Wading Through the Leaves

I love the season of walking through the crispy, crunchy leaves.  Many people rake their leaves into the street and then the city truck with a big vacuum cleaner attachment comes around to pick them all up and take them to city recycling. Come spring you can go to city lawn and yard recycling and maybe you will get those same leaves back in a rich composted mix.  I just leave my leaves on the yard and if I rake I'm keeping this rich stuff for my own compost.   I was riding my bike and came across this scene, looked like everyone on the block decided to rake their leaves on the same day.  Pretty impressive leaf lined street still intact (no kiddos jumping into the inviting piles).

Nice bed for the cat, pretty sure she thinks she's hiding. 

Inspiration from leaf piles, woven with Chenille, Tercel and Linen.

Changing Season

A web dressed in morning dew.

When the colors of summer and early fall fade sometimes the brightest thing in the woods is a log with fungus.  The white shines with the rusts, browns and black in background.

A late fall plain weave in Chenille.

Night time temps fall and so the plants come in, soon they will yellow and fade too.  They would rather be outside in the sun.

The pretty pink and white hanging petunia is still a beauty outside.  I love fall but it's bittersweet, winter is on it's way.  Enjoy the color this season of change.

Art Fairs

I just read something that I want to save and pass along.  It's about art fairs.  "There is no better place to be on a late summer afternoon (or morning) than an art fair.  Wondering through the tents filled with artisan crafter/makers you will feel inspired at the talent and dedication on show.  The best thing is that you can simply stop and tell them so.  The whole idea is to bring makers and their audience together.  We have the internet at our fingertips but no website can covey the work and skill demonstrated by products made and displayed, not to mention meeting those who did the making."

Artists work in their studios, usually alone - the reward comes when you are invited to a fair and people come and have a look, in my case, feel the textures and try on the handwoven garments.  I love it.

The Sioux Falls Sidewalk Arts Fair was September 10, one day.  It was a fabulous day for people to be out and they were!  The Driftless Area Art Fair is this weekend, Saturday and Sunday.  I am looking forward to being there and seeing old and new customers.

Some of my work that will be at the DAAF this weekend.  

I have to include some photos from Sioux Falls, the first is one I took the evening after the fair.

Sioux Falls - Falls Park at night.  Magical.

The Falls in winter.

Can't close this post with a picture of winter, have to show you this beautiful bouquet from the Farmer's Market.  The colors of the dahlias make my mouth water!!

Off the Shelf and Into This

Don't loose that cross!

1400++ ends organized

Ready for Beaming

Seduction!

Weave. . .

and Finished.   Really happy with the result.

Water! Earth, Wind and Fire

Awesome Yellowstone National Park, USA

Influenced by Nature

Looking into the soul of the earth.

Spring Brings

Spring fiber gathering with the sheeps and the lambs in Bonnie's pasture.  Some sheered and some shedding, all the babies letting us know they were there.  I love sheep and this beautiful green pasture.  Wish I had gotten a picture of the guard donkeys.

Taking pictures of the geraniums at the greenhouse but then I looked down and saw all the mosses growing, snail habitat.  Interesting little subterranean environs under those tables of flowers.

I am always seeking the light in my studio space, there are windows but as the sun moves into summer, roof eaves shade the windows and light to work isn't bright enough.  This loom has made a at least a 180 degree turn in the last couple of months.  Chasing not only light but space.  This is brilliant, I hadn't thought of it before anyway- the back of the loom requires way less space than the front so it got pushed toward the wall and the front is now out in the middle of the room.  Ahhhh - now I can move my bench out of the way much easier.  How long will this last??  I put something to make sliding the loom easier, like rugs or towels or folded fabric - anything so the rubber feet aren't touching and this unwieldy piece of furniture is much more cooperative and I can do it myself.

Playing With Color

I haven't posted in some time but I have been working and today I felt a blog-post coming on.
Here's what's been happening in the Studio.

Four Infinities freshly finished.  Had fun playing with the colors,  pattern and experimenting with blending.

Who Owns This Land?

We recently put land that we 'own' into the Mississippi Valley Conservancy.  An organization whose job it is to protect land from development.  Eighty acres along a river, in a river valley surrounded by forested hills is now under the protection of the Mississippi Valley Conservancy.  Along with this organization we will work to preserve,  conserve and to keep a wild sanctuary for all time.  The wildlife that lives here is protected, the ground that plants grow on is protected.   I say work to preserve and conserve because we commit to be diligent care-takers and observers of what's happening on this land, we want the riparian ecology to flourish,  we want native plants and animals to thrive.

We have joined others who have decided to do this and they have inspired us.  It is our firm belief  that too much land has come under human development and because we 'own' this land we have  promised by working with the MVC that it will be here, as it is now, in the future.  Thank you Mississippi Valley Conservancy for making this possible.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Showy Orchid

Nodding Trillium

Fringed Gentian

Red-Tail Hawk

Re-opening my ETSY store  -  check out 'shop' at the top