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Isn't white a mysterious color? Not just a color, but a blend of different colors. A symbol of wholeness and of purity: what a big responsibility for one color!
This is one of my favorite blends of colors:
The frothy, lively white that's made by waves. And isn't it another mystery how the constant motion of waves can be so relaxing?
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Thank you Natsumi, and for more Corner Views on white:
Once in a while I'll take out my basket full of interesting bits of left-over yarns and cottons, and improvise, playing with contrasting textures and materials and seeing what emerges. It doesn't always come to much, but occasionally I discover something or start a new line of ideas, and my free-style crafting produces something I really like.
This weekend, for example, I worked on adapting crocheting to jewellry-making, which I'd been meaning to try for quite a while. I first combined this beautiful, thick Tibetan wool yarn with small crochet stitches made with thin cotton thread.
I eventually made a crochet-yarn fusion necklace in contrasting shades of green wool, with lacy bands of ecru cotton and large crocheted clasps. It's a bit unusual, but I love the combination of textures, and the soft warmth of the materials - just right for the fall. ~ Sorry, sold! ~
I also crocheted this crochet and beads necklace, a long double strand of ecru cotton interspersed with crocheted shells and tiny beads of green glass. It can be worn as a long necklace, but also doubled or even trebled (as in the photo) for a fuller look. ~ Sorry, also sold! ~
They are in my shop.
When I went to the garden the other day to get ideés for a main course, I did it out of habit, really: at this time of year my garden has very little to offer. Still, just being out in the garden, among the smells and the colors of plants that I've grown, tended and know in detail - each branch and leaf almost - is for me conducive to culinary creativity, more than all the produce in a supermarket. I found very little that was edible: some hardy last-gasp tomatoes, and a couple of pomegranates. But fortunately there are always lots of herbs.
Basil, thyme, chives, lemon thyme, marjoram, rosemary and sage: chop together with garlic, brown in olive oil, and use with tomatoes for a pasta sauce and spread over toasted bread. Herbs can really make the simplest ingredients into a flavorful dinner.
I'd also picked some Annabelle hydrangeas, which at this time of year have dried out on their branches, and have a faint greenish tinge. An unusual table arrangement (I'm really liking mismatching at the moment) is another way of adding savor to an end-of-summer meal that is a bit short on variety, I find.
And best of all, we had good friends for dinner to share our meal, and to enjoy our cake topped with chocolate fall leaves, together with pomegranates, deep red and faintly bitter.
Wishing you a nice fall weekend!
When I was in the city the other week, as I was waiting in line at a news stand to buy some subway tickets, I got tempted and bought myself a glossy magazine. Not just any glossy magazine, but a French glossy magazine, marie claire idées, and I'm totally entranced by it. The ideés! Honestly, some of the most marvelous and creative ideés, all with a fall theme: fall ideés for the garden, the kitchen, sewing, home decor and so on. Many, many projects, with wonderful photos that are inspirations in themselves, complete with explanations and instructions ... in French, bien sûr! 
As a first, quick project, I made several chocolate leaves to use as a decorative fall topping on a simple cake I baked. I wasn't sure which leaves to use, so I tried two very different kinds: thick and glossy lemon leaves, and apricot leaves which are much thinner. Some I coated on the upper surface, and others on the lower: the chocolate leaves molded on the lower surface have a more interesting texture, as they show the veins better.
By the way, did you know that lemon trees have some vicious thorns? I did, but I'd forgotten ... Not that you really need to know this for making chocolate leaves, because, as I found out, the thinner apricot leaves peel off from the dried chocolate much better than the thick lemon ones. Go for thin leaves.
Now that I have dessert, I'm off to the garden to get some ideés for a main course: we have friends over for dinner!
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Thank you for your comments on my first post at the co-op. If you like you can read them (here): there are some very interesting thoughts and views about rural communities worldwide.
Thank you, thank you, thank you Jane for not choosing a view of the inside of my car! After a summer of beach and fishing, you can hardly imagine the sad state it's in. Plus last winter's torrential rains, which turned our lane into to what seemed like a permanent mud patch.... Come to think of it, when's the last time I washed the car?!
