Clara - Finished!

I popped over to Art of Fabric in Pickering last weekend to look for the thread I needed to finish Clara's ears.  It wasn't in my stash, but judging from the other colours I did have, I thought it was probably DMC 841 that I needed.  Wrong!  It was a good thing I brought everything along with me to the store.  It turned out to be DMC 3864.

The new thread looked ever so slightly darker.  I used one old thread and one new thread together in the needle to blend out the transition, and I don't think you can see it at all on the finished piece.

I gave you a bit of a close up in the photo above so you can see the Algerian eyelets in the waistband, and the great shading you get from the Sampler Threads in the blouse.  The light blue squares are Morning Glory, the green ones are Evergreen, the purple is Hyacinth, and the pink is Victorian Pink.  The dark indigo of the apron is Midnight, and the lighter indigo of the skirt is Blue Jay.  The inside of the ears and the hearts on the apron are Cameo Pink.

Because I decided not to use any of the charms in the kit, I added another heart to the band on the apron (see below), and just used French knots for the buttons on both Clara and Henry.

Once they were both done, I saw that Henry was actually a little taller than Clara:

The plan is to set them both into pillow covers.  Given the great faded indigo look of the Sampler Threads, I think I will sacrifice some old jeans and make the covers out of denim.  I am glad the flood uncovered them. Clara was a fun and easy project, and I think they make a nice couple!

Fall Colours

In Japan they have started their Koyo reports, so I thought it would be fun to do the same for around here.  It is still a little early for fall colours in Southern Ontario, but I did get some nice shots.  Last weekend my mom and I drove up Lakeridge Road, past Hy-Hope Farm, around to Uxbridge, and then back home.

Some of my favourite shots are always of the ditches beside the road:

In the foreground are the purple fall asters, with goldenrod and sumac bushes further back.  I always think these would be a great colourway for a Fair Isle sweater in the style of Alice Starmore!

The sumac puts on a consistent show every year...

...and the purple asters and goldenrod are a nice contrast on their own too:

Even the new invasive grasses have their charm:

It was difficult to find more than a single tree here and there that had changed colour.  This hillside by Dagmar ski resort looked great in the sun:

I must admit that the above photo has been enhanced somewhat to get the colours to pop, because by the time I got the car stopped and the camera out, the sky was doing this:

Hy-Hope Farm on Lakeridge Road was busy.

Out front were many photogenic bushels of produce from the fall harvest:

Inside we bought a couple of butter tarts and some apple pie for later.  Their pie has always been good, but this time the crust was particularly nice, crisp and flaky.

Then we continued around up to Uxbridge.  I've been nostalgic recently for some small town Ontario scenery after watching The Cry of the Owl on tv, which was filmed nearby in Port Perry.  Uxbridge is very typical too:

You can click any of the photos to see them larger.  Uxbridge supports both a good knitting shop, On the Lamb on the main road, and a great quilting shop, the Quilters Cupboard, on the edge of town.  It was my first time at the Quilters Cupboard, and I was very impressed with the selection, especially of small prints and Civil War reproductions, which I have been hankering for recently.  I have been realizing that my stash has too many large prints!  Unfortunately there was a shop hop going on when we were there, so the place was packed.  But it will definitely be worth the drive to go back.

It will still be a couple of weeks before our own maples change colour, so it was nice to get a preview.  A great day!