This is such a beautiful time of year, but it passes so quickly, doesn't it.  We need to get out and enjoy it while we can.

Have a wonderful weekend!!

 

Drops,
Water cleanes.
Gathers in the earth.
Tender, Invasive,Subtle.
Emerges a shining river.
When it is small, it is weak.
When it is great, it tumbles mountains.
Rendering great cliffs
Sand.
Deng Ming~Dao

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I was taking an online class with Kim Klassen called Start2Finish.  It is a class on post photo processing using Lightroom and Photoshop.  Lightroom is a completely new to me program and truly it has been full of challenges for this aging brain.

The class started 2 weeks ago and with the two back to back weekend shows I have just done, it has been hard to keep up. I have managed however to set a little time aside to run through the classes so that I wouldn't get too far behind before I could get caught up.  I have skimmed through all of the materials and the above shot is a total newbie processed picture in Lightroom for the first project.
Am I pleased with it…not really, but it's all about the process, right?  In my simple iPhoto program I would have made simple changes that I would like, but I am determined to move to the next level with my pictures and learn this software.

On another note….the yarn!!  I rarely purchase yarn these days because, um….I am surrounded by yarn and I usually have to knit with my own yarns to produce samples for shows. Last weekend at Amy's sweater retreat, I just could not resist these 3 lovely Eden Garden skeins in shades that remind me of the ocean….shades of the sand, the ocean and beach rocks all rolled into one.  I love them! 
These 3 skeins will become my beach color affection shawl and maybe by the time the shawl is finished, my photo processing will be better too.

A moving door hinge never corrodes.
Flowing water never grows stagnant.
Deng Ming~Dao

The last 2 weekends, the upcoming weekend and the days in between have been ones filled with busy activity.  Most of it has been a lot of fun, with a good peppering of hard work tucked in between.

The weekend before last Ken and I took out the kayaks for our last run.  We were out on the marshes of Scarborough Maine and It was crazy cold with a winter like wind.  The waves were very choppy and the water definitely had a chill, but being out on the marshes and seeing all of the gazillion birds was such a treat.  Egrets, herons, sand pipers, glossy ibis and the occasional otter or seal. 

The marshes are part of the Maine Audubon Center.  Owned and managed by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, the 3,100 acre estuary known as Scarborough Marsh is the largest salt marsh in the state, comprising tidal marsh, salt creeks, freshwater marsh and uplands. The marsh is particularly important for wildlife as a resting, breeding and feeding ground.

I was a bit sad knowing it was the last time we were going to be out in the water, but it was an exciting ride.  Challenging waves and beautiful scenery in salt water.

Fast forward a week and I was back at the ocean again with more birds and fiber!  I attended Amy Herzog's, Make.Wear.Love retreat as both an attendee and a vendor.  The weather this time was SO much warmer…very summer like. 

I attended classes taught by Patty Lyons, Gwen Bortner and Kim McBrien Evans and while each of their classes was so different from the next, I learned SO much from their collective wealth of knowledge in such a beautifully inspiring place.  I came home excited to dig into my stash for a sweater quantity of yarn and a few skeins of something lovely jumped into my bag as well. 
(more about that in a few days).

With the very warm weather in Maine and only a hint of fall colors surrounding us, I hardly gave fall a thought, that is until I crossed the border into New Hampshire as I headed home. I was gobsmacked at how much the foliage had changed in the 4 days that I was away.

This upcoming weekend I will be working in the Fiber Building at the Fryeburg Fair, so if you are in the area, stop by and say hello. 🙂

Heaven embraces the horizon.
No matter how jagged the profile,
The sky faithfully conforms.
Deng Ming~Dao

In an effort to be a little more productive during my days and staying away from social media a little more, I have been enjoying the extra creative time to try new things.

I have piles and piles of fabric and recently made a wallet for my youngest daughter, Hannah, out of these two fabrics.  She lost her wallet over the summer and these were the fabrics that she chose for her new wallet.  With the fabric still laying on my cutting board, I thought I would give a new bag a try.  It's a pretty simple zippered bag, but it was fun to tackle.  There are a few things I want to tweak though.

