a taste of winter

it snowed here yesterday

which means that soon this beautiful maple tree that I've been enjoying from my office window will  be dropping all it's leaves

most of the snow is gone already, even though it is cold this morning (our first real freeze followed the snow)

fortunately, we knew the cold was coming, and I went out and pulled every tomato that looked like it might possibly ripen -- a pretty good haul for the last picking

we'll be putting up some as whole tomatoes and some as sauce

I've been working in the studio on making pieces better

this piece, the second in the Parched Earth series had a narrow binding, but it wasn't quite straight, and in places the tree limbs just blended into the sky

I took the binding and the sleeve off, did some additional quilting in the sky, outlined the tree with a dark thread and put a facing on instead of the binding

much better!

some new pieces are finished too

this one is titled Parched Earth:  The Mail Boxes

it was actually the first piece that used the sunrise/sunset sky idea, and I like the way this one looks (I've already entered it in a gallery show that I hope it will get in to)

this piece is done too

part of my on going Portraits of Objects series, this one is based on a photo shared with me by a friend -- love the look of the weathered wood on the Ice Cream Maker

this piece is the next one being quilted -- a challenge to work with the machine between and around all those little openings in the wheels!

and while this doesn't look like much, it is the last big piece of the garden piece I've been working on for a while now

I'm hoping to start putting all the layers together by the end of the week

this photograph will be the basis for the next Portraits of Objects piece -- this coffee grinder was my grandmother's and I remember turning the crank when I was a little girl and the smell of freshly ground coffee

I recently decided to enter this piece in a gallery show in Portland, Oregon. 

the show is titled "Chasing Ghosts", and I though Tsalagi (Cherokee) Trail of Tears fit that category

so did they!  I'll be shipping this piece off to them the end of this week

in keeping with a long standing tradition, I'm working on my grandson's Halloween costume

over Labor Day weekend we took a trip to the fabric store and got the materials to make Mr. Cute into The Hulk

this has been a fun costume to make, and despite not having a picture showing the progress, I'm nearly done with it

Mr Benson of course has plenty to say about everything that goes on here in the studio

and he had a grand time playing in the snow yesterday -- the deck looked like I had a whole pack of dogs that had been out there tromping around making footprints