More Leaves, More Surprising Colors

Part of the crew who wore me out - nephews left, brother/sister-in-law right

You'll have to bear with me - I've been good for very little since my visitors all left, save for the Zentangling and an eye that continues to pick out color palettes in the turning leaves. I have to admit, I've been much distracted by the views outside my living room and studio windows. There's a continued urge to match up what I'm seeing with fabrics in my stash, but I've done this before and know that I will go nowhere with it right now - too drained from company, still struggling with getting my syndrome under control, perhaps being affected by an additional medicine thrown into the mix. Everything takes awhile to kick in and for the body to adjust to it - I should see some improvement in another week or so. And I had one of those little revelations as I sat on the couch, studying the chocolate browns, peachy reds and mustard yellows just beyond the back yard, then shifting my eyes to "Rolling Along" which currently sits leaning up against my fireplace. Yes, all those colors I want to pull from my stash are actually right there in that piece.

Multi-colored maple leaf

I resist, too, picking up leaves to bring home and press since I have a vast collection already. But a few still manage to intrigue me in some way other than just that they are pretty leaves. Take this maple leaf, for instance. I'd gotten out of my car and looked down at the wet pavement strewn with maple leaves of various colors (one of those times when I wished my cell phone could take pictures). It was a lovely natural arrangement, some yellow, some red, turned this way and that. And then this one - multi-colored as if it couldn't make up its mind which color to turn. I feel I have seen more of this sort of two toned turning this year than usual. Memory, however, is a slippery thing. Perhaps muscle memory is over-riding the truth of autumn leaves. Perhaps as a child, I cut out so many leaves from construction paper that my brain came to believe a turning leaf is one solid color. It's a theory, and maybe if I bring enough of these real leaves of many hues home, I can retrain my brain.

Autumn Splendour by Sheryl Meech

I was quite amused, then, to run across this quilt, Autumn Splendor by Sheryl Meech in New Zealand Quilter magazine yesterday. Sheryl says this was conjured up from her memories of Central Otago holidays. Obviously, her memory is better than mine.

Quaking aspen leaf

This leaf, however, came home with me for a different reason. I walk by a stand of quaking aspen most days, their leaves some of the more brilliant yellow in the area. They too are beginning to fall to wet pavement, with nothing too special about them except perhaps their shape. No need to drag any home, until I noticed this one definitely NOT yellow. It's more of that peachy yellow orange, very much like a hand-dye in my collection. The back is quite a bright yellow so I really don't know why the front is so very different. It's also quite small, less than 2" across at its widest point. I generally get sucked in by the really big leaves.

Playing with antler button placement

I've rallied a bit the last few days and have been staring down my Masks quilt. You might recall that I had just a little more beading to do after getting final input from the art group, but that still requires a little bit of decision making, visualizing, pondering (Oh just get ON with!). I've been collecting antler buttons for awhile now with the intention of adding them to this quilt - each button I bought looked like a face to me and would augment the quilt's theme. Today I played with placement and took several shots including this one to remind me of my last arrangement before starting to sew some of them down. This is by no means the final one, but I did get a feel for which ones would definitely end up staying where they were.

Faces...I see faces. Do you?

And so I committed. I applied some Gem Tac to the back of the ones I was sure about and stuck them in place - they are there to stay. Then I started additionally securing them by stitching a bead in each hole. I feel better for having taken this small step. I can feel my indecision subsiding, a surety of direction replacing it.