will have those to share while I am without a sewing machine & of course I am sure I will be posting lots of photos since I am sure I will find lots to photograph in our new city:)

I mentioned in my last blog post that I had run out of linen in the middle of a project & so had the fabric store… Luckily I was finally able to get some of the same linen through the stores website so I could match it for the project I was working on & actually finish the project. Although I did decide that I need to find a different source for linen, so I ordered some fabric samples (above photo) and am really quite happy with it although I still need to run it through the wash to see how it washes… Oh and I learned my lesson to not start a project without making sure you have enough fabric:)

After finding the linen I needed, I have been working on a bit of sewing lately although I seem to only pick it up for a few minutes each day which means the projects I have been working on have been slow going. I finally finished up a project yesterday though, this purse for my mom…

It is the same design as this purse that I made for my 2nd blogiversary giveaway (oh and Angela if you are reading this could you email me since I still need your address, thanks!). My mom loved it so much, she asked if I would make her a similar one and since I am a good daughter I did:) (Actually I tend to forget about projects that I tell her I will make, so it is amazing I remembered this one!)

And just to clarify a bit (since I don’t think I was super clear in my first post about this design), for these 2 purses I did end up making my own pattern but was definitely inspired by some of the lovely bags made with the bend the rules sewing pattern & also a few other pleated bags including this one (which is also very similar to the bend the rules bag but was made before that book) & this one.

A few more details… the outside is linen with “Katie Jump Rope” fabric by Denyse Schmidt for the pleats & inside of the purse. I also added a pocket to this purse so that it has 3 pockets (the first one I made had 2), my mom wanted a way to keep her glasses case from falling to the bottom so hopefully the 3rd pocket will work for that. The one detail nobody probably cares about but me… those ties for closing the purse are annoyingly hard to sew up on my current sewing machine!

Now if I can just finish up a few more projects that I am in the middle of working on that would be wonderful! :)

The last couple of weeks have been really cold, well really cold for around here. Even though I grew up further north & should be use to these temps, I am so ready for winter to end already… Around here winter just seems drab & grey to me. We might get snow for a day or two, but then it melts. So I have a hard time finding the beauty in winter, although I am trying. Saturday though was a tiny bit warmer so Ben suggested that we get outside for a bit & take some photos. We headed to a local park that really is more prairie than anything else and walked around, stopping to take photos…

We were both wishing we had actually seen some wildlife on this walk when I glanced towards a field and realized there were deer out there, a herd (?) of 6 deer to be exact! As quickly as possible I switched to the telephoto lens (that is actually technically Ben’s, but he lets me use it:) & traipsed through the mud that minutes earlier I had contemplated walking through for another photo & decided it wasn’t worth it. It was worth it for these shots though as I have never seen so many deer in my life, and it was the first time I have ever seen a buck or a fawn (there were actually a couple of fawns)…

Of course, this city girl had to ask her husband if the buck was dangerous & if he would come after me if I got too close :) (Apparently I am also afraid of chickens, see below for this story.)

Such a wonderful sight & so worth braving the cold for a little bit to get to see this and have a chance to photograph it…

Now the chicken story… On our way home from the park, we took a drive to the fabric store to see if I could find some linen (I am all out & so is the fabric store!). Driving through a neighborhood we spotted in the middle of the city 3 chickens! I guess they must have gotten out of someone’s yard or something? (Is it even legal to keep chickens in the city?) Anyways they seemed perfectly happy to just wander around the sidewalk and I had to jump out of the car to get a couple of photos because it isn’t everyday you see chickens wandering down a sidewalk. The funny part is that when one of them headed towards me, I went running for the car & jumped back inside very quickly! :)

Of course the slightly warmer temps only lasted about a day and now it is back to really cold again:) I am definitely looking forward to summer - warmer temps and longer daylight hours sound lovely right now!

It appears I took a little blog writing/emailing/blog reading break this week… It wasn’t really on purpose just a combination of not feeling great (I feel much better) and having to go and sit a couple of mornings to see if I would have jury duty (thankfully, I didn’t end up having to actually sit on a jury). I am back now though & actually have some photos to share:) Friday I went to the local arboretum & took a few photos and then yesterday Ben & I went to another local park/prairie & both of us took photos. I am still looking through the ones I took yesterday, but will probably post some tomorrow.

Hope everyone had a good weekend! Here is to a good week! :)

Well first, my goodness I can hardly believe how many lovely comments there were on my 2nd blogiversary post! I was totally shocked & very pleasantly surprised at how many of you came out of hiding to say hi. Seriously Ben & I joked about how many comments we thought I would get & we were both totally off, I got way more than either of us expected. Thank you all for your sweet words & if you de-lurked feel free to stay de-lurked, it would make my February! (And with how cold it is, I could use a happy February!)

Anyways, since there were so many comments I decided to pick 4 winners. 1 person will get the pleated bag, 1 person will get the lap blanket, & 2 people will get something small that will remain a surprise for now (in fact it is such a surprise that I haven’t even made anything yet & am not totally sure what I will send. :)

Via Random.org, the winners…

“Here are your random numbers:

51	97	34	75

Timestamp: 2008-02-01 23:35:14 UTC”

So Angela won the purse, Mariah won the lap blanket, and Capello & Amanda were the surprise winners :) Congrats ladies! If you could each send me an email with your address, I will try to get those out to you soon. Thanks again to everyone else who commented, it was really hard to limit the drawing to only 4 people believe me…

The 3 photos in this post are from the snowstorm we had last night… I wandered out this morning to take a few photos in my rainboots (since I don’t own any winter boots) of the freshly fallen snow. All 3 photos were post-processed in Photoshop Lightroom, I just was having too much fun messing around with making & using presets:) (Does anyone else have Lightroom? I am sort of thinking that maybe eventually I will post some of my presets that I use frequently on my website if there is any interest?)

Oh and since it is the beginning of February, I thought I would post a mosaic of my January Project 365 shots… (I am planning on doing this at the end of each month, since I am not sharing every 365 photo on my blog. Although if you want to follow along with the photos I am taking you can visit my 365 flickr set.)

1. :Yawning: Day 1 of 365, 2. :Morning Tea: Day 2 of 365, 3. :Self Portrait: Day 3 of 365, 4. :White: Day 4 of 365, 5. :A nice spot for a nap: Day 5 of 365, 6. :Winter Linen Scarf: Day 6 of 365, 7. :Red: Day 7 of 365, 8. :Library Books: Day 8 of 365, 9. :Pounce: Day 9 of 365, 10. :Self Portrait: Day 10 of 365, 11. :Color: Day 11 of 365, 12. :Color 2: Day 12 of 365, 13. :Pleated Purse Tie: Day 13 of 365, 14. :together: Day 14 of 365, 15. :blanket: Day 15 of 365, 16. :photography books: Day 16 of 365, 17. :Axel: Day 17 of 365