New Beginnings

The trees in my garden can't decide if it's spring or autumn. Leaves are turning golden and falling off (job for the men of the house to rake up this weekend). But other leaves are hanging on for dear life as the sun has made a bit of a comeback. To be honest, I'm a spring and autumn kind of girl. I don't like being too hot and I hate being cold, so I'm really quite enjoying our strange weather just now.

I was sitting on the back step this morning, seriously considering taking a day off to go out and play but my sensible side took over and after a quick snap of the tree I went in and opened the shop.

Tomorrow is 1st October which is the official start date for my OU creative writing course. Thoughts of "Oh dear, what have I signed up for?" are running round my head and I am beginning to think I just might be mad. Please feel free to tell me that I'm not.

Anyway, I have a massive coursework book to get through which is really quite daunting. The first chapter is trying to encourage free thinking, and free writing by basically waffling in a random way. Now I have been known to waffle quite a bit in my time so this shouldn't really be too taxing should it ?

Mind you, waffling to order isn't as simple as it sounds and I have written a load of nonsense in my new "writer's notebook" this week. Looking at my tree this morning though, made me wonder if I might be getting the hang of  it. There I was in my little garden in Perthshire with my mind drifting off to Port Douglas in Queensland. We had a fantastic holiday there a few years ago and took a boat trip into the mangroves where we learned about special trees which can absorb sea water through their roots and still survive. I have no idea what these trees were called. I could google it of course but I'll leave that to anyone interested enough to do it themselves. However, these trees had special leaves which absorbed the salt from the water so that the other leaves could grow healthy and green. Our guide called them 'sacrificial leaves' which I think sounds so sad, yet totally amazing at the same time. Oh... and we saw sea eagles and crocodiles too x

Que Sera Sera ....

What ever will be will be...

And whatever doesn't turn out the way I planned will just have to be taken apart and started again.

It's been a funny couple of weeks around here.

After the rush and excitement of Open Studios it all felt a bit flat for a week or so.

I'm just about back in my stride again and looking ahead to what my customers might want for Christmas. We are being told by the weather forecasters that we are in for another harsh winter so I'm hooking up a storm and crocheting the days away. At the last count there were another dozen cosy hats waiting to keep out the winter chill. So how annoying do you think it is to find that the country is being treated to an "Indian Summer" ?

The "boys on the bridge" assure us that the snow will be coming early this year so maybe I should just stick to the original plan for hats, mits, ear warmers and cosy scarfs. Mind you I do have a cute pattern for a crocheted bikini.

Crochet and Crowds

I wouldn't really describe myself as an extrovert but I have been learning this week that I am  bit of a show off at heart.

We are now half way through Perthshire Open Studios and I'm having  a ball. It's so nice to have so many visitors to the shop who are genuinely interested in what I make, how I make it and where I get my ideas from.

I've been trying to have little projects on the go all week so that I can have something to demonstrate for my visitors. Crocheting bracelets has proved to be a crowd pleaser. Of course you can't keep doing the same thing over and over without getting just a little bit bored so I looked out a crochet book with a section on edging patterns and came across this one. It looks rather nice in gold and silver coloured wires with little glass pearls. I may be biased.... but I do rather like this one.

There are loads of creative people showing off all over Perthshire. Just look HERE and see.

And for the rest of the world just look HERE and visit Our Creative Spaces