Anyhow, let me roll down my window, and let you have a look outside:
That vegetation trying to get into my car is the kiwi vines that grow where I park my car, at the end of our lane, in the midst of a kiwi patch (they are very healthy kiwi vines, by the way, but the leaves got a little damaged during a recent hailstorm). Once I've parked, I have to perform a series of contortions: a torso twist to unbuckle Rebecca - mercifully, she can now climb off her seat by herself - and then a sideways hip slide, after which I can finally emerge from the passenger's side. You never know what good exercise country life can be, until you try it!
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For more Corner Views:
My neighbor was sitting outdoors in our lane, sorting through the end-of-season green bean plants they'd pulled up in their fields: the good green beans were going into a basket for dinner, while the shriveled, dried out ones were going to the rabbits, plants and all. She looked up, and gazed at the hillside across the valley, where the trees seemed to have turned to fall colors overnight. "Winter is coming early this year," she said.
She does this often: she'll look at the sky, and at the color, shape and direction of the clouds, at the woods and at her fields, and predict the weather. And she's usually right.
We helped her with her work. Rebecca was eager to do some sorting, and followed her instructions. We live far from our own families, and to me the comfortable, playful manner that my children have when they're with our elderly neighbors is heartwarming. And these people have a lot to teach them: they've been paying very close attention to the weather, to nature, and to people, for a lifetime.
We had green beans for dinner. "We" is Tom and I, as Rebecca could not be persuaded that the objects she'd been sorting that morning were edible, and the boys - oh, poor boys, I almost felt sorry for them - couldn't believe their eyes: just when they thought that the deer had taken care of the whole season's worth of their least favorite vegetable, a brimming bowl of them appeared on the table. They were allowed to skip the green beans.
It's grape harvest time, which for our family has become the symbol of community life in our village. Today I'm posting over at the co-op on Joining the harvest.
After our recent trip to the city, we encountered a small girlie accessory emergency: we'd left behind Rebecca's wood necklace. No problem, I told myself: I still remembered the recipe to make pasta necklaces, which I'd made many times as a child. So the next time I had the oven on, that's what we did.
You bake uncooked pasta of a suitable shape, like these little ribbed tubes, until it takes on interesting shades of amber. Then you string it on. When we were girls, my sisters and I wore many such pasta necklaces, and Rebecca was very pleased with her own, too.
However, I found that since my childhood, I'd grown very fond of color, so Rebecca and I set out to make a more colorful necklace.
I made and embroidered little birds and discs out of red and yellow felt, then strung them on elastic thread, together with beads. You can see Rebecca wearing her very own necklace in a pause during a paper airplane game with the boys.
While we were at it, we made another reversible felt bird necklace for a color-loving little girl, which is on sale in my shop. Sorry, sold!
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On Monday I'll be posting over at the co-op, my first post, and I'm quite excited. I have the weekend to learn all about Blogger ... what did I say just recently about learning a new skill every weekend? I hope Blogger will be another simple pleasure!
Thanks for all the happy birthdays! I've discovered that I share my birth day with Bookgirl and Malo's child, and my birth month with Lecia and Kelleyn: happy birthday to them too!
Yesterday we woke up in a downpour, the temperature had dropped significantly, and it really felt like fall was here. So with some sadness I dug out warm socks for all of us. But then a tentative warm sun came out, off came the socks, and we headed to the beach.
There are many advantages to visiting the beach in the off season. We had the whole place to ourselves, and played with some treasures abandoned by hasty tourists: two shovels, and two plastic marbles. Nicholas went for a swim, and Rebecca, who loves to go "swimmy-swimmy," wanted to go too, but there was no way that I was going to take her into the water on this cool fall day (though I have been known to go swimming in October ... once ... a few years ago ... in 2003 ...).
We stayed on the beach instead, and helped Jeremy catch our dinner. Fully clothed, but at least no socks!
Back to the Wednesday appointment with Corner View, the project hosted by Jane which brings together bloggers from all corners of the world in sharing their thoughts and their views on a specific weekly theme. Today's theme is September.
September? A very special month for me, which starts very sweet and sparkly with a birthday cake, on the first day of the month (how I love raspberries and blueberries)!
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For more Corner Views:
Family life at the edge of an ancient rural community near the Mediterranean
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