Thursday, October 20, 2016

Autumn Splendor

We have had a most gorgeous fall season in Western New York. After a summer of drought folks thought the leaves would just turn brown and fall, but instead the hillsides have been even more brilliant than usual.  Now, at just a little past our peak season, this is the view from the deck outside our bedroom just after dawn a couple days ago.
in the early morning mist

Later in the day when the fog began to lift the colors brightened.


I had hoped to finish this

in time for an outdoor photoshoot here

but the winds and rain have arrived.  Today and tomorrow will be soggy, with nearly 4 inches of rain predicted for the next 48 hours or so, followed by colder weather over the weekend.  And colder and wet means the possibility of that other nasty form of precipitation and an end to our gorgeous fall colors.  

But rainy days bring more time in the sewing room, and with any luck the quilting will be completed on the baby quilt later today, and the binding cut and sewn on tomorrow.   I took Debbie's excellent suggestion and quilted a simple leaf and loop design across the pinwheel blocks.  The deer panels have a shallow scallop motif, suggesting their bounding through the forest.  A simple cross-hatch in the squares of the outer border and the quilting will be finished.

As I was outside raking leaves and hauling wheelbarrow loads of them to the gardens, my thoughts returned to years past ... the 1950s in fact ... when I was a youngster in a small town in western NY. In those days before municipal leaf pickup, we and our neighborhood friends would eagerly rake all the leaves to the edge of the street. At dusk they would be set afire by our dads, much to the delight of us kids who would gather up handfuls of hickory nuts to throw into the fire, then run back 10 or 20 feet and wait for them to explode.  Better than fireworks!  And for the record, no eyes were put out in the performance of this crazy stunt, much to the relief of our mothers!

Is it any wonder that fall is my favorite season?!


8 comments:

Debbie said...

You have beautiful color.....we are still warm and waiting for cooler weather and rain! The leaf quilting looks great...and I love the scallops for the bounding deer.

Needled Mom said...

Wow.....those colors are stunning! We don't have the beautiful colors in our area so I always love seeing them in photos. I suppose 4" of rain will take its toll. Why don't you send the rain to us???? Save your colors and help us out at the same time!!!

Barbara said...

Gorgeous leaves. 4 inches in 48 hours? Wow...now you're talking flooding. Any danger of that where you are?

Janet O. said...

Such beautiful color! We had an extremely hot and dry summer and our color has not been up to par. Wonder how you got around that? : )
That is a lot of rain--this past weekend we had just over 2" in 48 hours and that seemed like a lot of rain. Can't imagine double that!
You will be finished quilting the baby quilt in no time!

Sherrill said...

WOW!! What a beautiful view off your deck. So JEALOUS!! But so NOT jealous of your winters! HA I HATE the cold. I'm still in flip flops and capris and hope to be for a time longer.

Kyle said...

The colors have definitely been gorgeous this year. Even here in dry Colorado. I had expected the same thing about brown leaves and just falling off. The colors of your quilt matches those beautiful leaves. Hopefully, they will still be looking good for a photo shoot. I love the smell of burning leaves. I have good memories about that too.

Ruth said...

What a beautiful view you have from your deck! We love our location, but don't have that view. The fall here has been lovely but now we've had a lot of rain and wind that has blown down a lot of the leaves. They were beautiful while they lasted!

Lara B. said...

Such a beautiful scene from your deck! It must lift your heart every time you see it. Autumn is my favorite season too.

Times have sure changed. We used to burn our leaves too. My Mom singed her eyebrows right off. :o