On My Worktable

The weather forecasters have been warning us for the last few days that the "storm of the decade" was on its way.  We were warned of downed trees and power lines from the strong winds and flash floods from the heavy rain.  So dramatic!  This was the sky this morning, the lull before the storm.  It finally began to rain here late morning but I was really disappointed that it was not more exciting.  We didn't get the promised windy weather, maybe it was worse in other parts of the Bay Area.  Lots of school districts had closed for the day, but here it was an anticlimax!  It was a good day for being at home sewing though.  Sewing and tea, yes, a good day.

I cut out the pieces to make two more penguin and polar bear pincushions and pieces for a brown bear pincushion similar to the polar bear one.  

My husband prepared this log for printing at the weekend and I thought about doing some printing today but the humidity is so high, the ink would take too long to dry.  I'll wait for a better day.  It has beautiful grain, I'm looking forward to seeing how it prints.  Those bits that make a star shape are where the branches were growing.  I didn't realize, until we started cutting up logs, that tree branches start right at the center of the tree.  This is a piece of pine but the branches of a cedar tree have bark on them even inside the tree!  

In preparing the log slice for printing, it gets scorched with a blow torch.  The hole that you can see is where the sap bubbled up and out when it was heated!

We did get enough rain that I had to drain some water from the pool.  I will have to do it again tomorrow.  We are supposed to get about 5 inches of rain from this storm.

Oh, to be a cat!  This is Princess.