Last night, it raining like crazy..horizontal for the most part. That was ok, because the snow rinsed off the trees and did decrease the drifts a bit. But the snow started again about 10 pm and by 1 am (I woke up and had to look)... the view from my window made me think of a cake covered in white fondant.
Here's the deck this morning, the chunk on the railing fell off in the wind last night so this is a new crop. And now its taller than the railing, which is at least 36" high.
The neighbor's house from the same place on the sidewalk as yesterday's pix.
Below, my house is on the left, and yes, that is BLUE SKY peeking thru...
My poor elm tree on the driveway.... 
January 19: A bit more.
And this morning, January 21: Where is the wind chime? By the way, the gap between deck rail and roof line is over 24".
The front of my house about noon today, after I shoveled the walk:
Trees behind the house: 
And the other view of the back, yes, its still snowing! 
So at Quilt Camp this year, I won a tub of dye supplies (door prizes are good things)... and its been a while since I've had a day to really get into it. Last week, my friend Judy and I dyed some blue-green-yellow combos, so now that I have the bug, it was time to pop the top of tub and see what was inside.
The tub was donated by Hands On Hand Dyes ( http://www.handsonhanddyes.com/) (Thanks, Cindy!) and is a great way to get the basics going. They offer 3 color ways, mine was "Garden" with rich primary, secondary and tertiary colors. All from 3 dye colors. So in the tub was all the stuff, the dye: the chemicals, the tubs, the fabric, oh, and instructions.
Since I don't have a dye studio at home (yet!), I cleared the kitchen, put painter's plastic on the wall and counter, plopped down an old beach towel (that could be sacrificed to dye goddess if need be), and went to work..
These are the dye "parfaits", each layered to get a light, medium, and dark fabric in each shade. The full strength dye is at the bottom, and "bleeds up" into the next fabric and the next, so the lighter shade is on top.
After I did the first set of dyes, I had some of each base color (blue, red, yellow) left over. So I grabbed an addtional half yard of prepared fabric and tossed it in a 
bucket, sort of folded pleated scrunched. And poured the left over dye over the fabric in sections. The dye will bleed and flow where it wants to, and that was the idea. Since this fabric was dry, I had no idea what I would get... After the dye played for a few minutes, I added the soda ash solution and it turned a horrible green color, so I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. And I like it!
And finally, after several hours, crossed fingers, incantations to the dye goddess, a good dose of Synthrapol to set the colors, and a hot iron, I had 36 fat quarters in 12 families and 3 gradations... only 2 are so pale that I'm not sure where they came from, but the rest are YUMMY! And the pale ones can always be overdyed.
Many years ago, in the early days of my internet experince, I met a nurse from Australia who was doing his graduate thesis on the same topic that I had pursued in my master's program. We began an email friendship that has lasted until this day. Darryl visited AZ in the mid 1990's, our first eyeball encounter. During that visit, we did all the northern AZ tourist things, including the Chapel of the Red Rocks in Sedona. It was at that chapel that Darryl began to feel the pull of the religious life. He tells the shory better than I do on his blog http://www.mendicantsoul.info/ - and is now known as Brother Nathan James, a Franciscan brother in the Society of St. Francis. 
So I haven't been a total slacker of late. Safari is a fun kid quilt (made with fabrics from Laurel Burch's Secret Jungle line) for a friend who is expecting in April. I promise to get a better pix when it comes home (its hanging in the quilt shop right now).... free pattern on line for everyone http://www.clothworkstextiles.com/pdfs/patterns/secretjunglequilt.pdf- I had it all ready to quilt in a weekend.
With the opening of a new yarn shop here (and conveniently located inside the LQS), I'm back in my passion for fiber and knitting (esp good on cold winter and windy spring nights).... this is a felted purse that was big enough to pack up a small village before I felted it. The strap is a moebius strip and its all knit in one piece... fab button, too! The moebius is the brainchild of Cat Bordhi, who I think, stays up nights thinking of new ways to torment knitters (and we love her for it).... 
