Autumn Love

I love Autumn.  I love the cooler weather, the changing leaves and all their brilliant colors, Halloween, outdoor festivals and craft shows, comfort foods such as chili and hot dishes made in the crock pot, and of course, decorating the house with the warm, inviting colors of the season.  Autumn is easily my favorite time of year, followed closely by Spring.  After the heat of Summer in the South, the cooler temperatures and crisp breezes of Fall are very welcome.  As I sit typing this morning, it's about 55 degrees and should warm to around 67 degrees by this afternoon.  Love that crisp chill in the air!  

This time of year seems to make me want to engage in more arts and crafts.  I've been busy working on several projects over the past couple of weeks, some cross-stitch related, others are rag wreaths and other projects.  My good friend Kim is expecting her 2nd daughter any day now and I'm working with another fellow crafter to create a cross-stitch quilt for baby Samantha's nursery.  The room is being decorated with a butterfly theme in lavenders and pinks.  I found a cute pattern from Gail Bussi in one of my "The World of Cross Stitching" magazines (WOCS) called "Flutterby Trio".  I changed a few colors around and added metallic thread and iridescent filament to give it a little sparkle.  I've been working on the cross-stitch portion while my partner has been picking out matching fabric to create the quilt.  So far, I've finished one butterfly completely and have two others partially finished.  I really hope that Kim and baby Sam will love it.

I've also been busy trying to decorate my fireplace mantle for the season.  As I mentioned before, I love the warm colors of Autumn and I also love Halloween.  I wanted a mantle that didn't necessarily scream Halloween and could stay up even after the holiday but definitely had elements from this favorite holiday.  I decided to use one of my framed Halloween cross-stitch pieces and one of our many "scary" buildings from my husband's Halloween village.  We have a ton of these but I only chose one to go over the fireplace.  The rest are packed up pending our move to Charleston.  I think it came out pretty well and we are definitely enjoying it each evening.