Lake Conestee Enlistee

Another string of cool, beautiful mornings and more hiking!  This weekend we went to Lake Conestee, a 400-acre nature park near Greenville.  Lots of small streams and bogs, which I love.

Much evidence of beavers...

...but no sightings.   We did see lots of great blue herons.

Even some heron nests!

Of course, lots of turtles.

Now that the weather is cooling, the juniper berries are starting to darken up.

Beautyberries are everywhere!

There's even some wisteria flowers left.  This one makes a great resting spot for a green shield bug.

Plenty of sweet autumn clematis blooming, too!

Lots of vines.

A very few leaves have started to turn.  I'm guessing we have a solid 6 weeks before we see any real change.

Of course, spiders are more active in the fall, and I saw some real beauties on our hike.  Here is a pregnant wolf spider:

This is the biggest striped garden spider that I've ever seen!

We caught this spiny-backed orb weaver in the process of making her web.  What a beauty!

We hiked a solid 5 miles before the humidity became uncomfortable.  I'm looking forward to the weeks ahead, when the temperatures will be even cooler.  Meanwhile, our cats are reacting to the stimulating temperatures in their usual way:

Have a great week!

My-my-my-my Corona

Since I feel pretty secure with knitting and purling in the Portuguese style, I thought I'd try a stranded yarn project.  Something small - a pair of fingerless mittens.  I watched videos and bent two large paper clips to tension the yarn through, one on either side of my collar.  I'm afraid it was too much of a fiddly mess for me, and I ended up knitting the second mitten the traditional way.

But ouch, my fingers!  Thankfully, I discovered a product called a "Norwegian knitting thimble," which is a miniature metal coil that slides over your index finger.  It has two jutting coils that your yarn strands feed through, and thus your yarn is tensioned without smashing your fingers together too tightly.  Apparently this works for stranded knitting as well - one color of yarn in each coil.  I'll be excited to try this when my thimble arrives!

In other fiber news, Todd and I went to a quilt show this weekend.  I was interested in the color, detail, and design of the quilts...

...but mainly I was interested in the actual quilting.  I noticed that most people used a design called stippling, which is basically random squiggles across the fabric.  It's not a style that appeals to me, so I was glad to see many other designs implemented.

I even got to see a long-arm quilting machine in action.

One of these babies will set you back between $3500 and $5000!  You can program in an overall design and the machine will go to work, or you can grip the handles and quilt your own.  The idea of having so much space and freedom is really appealing, but the price tag is not.  For now, I'll stick to my cramped home machine.

We saw the full eclipse!  Here's the corona.

I didn't use a solar filter, just the iPhone.  I loved seeing the 360 degree sunset, then total darkness for almost 3 minutes!  A man near us in the parking lot where we waited had flown in from Denmark just for those 3 minutes.  He got in his car and headed back to Atlanta for his outgoing flight right after the sun came back out.  It just emphasized how special this experience really was!

Here at the house, we're still seeing swarms of hummingbirds.

Our red-tailed hawk continues to perch around the property, and thankfully he's grown out of his adolescent squawks!

Our average heat index has been between 95 and 100 degrees, and it's pretty unpleasant.  Even in Indiana, August is my least favorite month, and the last 2 weeks of August are always the worst.  My yearly ritual has begun.  "Look, the season must be advancing.  The sweet autumn clematis is in bloom."

"Nandina berries are taking on their blush."

"Beauty berries are in full color."

It's still tough, though.  At least we can enjoy the color...

...and take heart in the rapidly-shifting calendar pages, even if we can't feel an actual change.

And hey, we're always enjoy the antics of our indoor cats, even though most of those antics are relatively sedate.

Here's hoping for cooler days ahead.  Have a great week!

It's Hip to be SQUARE

More lovely signs of fall, although our temperatures remain in the mid-90s.  Cooler mornings.  Earlier sunsets.  More cues from plants, like our alliums, just ready to pop open. 

Our sweet autumn clematis is in full bloom.  It's much more prolific this year because of the additional sunshine it's received since our tree debacle.

Rain is still infrequent, but definitely happens more than it did during our long drought summer.  I love to see mushrooms popping up after a storm.

Our front beds are also beneficiaries of a new pattern of sunlight.  Would you believe that I did not plant ANY of these flowers?

I planted this vinca, an annual, last year.  In one small spot.  It did not thrive because of the shade, but it reseeded nicely and spread down through the beds.  It even jumped across the driveway!

I've just left it alone.  It's welcome to spread where it wants to!

I haven't seen our goz in about a month. 

I tell myself that they're off "training" somewhere else, getting stronger, getting used to flying, and they'll be back in a few weeks.  We always see a lot of geese here, so I'll have to be patient.  Todd did see a turkey yesterday, and I saw a stray cat sleeping on the stairs outside our sun room this morning.  I always see a lot of strays here in the fall.

When I got a little closer, I could see that he was injured on his face and around his neck.  He was a grizzled old fellow!

The Chamberlains were on the cusp of adopting a fourth pet.  I brought him some food and water, which he inhaled greedily.  Then he loped off into the woods.  I remember seeing this little guy last year, too.  He's a die-hard stray.  I'll keep an eye out for him, though, and may start setting out food.

Our lazy cats don't know how lucky they are!

I started my new quilt last week and I am really moving along with it!  I decided to pre-cut my pieces.  Since the quilt is paper-pieced, I didn't need exact measurements, but I eyeballed my triangles and rectangles, mentally added my 1/4" seam allowance, and cut generous-sized pieces.  It only took one evening to cut everything out. 

I employed an assembly line process.  Each block is made up of four smaller squares.  So, I took four pieces of my pre-printed pattern and sewed the first 2 fabric pieces onto each of them, and then piece #3, and so on.

I was able to finish a whole 4-piece square pretty quickly.

The side half stars line up with the same on adjacent squares to form full stars.

I love it!

I got this done in just 3 days!  The blocks aren't sewn together yet because I'm not sure how big it's going to be.  The fabric was pretty expensive so I may just work through what I have and see if I'm satisfied with a comfy couch throw or if I want to go all the way with a quilt for our bed.  Right now I'm thinking couch throw, because I'd want to do something more simple for a bed quilt (two main colors, I think).  But I love making this.  For once, I've done everything in the proper way.  I washed and ironed each fabric.  I iron flat each seam after sewing.  If I'm off, even by a little bit, when joining 2 of the 4 squares together, I take them apart and try again.  I really want to do a good job!  It's a fun fall project.

Have a great week!