Come sit with me a minute, and we'll chat over a cup of tea......It occured to me that while I am striving to bring you lovely pictures that I have styled and taken myself, in the meantime, I could share with you some of the lovely images I have collected in my clip art file. Most are free samples I have downloaded from Dover...you can go there too and get on the e-mail list. They send links to free samples every Friday.

I am very partial to old-fashioned nostalgic images, the more sentimental, the better....

I also love to save images of lovely fabrics....

It costs less than buying the fabric, and takes up less room, but you can't fondle and let it inspire you to make something with it right away.

Today, we did more yardwork, raking leaves to be exact. The sky was crystal clear with only lilting breezes, which didn't interfere with the work at hand. It was about 60 degrees, just cool enough to be comfortable as we exerted ourselves.

I took pictures, but you've already seen some from last week, and none are as cute as this. Remember push mowers? Much quieter, but far more work.... I want a green dress like this one with tiny puffed sleeves and a little white Peter Pan collar. Of course, I'd have to bob my hair like that. It's actually close now but without the bangs. And it's blonde. I wouldn't complain about the red dress either.

Here is a picture I took today. Self-portrait in shadow. See all the leaves we never even got to. So many of our trees still look like the one below, still hanging on to all their leaves, taunting us, threatening to drop them only after we have snow on the ground!
Here is another fabric I love. The range of colors, so vibrant, the leaves, the flowers. Both swatches I've shown here were at the JoAnn's website at one time, among the quilting cottons. They are in the Stonehill Collection.

I like to blog about seasonal things, holidays and changing weather, etc. One challenge about blogging in October is Halloween. I have a love/hate relationship with Halloween. On the one hand, I love candy and parties and the fantasy of costumery. On the other hand, I hate the original and ongoing fascination with evil and the underworld. I have zero tolerance for blood, gore, terror and torment. I feel a need to resist indulging natural human curiosity. I abhor legitimizing occult and paranormal phenomenon. Everyday life is exciting and uncertain enough for me. Now, having said all that, I have found some vintage ephemera clip art that is as cute as buttons! So, even though I didn't think I would be posting anything even remotely acknowledging Halloween, I think this image of a card makes great October eye candy!

She even looks like a little like I did when I was a chubby little cherubic child. Unruly blonde hair, chubby cheeks, and I even had a black cat named Imp.

Later, I had a black cat named Alley Oop.

And then I had a black cat named Andy. I lost Andy's litter mate Amos when he was only 1 year old to FIP. (Feline Infectious Peritonitis) Andy was with us for about 17 years, and we just buried him in June of 2005. It wasn't intentional to always have black cats. It just seemed that black cats were always available to us when we were ready.

Now we have dogs, and I loooove having dogs, but nothing cuddles like a kitty, relaxing you with its purr and kneading, rubbing against your legs when you are in the kitchen. I know some people have dogs and cats at the same time, but it would take some work and constant supervision to get our dogs used to a cat, where we could feel comfortable leaving them all at home alone while we were away for the day.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed our little cuppa and the chat..........

Now, I'm going to go up and change into a comfy nightie and curl up with......hmmmm............Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility before I turn out the lamp settle in for a snooze, resting up for another busy week. Come back again soon, I'll load up more eye candy!