nature

A World Where There are Octobers

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woman spinning in front of a row of yellow trees

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables 

The leaves are going quickly. Only days ago this row of trees in our backyard were covered in bright golden colours and by today they are mostly gone. Bare branches are left in stark contrast to the pale azure autumn skies. The bright yellow leaves are slowly deepening in colour, and the days are cool and crisp. I love this time of year and, like Anne, I am glad I live in a place where I get to fully enjoy Octobers.

woman walking in front of a large row of trees

mountain ash tree berries and woman wearing a wrap skirt and navy blue t-shirt

I am also happy that my sister was able to get these photos for me when she did, since I think this is the last time I’ll be pulling out this linen wrap skirt for this year. It’s time to reach for the tights and woollens and scarves!

patchwork quilt purse

This is the patchwork purse I mentioned that I was making. It took quite a while to finish, since I decided to hand stitch it to give more control over some of the very tiny pieces of fabric. I’m not a skilled quilter, and since I didn’t follow any pattern (each piece was fitted in place as I sewed) it ended up quite quirky! I think it gives it a rather authentic 1970’s feel though, don’t you?

After I finished the quilt, I then appliquéd it onto a canvas backing and then lined the entire thing to give it some strength, especially since the last one I made came apart. I was able to use so many unique pieces of fabric that I’ve saved over the years- you can even see in the picture above that I used a piece of the fabric from this skirt! Well, at least I know that this bag will coordinate with almost everything in my wardrobe…

woman spinning in front of autumn leaves

woman standing in front of golden trees looking into the distance

woman twirling in front of autumn trees

detail of a gold heart necklace

Friendship necklaces used to be such a “thing” when I was a kid, but they kind of went out of favour, didn’t they? A few years ago I found this friendship necklace; the heart cut out of the centre of this piece forms the other necklace! I like that it’s so delicate and minimal.

woman wearing a wrap skirt and carrying a patchwork bag

mountain ash berries

patchwork quilted purse

cognac coloured ballet flats

Why is it so hard to find brown shoes? Have you ever noticed that? Since deciding that brown is my “neutral” I have had the hardest time finding nice shoes that aren’t black. I was so glad to be able to find these from Vionic. I think it’s about time to put them away for the season, though. They are perforated, which is lovely for warm days, but a bit chilly for autumn!

I hope you are faring well and enjoying your October, whatever it’s looking like for you!

mountain ash tree

poplar branch in golden sunset light

After the Rain

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pink ruffled flowers with raindrops on them

We’ve had such a hot, dry summer with heat wave after heat wave. I don’t love hot weather, so I was very happy when we had a nice cloudy day recently with a good rain. Unfortunately, it’s been so dry that the rain didn’t make much of a difference to the water table, and we really could do with several days in a row of a steady, soaking rain…but at least we had that small reprieve. And when it had finished raining and the clouds had passed, there were millions of diamonds left behind frosting each and every petal.

dark purple blue pansy covered in rain drops

astilbe and a burgundy daylily

Astilbe and a Burgundy Daylily

rose mallow with rain drops on the petals

Pink Mallow or Lavatera

rose mallow and german statice flowers in the garden

Mallow and German Statice

pale periwinkle blue delphinium flower

Delphinium

sedum and daylily covered in rain droplets

Sedum and Orange and Yellow Daylily

pink climbing rose

John Cabot climbing rose

Social Saturday | July 3

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Siberian Irises

Lately…

Reading- Just finished Pat of Silver Bush by LM Montgomery. I enjoyed it, but it’s definitely not one of my favourites of hers. It had a rather slow start, and took a while to get into the story. But, I did request the second one in the series from my library, so I’ll see if I like it better.

two pink peonies

Loving- Taking photos of all the flowers in my mom’s garden. So many beautiful blooms, and the camera really doesn’t do justice to them!

Watching- The Closet Historian channel on YouTube- mostly her tutorials! I especially enjoyed Bianca’s Victorian bonnet video, and am planning on seeing if I can use some of her techniques to mash up a few hats for myself.

pink daisy and white yarrow
Making- A crazy patchwork purse in a 1970’s style. It’s going to be quite wonky by the time it’s done, with nary a straight seam to be seen, but that will add “character” right?

Eating- Lemon Almond Crinkle Cookies from The Iron You blog. Just rediscovered his recipes lately, and have been saving almost every single one!

pink rose

Thankful For- Cool summer days. We’ve been going through an extreme heat wave (a “heat dome”) in Western Canada lately, and that makes me appreciate the mild summer days all the more. After a week of extremely hot temperatures, we finally have one in the mid twenties today, and are all breathing a sigh of relief!

purple and yellow violas

pink rose and white peony

pale pink peony bloom

What are some fun things you’ve been doing lately, dear Reader? I hope you have a wonderful weekend, however you spend it!

dark pink japanese peony

Blossom Time

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plum tree bloom

I hope you will forgive this blog turning into a diary of all of the photos of flowers I’ve seen lately. I haven’t been feeling well the past week so wasn’t able to finish a different post I had planned, so here are some Spring blossoms to cheer you on this Wednesday!

cluster of plum tree blooms

plum tree in spring

I wish you could smell them, they are so delightful, and this is such a lovely time of year, isn’t it?

Do you have blooming trees where you live? What are your favourite Spring flowers?

single plum tree blossom

cherry blossoms

blossom ring

pink spring blossoms

single light pink blossom

apple blossoms

That Fresh Hair Feeling

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There’s nothing better than a fresh new haircut, is there? OK, well, yes there are plenty of things better than a new haircut…but when you’ve been waiting patiently for four months, it’s a lovely thing to walk out of the salon with significantly less hair on your head!

I got my hair cut into a fresh bob on Tuesday, and my hairdresser also added in some colour to blend out my platinum, which was starting to look rather brassy and harsh. Growing out platinum is hard, but at least this looks a bit softer. I keep saying that I’ll never dye my hair again, but I probably will again someday- it’s a lot of fun while it lasts!

I don’t have much else to say about these photos except that this is the last of the lilacs. We didn’t get a very good show of them this year. I think that it was maybe too cold earlier in the spring, and the buds got a bit too cold with frost. It’s really too bad, because usually this hedge is just covered, and I love to do photoshoots with it as a backdrop. At least we did still get some blooms, and I got these photos before they all faded away.

What have you been up to lately? Are you long overdue for a haircut, like 99% of the population? Have you ever tried to grow out dyed hair?

And this is what happens when you take photos in the wind!

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