Hello Family

This is where we'll be this coming week.  Having fun, in the desert, with our family.  I'll give you a hint -- I'm the second smallest person in this picture.  Quite a group we make!

"In every conceivable manner, the family is a link to our past and bridge to our future." -- Alex Haley

Autumn Celebration

What is better than the celebration of Autumn - with crows, pumpkins, bittersweet vines and buds? 

An aged black frame surrounds the design and overstitched wool felt backs it.  I know I probably say this every time -- but I really had fun working this design.  Just in time for Halloween too!

"I still get wildly enthuiastic about little things.  I play with leaves.  I skip down the street and run against the wind" - Leo Buscaglia

Wonder What's In That One!

 

I have several weaknesses but the one to which I succumb most often is 'boxes'!
 

Little ones, big ones...

Cardboard, wood or wire.

Open or closed.

 

This is the only organization within my studio - each box has a purpose into which I stuff 'stuff'. 

 

Not knowing exactly what is in any one box at a time gives me hours in which to paw through each and every treasure that I have saved.  What would I do without my boxes?

"Some of the most wonderful people are the ones who don't fit into boxes." - Tori Amos

Sacred Water

Walking in the woods not long ago, my spirit soared watching the water shine in the sun.

What a treasure we have been given and how precious it is.

Water is truly the gift of life.

I am so thankful to be able to walk where the water falls and runs and rushes.   The desire to protect it at all costs fills my heart.

"Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again." - Joseph Campbell

Can't Wait...

...to get busy on these two new-to-me designs.

These are Brenda Gervais patterns - one called "Buttonweeds and Bittersweet" and the other "Pocketful of Autumn".  They arrived the other day and its taken all of my self-control not to just jump in and start them.  But no, I need to finish up with the mess I've made already, before starting another one.

I love Brenda's designs.  I will be making a couple of personal changes.  She has stained these two with coffee - but I think that I'll leave mine in the brighter colors because that's the venue I'm working in these days.  I'd rather they look like folk art than primitive 'olde' style.  Also the 'pocket' won't be a pocket but mounted on its own. Its always fun to work a new pattern, even someone else's gives me the opportunity to experiment.

"Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities.  Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning." - Gloria Steinem

Autumn Houses

 

My house in the autumn would have a fire burning in the fireplace, hot cider mulling on the stove, a warm afghan to wrap up in while I read a good book. 

 

Decorations of pumpkins and dried branches. Hot tea every afternoon with my requisite three squares of dark, dark chocolate.  Autumn houses are warm and cozy -- think flannel pajamas and fuzzy slippers. 

Ahhh yes, who can resist an Autumn house?

"Delicious autumn!  My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking successive autumns." - George Eliot

Time Passes

 

Time passes and we are into Autumn now.  I'm not sure quite how we got here so quickly as it seems like it was June just a little bit ago.  Perhaps the rainy, wet summer that we had made the time pass faster, since there were a lot of 'summer' things we really couldn't do.

But now, I wander around the yard and spy the Oakleaf Hydrangeas turning brown upon their stems.  They are still lovely,  with their 'vintage' color - like a faded old dress.

I spot the 'regular' hydrangeas and some of them are still lovely - holding onto their color as everything around them fades to tan and brown.

There are some spots of red here and there, but I have to look very carefully to spot them.

These brown lichen  make me think of pancakes as they cling to an old tree stump.  Actually they look quite delicious.

"Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay." - Robert Browning