Season of Mists...

The wonderful thing about owning a dog and living in such a beautiful rural location are the daily walks. I'm far more aware of the changes that herald the seasons than I ever used to be. This morning there was a low mist and a damp chill which despite the weeks of wet chilly weather still felt more like autumn was on its way. Leaves too are starting to turn and I picked up a beautiful specimen that was a riot of colour - a rusty leaf (can you sense a theme here?) I had to paint it in my sketchbook as soon as got home... and that was before breakfast!

The other thing that heralds autumn for me are the spiders! We had our first huge specimen on the bedroom wall this week which filled me with dread as I know there will be more. I have a real phobia and I'm quite irrational about them. I can't kill them so that have to be captured (preferably not by me as I prefer to be in another room at the time)... in a glass so we can see thay have not escaped... and then released in the furthest reach of the garden. There is a tree in this spot which Stewart calls the "Spider Tree"... needless to say I don't venture there often.

However... there are good things about autumn too. Today I picked this wonderful bowl of damsons from the hedgerow. (The sloes and blackberries are not far behind)

Which meant of course I had to make some of this...

Which cried out for some of these....

Which was just in time for afternoon tea! And I wonder why my waistline is expanding!

It has not been all domesticity in our household today and I've managed some stitching. I made another ATC using the rust fabric from last week. There is not an awful lot of stitching as I had trouble sewing with the machine through the areas that had been printed with the metal effects paint. Not too bad with the foot on but great difficulty free machining. The first effort was discarded.

In the second sample I was playing with some layers of painted Lutradur to see if I could reproduce the rust effects from my sketchbook. The colours need some adjusting (they haven't photographed well either) but I feel I'm on the right track. I would like to carry on experimenting but we have friends coming for supper so it's back to the kitchen for me... or perhaps they would like to eat scones and jam? Now that's a thought!