The zipper was one I had left over from Hannah's wallet. I bought 2 in the event that I messed up because it's been a while since I have put a zipper into anything, and if you know me, I usually mess up the first time.  Thankfully they worked perfectly for this little bag and her wallet, the first time.

I have also been diligently working on the final leg of my Cactus Flower shawl.  This is one of 18 panels that is left to complete before I am finished.  I did the first one last night and I will work on another, maybe two if I can tonight.

It's a lot of work, but the pattern is an enjoyable one to knit, so when I settle in to watch a little tv at night, I find that this is my go to project to work on.  Lots of concentration involved, so not much talking happens while I am working on it, which is not always a bad thing.
  Ken would probably agree. 😉

This week's Ten on Tuesday's topic is:
Ten Things You Do To Get Your Home Ready for Fall.

We are quickly rolling into my most favorite time of year…Autumn!  I love everything about it.  The chilly nights and early mornings, the smell of wood-stoves and leaves burning.  It brings me right back to being that little girl who loved to jump in the leaves, or crunching through them as I walked along to school.

So this is what I do to get ready for fall..

1.  Pull up all of the perennials and put most of the vegetable garden to rest.

2.  Plant some festive fall plantings, with Mums and fall cabbages.

3.  Fall clean this old house.  I'm not always great at this one, but I really do try to scrub out one room from top to bottom and wash all of the windows.

4.  Make big pots of soup, stew and homemade biscuits….Mmmm.

5.  Enjoy the AMAZING foliage that I am so fortunate to be surrounded by here in the mountains.

6.  Apples and apple picking.  Apples are the best this time of year!

7.  Fryeburg Fair and now I get to go for a day because I only work the last weekend, not the entire week.

8.  Wool socks.  I love when I get to pull out the hand made socks again.

9.  Bring out the Autumn decorations and fire up the cider candles

10.  ..and lastly, enjoy each and every day as Fall is short up here in the Mountains, so each day is a gift!

What do you do to get ready for fall?

 

Make your every move count.
Pick your target and hit it.
Perfect concentration means
Effortless flowing.
Deng Ming~Dao

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that perfect concentration is not something that comes easy for me and is usually why I hesitate to do join alongs. 
The time that I took away from the internet and social media this summer went a long way with helping me to stay a bit more focused, so I decided to take an online class that starts in a few weeks.

The class is a photography processing class called Start To Finish and is taught by Kim Klassen.  I do own a class of hers and have found her teaching methods easy to follow along with.  Because the class I already have is a go at your own pace class it was easy for me to not stay with it and forever forgetting what I had learned..aggh.  It proved to be very frustrating for me.  (how ironic the name of this new class is for me..ha)

This time I am going to do the class with a group, which I know I will be more likely to stay with it.  One of the reasons I am taking this class is because I want to completely revamp my website.  I want to learn how to take better pictures and more importantly come up with a logo that I will be proud of.

So in trying to have all of my ducks in a row ahead of time instead of my typical rush the day or night before, I have downloaded Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom using their new Creative Cloud and set about cleaning all of my lenses and my camera.

 A while back my brother who is a fantastic photographer recommended some affordable and a few that were a little bit of a stretch lenses to me for my camera bag.  I had the sensor on my older Nikon D300 professionally cleaned and I used this video to clean the lenses.  Wow, what a difference.  You don't realize how dirty they can get. 
Norman has a great website, go check it out!

So, I am really looking forward to this class and hope that I not only learn some new things, but hope that my cluttery brain can retain it this time around!

I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend in your corner of the world!

Today's Ten on Tuesday's subject is 10 Books That Have Stayed With Me Long After I’ve Read Them.

One of the nicest things about this summer has been reconnecting with my love of reading.  As a child, I was friends with a lot of kids who spent their summers at camp or vacation with their families.  My family wasn't able to do that, so reading filled my long summer days.  I used to love to read in a tree in front of our house or spend hot summer days in our local library.  I read so much that the librarians actually allowed me to go into the adult section a year before it was normally allowed as I had plowed through most of the junior books.  Back then I so wanted to be a Librarian, I just loved my local Librarians. 🙂

Here are some of the books that were memorable ones for me.  These are not listed in any specific order, but they are ones that left a memory for me.  Some of these books carried me through stressful/challenging times in my life or happy quiet ones, so I won't get into the descriptions other than to say I would still read each one of them again today, and many of them have been read many times.

