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?!