Autumn is here

I posted this blog before but this year with so many events closed and feeling very isolated because of the Covid virus, I needed to remind myself that things do naturally change and have fun with that change. 

Autumn is here.  You can tell by the cooler weather, the falling leaves, the harvest of apples and pumpkins, the falling leaves, the shorter amount of daylight, the falling leaves, the Halloween decorations, and, of course, the falling of leaves.   What is also here is seasonal fun. 

To me fall is here when I see caramel apples in the grocery store and rows of potted mums near the parking lot.  I love to see the trees change colors.  Where I grew up in Green Bay Wisconsin there was a park behind my Mother’s house.  It was filled with maple trees, which would turn the most beautiful red and gold every year.  I still to this day can’t decided if I liked the color of the trees against a blue clear or gray cloudy sky.  Each sky changed the hue of the leaves just a little.  

I was always thought to be crazy because I enjoy raking leaves.  Still do.  It allowed me to be outdoors in cool crisp weather.  I love the smell of the air while raking – it was fresh and earthy.  And there is something meditative about pulling the rake back and forth as I worked across the lawn.  I love to rake; I hate to bag the leaves.  I always wanted to do what writer and psychologist Leo Buscaglia talked about doing.  He liked walking through piles of leaves so much he wanted to bring them into his house.  It’s not so crazy, he would add, when you think that people bring whole trees into their house at Christmas. So what’s a few leaves.  And as he would say, “I am not asking you to clean them up.

Autumn provides a wonderful way to have fun.  It is time for outdoor activities now that the heat of summer has passed.  Why do we need to bag up the leaves?  Put them in a big pile in the middle of your yard and jump in them.  Take a handful and throw them up in the air like confetti.  Roll around in them until your hair is tangled in leaves (you might want that as your Halloween costume.) 

Of course Halloween is the highlight of autumn fun.   Halloween was originally associated with death and the supernatural, falling on the eve of All Saint’s Day, a holy holiday for Catholics and Anglicans.  Now it is a day of fun and parties and dressing up in costume.  It allows children of all ages to fantasize.  I have never been a costume person but my favorite one was an old sheet and a plastic mask to be a friendly ghost when I was about 7. I have liked ghosts ever since.  

I remember that holiday as one where my mother created my brother Jim and my costumes.  I can see her on our living room floor copying in white paint the design of a skeleton on to a black costume she’d sewn for Jim.  I know it was a lot of work but my guess is that she enjoyed doing that much more than buying a store bought costume. 

Autumn and Halloween is when you can have fun and try your hand at something new.  Carve a different face on the pumpkin you bought.  Roast the pumpkin seeds if you have never done that. Try a little bit of costume designing of your own.  Dance a jig in the pile of leaves you have in the back yard (and when you are done, rake them to a corner of the yard and let them decompose through the winter into compost. It will be great for your garden in the spring.) Decorate your house with goblins and ghouls or leaves and gourds.  Try some new apple or pumpkin recipes.  Let the season into your house and life. 

Autumn is here and it can be fun.  So try something new and creative.

© 2016, 2020 – Cheryl Fillion

 

The Little Red Tomato

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I enjoy needle felting.  I also enjoy tomatoes.  Those two subjects seem a bit unrelated, don’t they?  Not if you needle felt little red tomatoes like I do.

If you want a little red felted tomato, you need to start with red roving.  Now you can make your tomato entirely of red roving but I like to start with a polyester batting base.  Why have nice red roving hidden in the center of your tomato where it can’t be seen?  I usually try with sculptured items to start with a plain base or polyester or wool batting. 

So gather a bunch of either wool batting or even cheaper still polyester batting (Yeah like you use in pillows.).  I usually start with a ball that is twice the size of what I imagine the finished item to be.  As you needle felt it, it will shrink down and become firm.  Roll it in your hands to start forming the ball you want.  Rolling it in your hand actually starts bonding the fibers together and then start felting.

batting

Keep felting until you get the size and shape you want with your ball. If you need to add more batting, wrap more  around the shape and felt it in.

batting shape

Once you have the base the shape you want, now comes the fun part, adding the color.  I started laying strips of red roving onto the ball base and just felted it in until it was all covered.

completely covered

adding red roving

This next step is optional.  Since you have a ball, it is likely to roll around.  If you want your tomato to stay in one place, find an area on the tomato and start felting over and over in that place (usually about an inch in diameter is a big enough area).  The more you felt there, the flatter the area will be so when you set your tomato down, it won’t roll.

