Fall may be here

Today 

Yesterday was another cool day Sunday, with the Japanese maple showing signs of coloring, and a squirrel noshing wildly on it, swinging about. 

Flowers still appearing. I've been getting a lot of pleasure out of this little wild corner, with stray flowers showing up 

And just look at the beautiful structure of that bud. I've come to appreciate zinnias much more since I've been growing them.

Still bringing in a few flowers, soon I'll stop picking, in the hope they'll go to seed and reseed themselves 

Lunch was holiday fare, slices of chicken breast with roast potatoes, dash of red chili oil, dessert a piece of plummy snacking cake, fresh plums and chocolate chips.

I noticed when I came downstairs that Gary must have been here 

It's twofold: he gives me a chance at using his glass jars before recycling, and he's strongly hinting it's a long time since I made jam and he'd like some...

Today's matinee was a luscious production of Emma with excellent acting, beautiful sets, costumes, scenery, on Freevee.

The picture is dorky, but the movie is worth seeing.

Happy day, everyone, find an old movie, preferably period, with all the sets and costumes. Some of Emma's coats, pleated, kick opening, were great sewing and construction. They were worth the price of admission alone. Bill Nighy as Mr Woodhouse, had the best threads evah!

These images were fun to create, many layers, saves, 3D effects, gridding.

Maggie Rudy salutes fall with woolly bears

On other sites I'm careful to use alt text when I post images, for the benefit of  vision impaired people who need to use readers. 

It just occurred to me that I need to ask if anyone reading here would appreciate that, too. Let me know and I'll do it. I don't have the alt text function, but I can add a description to each image. 

  

Nutgrass, design thoughts and Freecycle

Yesterday I pulled this, I think nutgrass, which I plan to try as a cordage material. 

I think it's a sedge. I can't find any references to it as a material. All I can find is How to Kill It.  

There's something wrong with obsessing about killing plants, I really believe. If it's invasive, don't lose your head and act as if it's a deadly danger. It's the deranged lawn lovers mainly. Lawn Derangers! 

Anyway, I've hung it to dry and I'll try it out.

I haven't done any work on my little cordage basket recently, needing to spare my neck, but I'm between sewing projects so I think I'll do a bit today.

I ironed the muslin, which is three yards plus of 27" wide -- the other strip became the curtain lining in the bedroom -- so it will need some thought, about other fabric to go with it for a summer robe. 

This is on hold, however, since I'm waiting for a Freecycle kind delivery this afternoon.

It occurred to me to ask for bedsheets, to use as fabric, on Freecycle, and I got a quick offer. The location is a bit far from here but they very kindly offered to deliver! Way beyond the normal you want it you come get it procedure.  Arriving this afternoon, so we'll see what shows up. If they're well used, they'll be good for hand sewing.

Meanwhile, this year the Japanese maple has put on such a growth spurt it's casting enough shade to sit under.

The views from under the tree 

Cool morning, the temp in the 60s, where you wake up early, open the window and draw the quilt up, to lie and listen to the mourning doves.

And here's a Sunday puzzle

Happy day, everyone, gardeners, too, don't get nuts over nutgrass!

Billy the Pup, Korean fashion history, twigs

 Yesterday I realized I'd missed a livestream of a presentation on Korean fashion history, around a new book, but I found it on YouTube and here's a few shots in case you'd like to check it out. 

Very learned presenters, and appropriation was an issue they tackled, wearing another culture's iconic dress, here the hanbok. 

They agreed that if proper credit is given to me origin, and you don't make commercial use of appropriated looks or ideas, it's more or less acceptable.

 In other questions, is this giant trying again to take over, despite repeated removals, pigweed, aka amaranth?

And yesterday was Billy the Pup's Spay Day. She came through pretty well, but it was touch and go with Gary. He came over last evening, she was shivering what to do?

I went over and sat with them, stroking Billy's ears till she fell asleep after happily  taking a few drops of water off my fingers.  She was shivering on the inhale, not the exhale, pretty sure she was doing fine. 

She was alert ish   and clearly knew me, so I stayed a while and chatted about all kinds of unrelated things, to talk Gary off the ledge. He planned to sleep downstairs with her.

This morning I called, quiet night, she's getting on okay, he sounds done for.  He loves his dogs so. I've heard him singing made up songs to Billy when he doesn't know anyone's around! Lovely guy.

Today I'm wearing my Hamptons Skirt, east coast people will know the snooty reference! So named for the ocean colors and rock references. 

I finished it last night and made an interesting discovery. As  you know I use either hand for a lot of things. But I'd never tried stitching with my left hand. But, the appliques being long, reaching the end of a side meant turning the whole thing around and getting all reorganized to stitch back up the other side.

So I tried just switching hands to stitch back, not moving the work, and found it worked just fine. Another late in life discovery,  along with whistling.

And this morning on my early patio prowl, I found small dead twigs inside the Japanese maple, and wondered if I could make something with them. 

While I'm wondering, I put them with the current little flower arrangement

Happy day everyone, you never know what you're going to discover next.

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Nerd delight, stealth art and the intersection of art and cooking

 I thought if we have any number nerds among us, you'd like this

And, before you say nobody puts the date year first, in fact people who work with big databases do. It's just a fun thing, like Pi(e) Day and May the Fourth be with you.

Earlier today I seized the day to catch the fall Japanese maple in sunshine. 

It clouded over soon after, but I made a composition here, indoors.

I like the contrast in shape and direction of the ginger foliage and the oak grain. Color too. Not that color matters here. Shapes and relationships are what this composition is about, not what it depicts. 

All my photos are carefully composed and cropped to say something beyond what they're showing.  Just a word to the sharp of eye!

Then, since some of the tips I've been getting about the little derm surgery next week, talk about soft food, to minimize chewing, the stitches being on my  face and better not disturbed, I thought soup.

The sugar pumpkin you last saw outside with the wooden cat, is now soup, along with cashews, lentils and celery, using up the vegetables before tomorrow's Misfits box arrives.

In the course of boiling it to make easy cutting and seeding, the long stem broke off and it's so pleasing a grainy shape, that I thought I'd do a bit of handmade paper molding.

I have quite a bit of cotton linters pure white paper, and I sprayed a thin sheet arranged over two bits of stem with clear water. 

It will be a few days before it dries completely, at which point I can lift it off and see how it worked. Material for future composition maybe. This is how I molded those earlier gold pieces you saw on one of the now completed figure series.

And since we're in the neighborhood of outdoor art and natural materials, here's the finished exhibited work from the rock filled cherry tree caper 

It's a triptych, said the gallery manager grandly. All framed on one backing.

Center is an ink drawing mounted on an image transfer, left and right are image transfers of my film photos of the rocky tree, left just of the tree, right the tree in context. 

And while I'm at it, here's a work to which I added bits later, designed to hang outdoors unprotected on the fence, for birds and squirrels to play with. 

Carolina wrens had a grand time climbing in it and swiping bits in spring for nest material. Squirrels climbed and yanked and chewed and had a good time. It's knitted, using several techniques, the light part parcel string, the dark part garden twine. 

It lasted about three years before weather and wildlife reduced it to rags, at which point I hung it in the woods.

And here's an indoor piece, exhibited years ago in some show or other. 

Twining, knotting with lark's head knots, a favorite, knitted using both string and copper wire, handmade beads. It's built on my late beloved cockatiel Emily Hope's swinging perch, that shape you see, a kind of shrine to her. 

So that's where we are, after I got up feeling glum, nothing to do, nothing to write about, before a nice chat with a neighbor and her dog, a brief encounter with a ladybug in the kitchen, now resident in the houseplants, and a good walk, set me up much better.