Randy is my quilt holder :) This is before the last outer border

After outer border

I fell in love with a quilt done by Annabella at Life's Rich Pattern http://kechquilts.blogspot.com/ , and decided I just had to make one for moi.  It is ready for layering and quilting.  I have NEVER made a quilt top of any size in three days.  I started the top on Monday and finished the piecing today.  :D 

Flannie was over on Sunday and we made some pumpkins

Whoaaaaa the fish are breaking and the Egrets are lined up waiting for dinner

There are some big stripers in this lake and they make quite the wake when they are feeding.  Really makes us want to go fishing.

October

"October is the year at rich maturity, a happy woman arrayed in festival dress and ready for a dance with a giant come down from the hills attired in a red, red shirt, buckskin pants and moccasins beaded with frost.  October is a brisk wind in the treetops, a whisper among crisp leaves, a breath of apple cider, a gleam from a jack-o'-lantern, and the echo of laughter under a full moon."  Sundial of the Seasons, Hal Borland

It's Mums, and pumpkins, and burning bushes, and barberries, and wienie dogs---

Happy Fall

Love these little baskets

Fall gift from sweet Julie K

Berries on the Hawthorne tree

Happy Fall, Happy Autumn Equinox---the quarter moon has been so beautiful on the lake.  Wish I could get night-time photos with my camera.

September 11, 2012

We have traveled from September 11, 2001.  The beauty of this morning, the crisp, blue and green, I still remember the exact same brilliance to that morning eleven years ago.  The disbelief can still take my breath away, and stop me in my tracks, eleven years later.  The pain remains...the memories remain...

                              The Voice of Autumn
"The owl has hooted in the evening darkness.  The voice of Autumn has echoed across the valley.  There is no mistaking it now, for although the green world is still green, it has the gleam of dogwood berries turned scarlet and the sine of goldenrod in the fence corners and the glow of little white asters on the meadow.  There is the cider smell of windfall applies in the orchard and the wine tang in the vineyard.  You can close your eyes and know what is taking place.

Ripeness is fulfillment, and it comes not at the peak of Summer.  It comes when the season begins to ease down the long hill toward Winter and ice, when the days shorten and the stars of night begin to gleam in longer darkness.  Ripeness is a summation, of long, hot days and simmering sun and warm rain and the flash of lightning across the Summer sky.  It is the beauty of blossom brought to the succulence of fruit, the soft green of new stem toughened to the firm fiber of the reaching twig, the winged seed of the maple now rooted at the grass roots and finding sustenance in the soil.  Ripeness is September, warm at midday, chill at dusk and covered with cool dampness at dawn.

The change is more than a matter of sunlight and day length, for there is a rhythm in all growing things, a rest and a resurgence.  The seasons belong to that rhythm, as do the day and the night.  But so does the apple, and so do the goldenrod and the asters.  The peak is past.  The wave of the great rhythm now begins to ebb, and the cricket sings, the owl hoots, the crows call querulously.  You can hear Autumn from any hillside."  (Sept. 9-Sundial of the Seasons-Hal Borland)

M.I.A.

We have spent days being entertained by the Cormorants.  They are fascinating to watch.  Man, they can hold their breath under water for a REALLY long time.  I've been hoping for a Loon sighting---well, I know I'm not located exactly right for a Loon, but a girl can hope---and look---and find Cormorants :D

I know I know, I've been Missing In Action --- AGAIN--- what can I say, what do I WANT to say.  Well, nothing actually, I've just been living each day, trying to grab on to those sparkling minutes that fly away like the down of the Milkweed, Dandelion, and Thistles.  The days are drawing a bit shorter now, the cooler mornings and evenings delight me, sending me into reveries that I want to linger in.

I had my adopted sisters, Joanie and Debbie, and their two canine furbabies, Butchie and Ellie, for a weekend visit.  Oh, it was soooo much fun---we played in the kitchen together making dinner, we took a stroll in the DARK (and it was REALLY REALLY dark) at 10 p.m., we stayed up waaaaay late watching 'The Unexplained' (?), chewed gum at Midnight :0, ate ice cream at 1:00 a.m., waded deep into discussions of life and death and all that lies in between, played outside with the pups, and I cried as the rear of their van left my sight on Sunday evening.  It was a wonderful slumber party---ended much too quickly...

I've been taking the pups for a walk down to the water the last few days.  So good for them AND me.  Fall is my most favoritest :) time of the year, and I am trying to squeeeeeze all of the deliciousness that I can get from this one day, one day at a time.  The temperatures are heading back up into the upper 80s for the next few days, so the pups and I will get our walk and nature 'fix' early in the mornings again for a while. 

I've also been doing a bit of hand-applique.  It has been sooooo long since I've done any hand sewing, and I've been plagued the the urge for months now, so I'm just puttering with first one little piece and then another.  Luscious.  Fabric deliciousness.  :)  I am being drawn into my nesting mode with the days growing a bit shorter and cooler.  :p 

Who Wanted to 'Be Aware' Anyway???

Our electricity keeps going off at the most inopportune times.  One of the disadvantages of living in the boonies, on a tiny section of Cherokee Lake that is being developed AGAINST MY WILL :/, with tree cutters in here cutting out trees to make room for greedy humans and interrupting the electricity back in here...Three days in a row, I've gone into my sewing stewdio to play and three days in a row the power has gone off.  Go figure... IT'S NOT HAPPY :/

The humidity has gone UP as the temps have come DOWN a bit... So, today may be my 'one day a month to whine' day.  :D

I'm going to play in fabric now...

Tidbits of my Life

Memento from trip to New Orleans, LA 7-20-23-2012

Stylin' sandals---and, yes, I wore them like this :D

This little unusual chair is a recent thriftin' treasure

Recent thrift treasure---real! wicker (or rattan)--in awesome condition---needs repainting

My two precious heart beats at my feet

The nights have been soooo beautiful, and we will soon have a full moon

“Sooner or later when we surrender to what we cannot control, we have to hold still & let the (inner) demons we have been running from catch us. There is no greater terror. But there can be no greater liberation than to face those demons held in the arms of your own compassionate nature and that which is larger than yourself.” Oriah Mountain Dreamer from The Dance

The Masses Descended...