Winter Solstice Sunset

As I post this, the sky is black out and it is only 5 o'clock on the shortest day of the year. It was a beautiful day. The temperature reached a comfortable 50 F. The last day of the Mayan calendar ended with a beautiful sunset - in the east. Here in Colorado our entire sky can fill with intense colors of the sunset. Today, the color was just in the east since that was where the clouds were. The west was clear.

Tiny Handmade Mermaid Dolls

Almost every year I make hand dyed ornaments for sale at the Boulder Handweavers Guild sale. These ornaments are actually tiny little cloth dolls. Each one is cut out of a tightly woven cotton cloth, sewn on my 1948 Singer 15-91 and then stuffed with polyfil. Then each one is hand dyed, painted and beaded. Depending on what the ornament is, other embellishments such as hair or wings are added. While these are quite small, each one takes quite a bit of time to make. The other day I noticed that it took 4 hours just to sew and stuff two mermaid ornaments. I don't know how long it then takes to dye, paint, bead and hair them yet, but I know it's quite a while. Here are 4 new mermaids I just finished:

Mermaid 1

Mermaid 2

Mermaid 3

Mermaid 4