Hello Everyone! Welcome to this month’s Wandering Camera.  Winter is full of birthdays at our home.  Mine was in early January.  I like to spend it quietly hiking with my camera, and eating my favourite meal cooked by my husband.  This year he got me a pair of snowshoes, and, serendipitously, there was a huge snow storm just a few days before my birthday.  Naturally, I had to spend it at Yosemite.

Continue reading Yosemite Birthday Surprise at InkTorrents Graphics.

My husband uses a small pillow on his chair for lumbar support.  The previous pillow was bought during my pre-sewing days and it definitely had seen better days.  Just like the cobbler’s children go barefoot, my husband continued to use the lumpy, torn pillow for months.  My ego also wouldn’t let me purchase a new pillow because I had dug my heels in about making the pillow myself.  So I made a commitment to make it before the holidays and started thinking about design ideas.

Continue reading Bramble Pillow at InkTorrents Graphics.

Purchase Old York Pub

Lately, my head has been full of plans for the future and a growing list of things to accomplish, matched only by my lackluster state of mind.  A few months ago, I took a photo of a street light while exploring the old city of York, and have wanted to paint this ever since.

On Tuesday, as I finally made myself put the paint-loaded brush to paper, the ease came back.  Painting the weathered stones and the walls was quite cathartic, and the warm light became the proverbial beacon.

Continue reading Winter Warmth at InkTorrents Graphics.

Purchase Scottish Penguin Glen Pattern

On Monday I sat down very decisively to work on something happy.  Meet the newest member of my penguin fold – a little Scottish penguin named Glen.  When I shared the initial sketch, Kris asked what a penguin keeps in his sporran.  As I was sewing, I thought of a little story.

Glen had always loved wearing his kilt, but the other little penguins made fun of him.  Instead of changing himself to fit in with the others, he spent his days roaming the hills and dales alone, having his own adventures.  Although he was happy to go about on his own,  he sometimes wished he had a friend with him.  During one of his excursions, he found a new hill.  As he walked up the hill slowly – he was a little penguin after all – it started getting colder and darker.  Rain clouds covered the sun and very soon, strong gusts of wind started blowing him all over the place. 

He hurried up the hillside and found an old broken ruin there.  The hill was in a remote area and the entrances to the ruin were all overgrown with brambles.  He took a little knife out of his sporran to clear a path so he could get in without spoiling his clothes.  As he was cutting the brambles, something pink plopped down along with a few Thistle flowers.  He loved Thistle.  When he bent down to pick up the flowers and put them in his little sporran, he found a small pink stone among them.  By this time, big raindrops had started pelting down on him.  He hurried into the ruin to sit inside a big stone fireplace.  There he sat, thumbing the stone and looking at the sky, waiting for the rain to let up a little.

Continue reading Scottish Penguin Glen at InkTorrents Graphics.