Flattening bottom

All tomatoes have a little leaf and stem part that attaches to the vine.  So will this tomato.

Take a small amount of a green roving and place it on your foam.  It doesn’t have to be a lot – maybe 2” by 2”.  Make it a little bigger than the size you want your leaves to be.  Then place another piece of roving crosswise to the first piece and start felting.

                   

                                                                                      

leaf roving

leaf roving 2

                                  

felted leaf roving

Keep felting until all the fibers seem to be bonded and there are not any thin spots that you can see through.  Add more roving if you need to. You want to have somewhat of a square shape.  When you are ready, cut your leaves.  I don’t use a pattern but you can make one and use.  I take one side of my leaf square and cut out a triangle. I do that on each side so in the end I have a 4 sided star.  It’s OK if it is a little lopsided.  Not all leaves in nature are perfectly symmetrical.

cutting roving for leaves

cutting roving for leaves 2

finished leaves

Now with your tomato find the area opposite your flat surface.   We are looking for the top and felt a little indentation.    This will help the leaves and stem felt into the tomato easier.  Place the center of your leaf star over the indentation and felt it in until it is attached.  Some of the leaf points may stick out or up.  You can leave them like that (since that is often what real leaves do) or you can felt them to the tomato.  Just give it a couple of pokes at each point to attach it.

indentation for leaves

Adding leaves

         

attaching tips of leaves

Now for the stem.  I am one who does not like to waste anything so I usually take a couple of pieces the cutaway of the felted green from the leaves and start to form them into a stem.  I start with two of the triangles and roll them together in a rounded rod shape.   Just as you did with the tomato ball above, roll these pieces between your palms to start the rod shape.   Once you have a good shape, start felting to make the roving look like a stem and also make it firmer.  You wanted it to be a little bigger at one end so it looks more like a stem.

finishing stem

starting stem

                        

Once you have it the shape you like, put the bigger end in the indentation of the leaves and start felting.  You might want to put your needle in on an angle to get through the stem and into the tomato.  But remember to pull your needle out the same way you put it in so it doesn’t bend or break.

attaching stem

Once your stem is secure (I usually pick it up by the stem and shake the tomato.  If the stem stays on, it is secure.), you have a little red (felted) tomato.  It is a great summer decoration or a wonderful gift for a farmer or tomato lover.

The Little Red Tomato

©2017    Cheryl Fillion

Nature 2 - Earth Day

This weekend one of my favorite holidays occurs.  Oh it isn't one that will be marked in red on the calendar - some calendars don't even include it.  And the banks won't close and the mail will still be delivered. But it honors a very important figure in our lives - Mother Earth.  April 22 is Earth Day.

A couple of months back I wrote about how important it was for us to get out in nature.  With the cold weather leaving, this weekend is your perfect chance.  Contact with nature increases our health, our mental well-being and our creativity.   It slows us down and focuses our awareness on something other than ourselves and other than the fast pace we are all living in.

If you get a chance, take a walk with Mother Earth.  Notice her beauty, her nurturing qualities in the flowers, trees, and animals.  Also notice what we do to her when we don't care - the pollution, the littering, and the tearing up of her form.  How we treat her is exactly how we treat ourselves.  When we don't care, we pollute ourselves with unhealthy things, we litter our minds with noise and busyness and we don't allow ourselves the rest and relaxation that would bring about calm and creativity.

Spend some time in nature this weekend and treat yourselves with love and kindness by extending that time to every day of the year.  Talk a walk, take a picnic, take care of yourself and Mother Earth

There is a patch of woods I know

where I walk

and look and feel.

It's along a road where cars

speed by on their way to

somewhere else.

Driving by you watch

the road and other traffic,

out of the corner of your eye

this wooded strip is always

green and never changing.

But if you walk it, as I do daily,

you see that nothing is the same.

That every day a new miracle appears.

One day you pass to see

tiny little branches coming

from the leaf strewn earth

Start of new trees, you think.

After all they resemble the cluster

of leaves above which shade you.