1.  Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd

2.  The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein

3.  The Diary of Anne Frank, words written by Anne Frank, retrieved by Miep Gies

4.  In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

5.  The Executioner's Song, by Norman Mailer

6.  Pearl, by Tabitha King

7.  Go Ask Alice, by Beatrice Sparks

8.  The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath

9.  The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

10. The Stand, by Stephen King

11.  365 Days of Tao, by Deng Ming~Dao  (I almost forgot my most favorite!)

and a few favorite summer mindless beach movie reads from my teen years, both read before I saw the movies and both books were so much better than the movies….

1.  The Poseidan Adventure byPaul Gallico
2.  Jaws, by Peter Benchley

There are so many more, I could go on and on, but thankfully it's Ten on Tuesday. 🙂

 

It's been a while since I have been here to visit with you all.  I decided to take some time away from the internet and social media to concentrate on enjoying some of the things that I find I find I no longer have time for.  In reality it's because I spend too much time sitting in front of my computer reading about what everyone else is doing and then time just slips away…whoosh!

Ken and I had an extremely enjoyable summer.  The weather in New England was near perfect this year.  For our 20th anniversary we purchased a pair of kayaks and we had so much fun exploring the lakes around us here in NH and the on bays and beaches of Mashpee, Ma while on vacation.  We have seen Osprey, Great Blue Herons, Green Herons and Egrets…such a peaceful way to spend a day on the water.

Many days before I headed out to the studio to work, I spent an hour floating in my little ghetto pool reading.  Before the internet, I always had my nose in a book, it's what got me through so many summers when I was young and my friends all went to camp.  I got lost in the stories that I read and this summer it was so nice to do that again.  I read 5 books floating in that pool and enjoyed every single page!

 

I spent quality time with my grandchildren, all 5 of them, which was the best treat of the summer.  They grow up so quickly, so each visit is a cherished visit!

I spent time knitting and gardening without too much distraction, which was a blessing and we spent a week at our favorite place on Cape Cod with dear friends. 
It has been such a wonderful summer and has renewed my spirit for the seasons to come. 
Today's post was going to be a much different one, but I think I will leave that for another day later this week.  I felt moved to share a bit of my summer with you all and I hope that you enjoyed yours as well!

I will leave you with my most favorite Vivaldi piece on Summer….I just love hearing the buzz of the late Summer circadia bugs that are now being replaced by the hushed sounds of the crickets welcoming in Autumn.

A moving door hinge never corrodes.
Flowing water never grows stagnant.
Deng Ming~Dao

Well, it has been a little while hasn't it?  I have had so many things I have wanted to share with you but at the end of the day I have been so blessed tired. Any one who knows me knows that I am really not much of a morning person, so my writing brain is not very cooperative until I have had a few cups of coffee and then it is time for work. (darn work!) I used to be such a night person, but that productivity period in my day is slowly shrinking…ha!

I actually have knit a few things, but the one thing I have enjoyed more than any of the other knits has been the Mystery Shawl designed by Kirsten of Through The Loops. 

As you now know, it was ten years ago that I started blogging and many of my closest and dearest friends are those who I came to know as a new blogger all those years ago.  When Kirsten announced her Mystery Shawl, one of those friends, Margene of the Zeneedle blog, mentioned that she was going to knit this shaw. One by one, those of us who have been knitbloggers for what feels like a very long time decided to join along. We create a facebook group to chat and support each other as we knit this beautiful shawl….and what fun we have had!  Such a gift that has reminded me of  those very first days of bogging all those years ago!

Knitting along with my friends made me realize how much I love these blog friends whose friendhip I cherish.  We have had a lot of fun knitting through the struggles and the victories of this challenging pattern…so much so that we are going to contnue knitting along with each other on another project.

The little quote above really says it all.  Flowing water never grows stagnent and the friendships I have made though blogging for me is flowing water. 
I am always thankful for the friendships and the knowlege I have gained on this journey.

Deb!  Congratulations!!  I will send you an email for your address.

I just want to thank each and every one of you who commented.  It meant SO much to me to read your kind words.  I have THE very best readers here!!

On to the next ten years. 🙂