Lately

Lately I have been walking up to the red barn

To look down at the new duck pond

slowly filling with water.

To look at the beauty of naked trees against the sky.

To find grey leaves still clinging to 

high bush blueberries.

 To wonder at the red abundance of nature's harvest this year.

And to fall in love

as I do every year

with the beautiful colours Maples bring us every Fall.

Perhaps this colour-filled time of year

is what drove me to make colourful marks.

Didn't last long

Back to my usual neutrals

Back to stones

Hmmm

Winter is coming

Snow squalls will be back soon.

Can't believe it's November already.

The Night-time Work of Wind and Beavers

The winds howled and buffeted us for two days and nights.

This morning we woke to this outside our bedroom window....

....and this outside my studio window.

Snapped

What has always amazed me over my years of living in the woods

how silently a tree snaps and falls.

You'd think it would be a loud dramatic event

but, unless we witness a break as it happens,

we are often oblivious until we discover it after the event.

 We were lucky this time.

Rather close to my studio.

The Beavers down on the marshlands also work the night shift.

The acreage they've flooded over the past few years is amazing.

They have a huge lodge that the Rusty Pups visited with glee

every time we walked by.

Over the years at least another four dams have appeared

strategically placed to increase the Beavers' domain.

Brilliant little engineers they are

though I can see that a human engineer has placed some kind of drainage

system presumably to stop the whole area becoming part of the Annapolis Basin again!

Meanwhile my design wall has layer upon layer of new beginnings.

I'm a messy worker!

I keep all the pieces I want to get started on pinned up there.

When a 'what if' moment occurs about one of them

I bring it to the front and work out solutions. 

I am liking the big swoosh of a mark

but not so much the circle shape on the bottom left.

Have a great day.

Guy Fawkes Day.

An important day in history for us Brits.

Getting Back in the Swing of Stitching and Walking

feels good to be back in the studio
adding layers of stitch
creating tactile textures.

Sometimes one spends a morning adding a darker colour

to outline an area

and right from the start you don't like it

but you leave it for a while.

Then the moment comes when you simply have to get rid of it

and introduce something different.

Much better!

Then it is all a matter of adding some stitches

standing back and observing.

Each new stitch changes the whole dynamic of a piece.

Sometimes a new shapes and a new colour
ask to be included.

Sometimes you need to repeat that shape.

Sometimes perhaps a shape should run off the edge.

Standing back and observing one half
Adjusting the colour just a bit to bring out
all the subtle markings in the black walnut dyed fabric
just because it might help with where to go next.

Standing back to see the other half

and wondering if introducing a small piece of rusched silk velvet somewhere

might add an interesting texture against the linen background.

It is all part of the flow.

The threads used so far.
I try for slight colour variations
thick and thin
matt and shiny.

Never anything shocking!
My choices are always muted and calm!
That's just me.

It has been quite a season for mushrooms
This one is about the size of a dinner plate!

I expect Valerie is having a whale of a time hunting for edibles!

And still more are popping up all over the place.

Autumn Travellers

We welcomed our Australian cousins Pip and Fox

and had a great time showing them around our little piece of the world.

Then I became the traveller

Joining the Connections Fibre Artists group for a stitching retreat.

Reconnecting with old friends and making new ones.

Gail

Mita

Jackie

 

Bev

Gordana

Bethany

Wendy

Ralph

Chris

Sharron

Diane

Anne

Gunnel

Helen

Elizabeth

 Four days spent with fellow stitchers is so renewing

 for those of us who quietly work alone in our studios.

Four days spent with friends old and new

means one heck of a lot of talking!

and boy did we laugh!

Thank you to Elizabeth and her sister Patti for their generous hospitality

and

Many thanks to Bethany who drove me to meet up with my son Mark. 

Mark and I drove North amid fields of wind turbines

Beautiful in their strangeness

and for the first time ever they were all twirling!

 Travelling through rural Ontario....

....one is bound to find many....

....a barn and at this time of year....

 ....much colour.

 Then Collingwood comes into view.

Thank you to my boys and their families for

a lovely Thanksgiving.

Now I am home again and back in the studio

getting used to the quiet

and hopefully starting many new stitchings.