Frozen North.

Friday the water feature was definitely frozen.  I thought I heard the sound of ice breaking in the evening and when I looked out Friday morning I realized what I had heard.

 Look at how it heaved.

 The top level almost looks ready to skate on but isn't and never will be.

 I took my mom out for lunch on Friday and stopped on a side road heading into Richmond to take the following series of photos.  This first one you can just see in the distance some mountains in the west on Vancouver Island.

 Panning east towards West Vancouver and Horseshoe Bay were one of the two ferry routes to the Vancouver head from.

 Continuing East.

 The Lions can be seen in the centre left of this picture a bit better.  I stood in the same spot and shot these with some overlap.

 The ski runs on Grouse can be seen on the right.

 Looking over some of the ranges behind can be seen.

 I think this is Mount Seymour another local ski hill.

 The trees are in Central Park in Burnaby.

 Looking at the Metrotown area of Burnaby with the towers.

 Looking more to the east side of Burnaby.

 Mountain views are amazing, in this city.

 Nearing the Burnaby New Westminster views.

 They stretch on and on.

 Looking more toward the Fraser Valley and Golden Ears Mountains.

 Such lovely snowy views over the delta that Richmond sits on.

 At the edge of the delta the North Arm of the Fraser River flows and behind me is the South Arm.

 It was about -3C with not too much of a wind but I was happy to get back into the warm car.

 My view looking at sunset towards the Alex Fraser River that crosses over the south arm of Fraser.   The condo building is almost finished the crane has been removed and in the foreground you can see the north arm of the Fraser which passes in front of my building.

Stay warm, maybe some snow coming tonight.  Time will tell if it stays for Christmas.

Icy Crystals!

Yesterday morning I noticed that there was frost on the Plexiglas surround on my balcony.  I have a lattice work trellis that was framing some of the area and here are the pictures in the rising sun of it.

 This was at the side of the frame, quarter triangle very quilt inspired.

 It looked so pretty against the background of the snow and garden behind.

 This portion was more icy than crystal.

 The next panel looked like there had been drops of water and a spiderweb and hadn't yet caught any of the sunshine reflecting from the opposite side of the courtyard.  The snow and walkway can be seen.

 Then I realized that I could hardly hear the waterfall on the water feature.

 Here you can see the ice on the lower pond is both clear and white where some of the snow is gathered.

 There was barely a trickle of water coming down the spillway most has frozen.

 Clear blue skies for all of the day yesterday and again today.  We may get some snow again on the weekend with our temperatures dropping down to about -6C or lower and only reaching about zero or lower during the day.  Very atypical for us 6C is closer to normal for us.

 Here is the finished stitchery with stems and printing, I'm making it into a pillow.

 And the back, a few carry overs but very clean and neat.

 I also have a few more in the works also designed by Cheri Payne ready to be mini pillows.

Sunny with Outflow Temperatures.

Wednesday was my Burnaby Wool stitching group day and afterwards I drove around uptown and took a few pictures.  New Westminster is built on a hillside and we have an uptown and downtown area so we can get some lovely views of the surrounding mountains.  But finding somewhere to pull over to take pictures is a bit of an issue as the snow is piled up at the road side due to the subzero Celisius temperatures we are experiencing due to outflow winds.

 The trees look as if they were dipped in icing sugar several times and then frozen.

 Against the blue skies they look lovely.  We've had more blue skies in December than October and November combined!

 They snow is hanging around with is atypical for this time of year.

 This is a picture looking across the high school fields and seeing some of the mountains that surround the lower mainland.

 A slightly better view, The Wool Group gather in the building just to the left of the strip mall behind the lights.

 This is the wrong side of a Cheri Payne piece I'm working on called A Homespun Christmas.  I don't put a fusible on the wrong side of my piece when I stitch.  I bury my knots between the wool and Osnaburg I'm stitching on.

 Here is the right side of the piece.  I have to add stems and words which I did last night but have no picture of yet.

 As I was stitching I glanced outside and caught this pink glow only between the buildings, 3 minutes later it was all charcoal grey!

Let It Snow

On the weekend I played around with my Let It Snow blocks and the bottom row that I designed to add.  Stacy did a row of pieced trees but I wasn't that keen on it.  I saw one done by Jeanne K. Berry that used elements of some of the trees in the letter blocks that I liked.

 Here is my sewn together version.  I stitched my blocks on 9" backgrounds and then trimmed them down to the 8" that Stacy recommended.  As a result my bottom row needed to be adjusted.  I removed the moon and star from the left and cut them down a bit and moved the placement.  The last small tree, star and snowflake from the right were also removed.  Only the star was put back in place.

My snow drifts are four different cuts that are layered, click on them and they should enlarge for you.

 Here is a picture of Jeanne K. Berry's quilt that inspired my design choices.

The final piece is another Buttermilk Basin design that Stacy West shared during her 12 Days of Christmas blog hop. Here is a link to the page. She has removed the freebie from her blog but she has project as a kit on her website here.

Hope everyone in the lower mainland and greater Vancouver area have survived the recent snowfall.  We are expecting colder temperatures leading up to Christmas so stay safe and warm.

Snowy Days and Nights.

Thursday evening the clouds started to gather, we were predicting snow through the overnight and on Friday.

 At about 7:40 this is what the courtyard looked like.  Living at river level I never know how much snow will arrive due to the warming influence of the river and low elevation.

 Looking across the courtyard at my neighbour's Christmas lights.

 And towards the river.  Just a dusting of snow with a promise of more to come.

 Around 1:50 in the afternoon it started to snow heavier and you can see the trees are starting to be covered with snow.

 Here is a closer look at the weeping Cherry tree near our water feature.

 Pulling back you can see how covered things were getting.

 Not seeing the Alex Fraser Bridge at all.

 This next set of pictures were taken without a flash at about 9:30, you can see the boardwalk lit up and how much more snow has fallen.

 Looking towards the water feature.

 Some years during cold spells this feature freezes over completely.

 Christmas lights, none in the gazebo this year.

 Looking more towards the river again.

 In the background you can see lights from the Surrey Fraser Docks.

This morning's view of the courtyard.

 Right now there is a mix of snow and rain so it will be interesting to see if it turns colder and the snow begins to fall or if the temperatures warm up and this will be soon gone?

 The pond is freezing a bit if you look at the difference in the colour of the water and can see the slushy snowy ice at the foreground.

Off to run some errands and see how much snow there is at higher elevations.  Here is a short video of the snow falling taken with my iPad.  A bit shaky as I wasn't dressed for the weather.