But then a day or two later this

tiny branch is home to

a yellow flower. You had

not even seen a bud the day before,

Yet here is a little cup of sunshine.

Yesterday there were berries --

deep wine colored berry clusters growing

on variegated vines along the ground.

Today they are gone. Probably

dessert last night for

a family of birds or mice.

Grass grows tall along the edge

of the road.

The grass stalks are the ones

that as children, we would place

between our fingers

and whistle.

Look closer and you will find

a thread vine twisting

the blade, hugging tightly the grass

like two long lost friends

not wanting to part.

Morning glories blooming blue in a

patch near a maple tree.

Are they wild

or did someone drop seeds out

a car window as they sped by.

What is this?

Back along the tree line

is a row of plants.

Prickly stems and leaves protecting

a cluster of buds.

I wonder what they'll look like.

Maybe tomorrow they will open

and peek at me.

As I turn and head for home

sure that I have seen

all the treasures my patch

has to give me,

I come upon a rare

stem of yellow asters,

daisy like flowers I've only

seen in white and purple.

I would have missed it had

I not turned around.

A car passes me, speeding

to an adventure unknown,

too fast to see my tiny

yellow asters.

Too bad for the driver,

for all they see is a blur of green.

poem ©  1999 Cheryl Fillion

blog © 2017– Cheryl Fillion

Autumn is Here

Autumn is here.  You can tell by the cooler weather, the falling leaves, the harvest of apples and pumpkins, the falling leaves, the shorter amount of daylight, the falling leaves, the Halloween decorations, and, of course, the falling of leaves.   What is also here is seasonal fun.

To me fall is here when I see caramel apples in the grocery store and rows of potted mums near the parking lot.  I love to see the trees change colors.  Where I grew up in Green Bay Wisconsin there was a park behind my Mother’s house.  It was filled with maple trees, which would turn the most beautiful red and gold every year.  I still to this day can’t decided if I liked the color of the trees against a blue clear or gray cloudy sky.  Each sky changed the hue of the leaves just a little. 

I was always thought to be crazy because I enjoy raking leaves.  Still do.  It allowed me to be outdoors in cool crisp weather.  I love the smell of the air while raking – it was fresh and earthy.  And there is something meditative about pulling the rake back and forth as I worked across the lawn.  I love to rake; I hate to bag the leaves.  I always wanted to do what writer and psychologist Leo Buscaglia talked about doing.  He liked walking through piles of leaves so much he wanted to bring them into his house.  It’s not so crazy, he would add, when you think that people bring whole trees into their house at Christmas. So what’s a few leaves.  And as he would say, “I am not asking you to clean them up.”

Autumn provides a wonderful way to have fun.  It is time for outdoor activities now that the heat of summer has passed.  Why do we need to bag up the leaves?  Put them in a big pile in the middle of your yard and jump in them.  Take a handful and throw them up in the air like confetti.  Roll around in them until your hair is tangled in leaves (you might want that as your Halloween costume.)

Of course Halloween is the highlight of autumn fun.   Halloween was originally associated with death and the supernatural, falling on the eve of All Saint’s Day, a holy holiday for Catholics and Anglicans.  Now it is a day of fun and parties and dressing up in costume.  It allows children of all ages to fantasize.  I have never been a costume person but my favorite one was an old sheet and a plastic mask to be a friendly ghost when I was about 7. I have liked ghosts ever since. 

I remember that holiday as one where my mother created my brother Jim and my costumes.  I can see her on our living room floor copying in white paint the design of a skeleton on to a black costume she’d sewn for Jim.  I know it was a lot of work but my guess is that she enjoyed doing that much more than buying a store bought costume.

Autumn and Halloween is when you can have fun and try your hand at something new.  Carve a different face on the pumpkin you bought.  Roast the pumpkin seeds if you have never done that. Try a little bit of costume designing of your own.  Dance a jig in the pile of leaves you have in the back yard (and when you are done, rake them to a corner of the yard and let them decompose through the winter into compost. It will be great for your garden in the spring.) Decorate your house with goblins and ghouls or leaves and gourds.  Try some new apple or pumpkin recipes.  Let the season into your house and life.

Autumn is here and it can be fun.  So try something new and creative.

 Stuffed Fabric Pumpkins 

 Autumn Fabric

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© 2016 – Cheryl Fillion