Brrr -- Chilly Even Down Here

It has been really cold for down here the past few days but that hasn't kept the Bluebirds and the Yellow-rumped Warblers from showing themselves.  There are so many "butter butts", that I am afraid of hitting them as they fly by.  There has also been a lot of robins as well which, although common up north, is not so common here.

My favorite viewing area (the boat ramp at the end of the island) was very active yesterday at low tide.  I am beginning to see a bit of a pattern here.  When the winds are from the north and strong, the birds tend to congregate there more.  I have been seeing this male Hooded Merganser a few times the past week.  This is not a bird I usually see here and he was close enough for me to get a decent closeup.

The other day there was a Greater Yellowlegs down at the ramp.  Here he is joined by a Willet and you can see their relative size.  The Yellowlegs is far more elegant looking!

Here is a better picture of the Yellowlegs with his bright legs showing!

One of the Marbled Godwits was also down yesterday.  In addition, I saw Semi-palmated Plovers, Dunlins and Horned Grebes as well as the usual gulls and one I haven't been able to clearly identify yet.

I have been continuing to work on the jacket and decided to do the sleeves first as I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do there.  Here they are pinned on my design wall where I am testing my idea (which wasn't the original plan of course).  I decided this would be okay.

I have discovered with the making of several jackets that there isn't much point in doing a lot of work in areas that don't show (like the underarm area).  So I finished off the sleeves with just plain black silk.  I had managed to find five yards down here and hope it will be enough to do the jacket and lining both although if worse comes to worse, I will use the navy blue silk for the sleeve lining (which doesn't show).

Now I am tackling the back and am trying to come up with something that won't look so busy (those strips are really busy looking).  First try was this multi-colored strip down the middle.  Nah....

Next I thought maybe a solid red stripe.  Don't like that either though so we shall see what today brings.  The back is in two sections but I am thinking of just joining them and treating it as a whole back and maybe just one strip down the middle like the sleeves and then adding some things to either side.  Again, not much point in doing a whole heck of a lot on the sides as it goes around the body and doesn't show.  Working on jackets is much more three dimensional than working on quilts.  You also need to take into account what parts of your body you want to draw your eye to (none in my case!!).