Autumn approaches

-
Autumnal fabrics shine in this Cornflower block completed recently.

I know it's not even the middle of August. In SO MANY PLACES it's hot as hades. Yet the angle of the sunshine has dipped, and despite being extremely pleasant here temperature-wise, the sense of summer's cessation lingers in the air. Perhaps it's due to when we lived in England, summer seemed to end as September began, which was when autumn started on the UK calendar. Blackberries are still getting ripe, marigolds planted late are blooming, bees are buzzing, and as I noted it is just mid-August. Still I'm feeling the altering season wrapping around me.

Our weekend guests left this morning, so I dived right into making a backing for the Halloween quilt top. Working on that project adds to the feeling of fall, not that I'm eager for cool weather, but rain would be nice. We had a bright morning, I actually witnessed the sunrise! That sun has moved to the south coming on 7 weeks since the solstice, which is a little more than a quarter into the latter half of the year, if one considers the year over at the winter solstice. Regardless, each of these days slips us further into 2023, and where has the darn time gone?

Recently I went through my fabric stash, what waits on a low bookshelf and of course the totes. Ah totes, several of them residing under my large work table, housing scraps as well as a few collections. Those totes aren't being emptied immediately, but now they are labeled, lol. Definitely an autumn kind of organizational activity.

I'll get back to my new novel this week, baste a Halloween quilt, then throw another onto the design wall. Fall-themed placemats require my attention, as do the blackberry vines; I'm hoping to start harvesting fruit that will be frozen for next year. And our washer is being repaired tomorrow! The part has arrived and fingers crossed in twenty-four hours I'll be busy folding clothes. Not that laundry has anything to do with autumn, but hopefully I won't need to make a trip to the laundromat, ha ha. Whatever your weather, enjoy your week!

Popular posts from this blog

Fits, starts, and restarts

-
Image
Two examples from two different skeins of yarn where breaks in the colour scheme occur. Very indicative of my current mood, lol. This is a funny novel, for all the hemming and hawing going on. Never before have I written, then purged scenes with somewhat of an abandon. I truly don't know what to make of it, chalking it up to age, grieving, the weirdly long winter (even though it's spring), or my new computer keyboard, which is small but adequate in a strangely truncated manner. I'm enjoying the writing, but the story keeps veering off on tangents I'm not comfortable with, in that too much is being revealed too soon, bleh. Future and Past Me's are steering clear of this manuscript, perhaps because what came before it was so out of the blue, so cathartic, and this prequel is just as outta my backside as any I've ever written. But I am writing, let me restate that, despite restarting a chapter here and there. I'm not getting much else accomplished, other than s
Read more

Orphan blocks are not like unfinished novels

-
Image
It's a busy day, getting ready for guests that will enlighten our lives for the next week. However my feet are a little weary, so why not ramble here for a bit, giving those dogs a rest as well as set upon a discourse about the above title before I forget why I thought it was important (lol). I don't even know why I first pondered this, maybe an IG poster mentioned them, which made me think of my orphan EPP blocks. I don't have many machine sewn blocks without a home, but plenty of English paper pieced designs linger in a tote, patterns I liked and HAD TO MAKE. I used plenty of them on a Turning Twenty quilt, decorating some plain tone-on-tone prints and that was a great manner in which to employ less than a quarter of what remains, ahem. Oh and I used some on a t-shirt quilt that I made in conjunction with a friend, who had lived in Hawaii for a few years and wanted to put her aged shirts to quilty use. But still many remain, although I have a plan for them, hehehe. I am h
Read more

Following one's heart

-
Image
Fascinating from the back, as though a map to an unknown destination. It was an early start today, half a chapter written, then texting with my youngest daughter and enjoying photos of her sunrise a few hours east of us. I woke to clear, starry skies, but clouds have since moved in, rain forecast for the next few days. Maybe in a few days I'll have completed my novel; it's VERY CLOSE to being done, but I said that in a recent post, The End dangling like a carrot merely an arm's length away. Meanwhile I've been stitching together Cornflower blocks each evening. The photo above was snapped last night, what I see as I sew. MANY papers to remove, but I'll deal with that later, lol. I'm also working on another quilt, hehehe, more about that in a day or two. And the last ones for this year are washed and waiting to be given to my granddaughters on Christmas, which is just a little over a week away! I considered today's title right after reading through the sevente
Read more