Autumn Respite

It seems the internet and airwaves are awash with bad/crazy/scary news. I care about it all and am paying attention and cannot wait until next Tuesday, when I will be pressing my nose up against the window at my local polling place, eager to vote.

And yet . . . one needs a break. One needs a reminder that our world isn’t only bad/crazy/scary. You, my blog friends, offer many and excellent reminders of that. And I want to contribute my own, from my lovely part of the world.

Autumn has been awesome this year. It’s always my favorite time of year, here in upstate New York, in the Adirondack Mountains, near Lake Champlain. But this year the color of the trees, in addition to being bright, has persisted longer than usual or so it seems to me. A few trees fade and more have taken their place.

I can’t give you the freshening breeze that makes the leaves dance and sparkle. I can’t give you the tang of woodsmoke or the crunch of dry leaves beneath your feet. I can’t give you the snap of an Autumn Crisp apple or the sound of the snow geese as they make their raucous way south.

But I can give you the sights of autumn. Many, many sights of autumn. You can click on them as you choose . . . I just know I feel better having been out there, in our pretty world.

 

Such gem-like kernels

Tree in transition

These vines turn red

Cemeteries in autumn

Maple gives us red

Love these!

Indian corn

Even the government building looks good!

An early bit of color against the green

I love a good cemetery

Don’t you?

I call this “curb appeal” for that home!

Those vines again!

One bright red maple!

Panorama with horses

I take this photo every year

My cute mom and cute pumpkins

The mountains glow with color

Historic building and great tree

What would you call this color?

Tree is partly dead, partly brilliantly alive

And folks are still sailing

Are you sick of photos yet?

We found this flag on a deserted beach

A bucolic North Country scene

A highpoint of the season

Jamaicans come every year, to pick

Different stages of color

With tree-size driftwood

 

An Autumn Pet Peeve

I love a field of autumn corn. The stalks all golden brown, lined up, and waiting to be harvested. It’ll be cut down, chopped, and used for silage to feed cattle during the long winter. (Silage goes in a silo and that’s what most farmers call it. I grew up on a farm very near the Quebec border and never heard the word silage until a few years ago. We used the word “ensilage” exclusively–the French influence, I guess.)

I even love a field of mown corn. It looks restful, harvest finished, and its sere, muted shades make the surrounding foliage seem all the more radiant.

But this? This make me peevish. Who does this?

Who harvests an entire field and leaves one last corn stalk standing? So untidy . . .

(And can you see the blue jay photo bombing the picture?!)

And Away They Go (3 photos)

Going . . .

Going . . .

Gone.

Happy Weaving and Spinning Week!

I’ve recently learned from Chris, at Acton Creative, that this week is Weaving and Spinning Week!

How did I not know that?! Heaven knows, after the news of the last couple of weeks, I need something to celebrate . . .

And it seems the perfect excuse to show you what I’ve been working on since the last update.

A long time ago (May, in fact), I showed you this project of two scarves in pink and white while they were still on the loom. It’s a good example of how the weft color changes the overall look.

Let me explain a little—in weaving, the warp is made up of the long threads that are attached to the loom and are vertical when I sit facing the loom. The weft threads are the ones that come out of the shuttle as I weave and are horizontal.

In this project, one scarf is done in just two colors—rosewood and white—for both warp and weft.

The other has those same two colors in the warp but the weft is lighter pink.

Pretty cool, huh?

I’ve sort of been in placemat mode, too. It turns out that buyers like placemats and I like making them. I get the satisfaction of achieving a “finish” pretty quickly since each individual mat is fairly small and quick to weave up, even though the entire project may be on the loom for a while.

I did this pattern in off-white—it uses two weights of thread in both warp and weft, which creates the nice texture.

I liked the results so much that I went ahead and did it again. The second time, I used two shades of blue. The effect is tweedy and interesting.

I keep thinking of other color combinations I could try. Maybe dark brown with the lighter-weight thread in a bright yellow-green? Or bright orange?

And, of course, I’ve made more towels. I wove the striped ones I’ve already shown you and six of these.

And this boring-looking bunch of threads will turn into towels, too. I hope they’ll be more interesting soon!

Some of my projects have been repeats of ones you’ve seen before. I know weavers who never, ever make the same pattern twice because they want to move on to something new. SO much to weave, so little time!

As much as I like new, I do have some favorites and I really like doing them over. (I’m the same way with books—I love re-reading my favorites, as visiting old friends, and will cycle them through my reading every few years.)

So, my weaving re-dos are more of these placemats (buyers like placemats!) I hemmed them this time, instead of leaving fringe. I like the look of the fringe better but it means the mats can’t go into the washer and they are white, after all.

And I making more of these Christmas towels. This shot is a good demonstration, again, of how the weft color can change everything. You can see the unwoven warp on top, then, going around the front, a towel where I’m using white as weft. Underneath the loom, you can see what that same warp looks like when I used red as the weft.

Here’s another view of the red weft and the obligatory photo of the weaver’s apprentice.

And that’s it for this update, with many ideas percolating in my mind! Thanks for celebrating this special week with me!

The House at Pooh Corner as Tonic

On the drive and then the commuter rail, I checked my phone for updates. She testified he tried to rape her. He, he who wants to be a justice on the US Supreme Court, shouted he never did.

In the hotel, the next day, I watched angry women confront a senator, him in an elevator, with nowhere to hide. They cried and told him about their own experiences with sexual assault, and he averted his eyes. But he used his power to do right.

Arrogance, angst, animus, and more have been all the news.

High drama, all too common in the US these days.

What to do? How to escape, for a bit, the bad news about embarrassing elected officials and women mistreated?

The Hundred Acre Wood.

The House at Pooh Corner.

Winnie the Pooh.

Yes, sweet, steadfast, good-hearted Pooh was the antidote we chose.

The Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston, offered this respite. Their current show, “Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring a Classic,” includes dozens of drawings and letters and early editions of the books by A. A. Milne and illustrated by E. H. Shepard.

Escaping into this world was a balm.

It was lovely to see the inspirations for our Poohish heroes—the real-life Christopher Robin, the toys he so loved.

The exhibit is perfect for children, with a few interactive spots, but nothing too tarted up or technological to take away from the simple joys of reading and being Pooh.

And it was fun to see how Pooh and pals have evolved and become a part of popular culture, not just in the UK and US but all over the world. It seems we all understand the bear and the tiger, the piglet and the cranky donkey (my personal favorite).

The best part for me was the drawings. The way Shepard experimented and played and created expression and movement with just a few pen lines.

Eventually we had to say goodbye to Pooh and Christopher Robin and the others and head back to Trump and Kavanaugh and those others in the ickier, messier world we live in.

“But, of course, it isn’t really Good-bye because the Forest will always be there . . . and anyone who is Friendly with Bears can find it.”

Thank goodness for Pooh.