Monday in Seattle. Picture and Quote for the Week, Flora and Fauna at Discovery Park

wildflower with insects, Discovery Park, Seattle

I love to smell flowers in the dark ... You get hold of their soul then.

~Lucy Maud Montgomery

Monday in Seattle. Picture and Quote for the Week, To A Snow-Drop

snowdrops, Discovery Park, Seattle

Lone flower, hemmed in with snows and white as they

But hardier far, once more I see thee bend

Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend,

Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day,

Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, waylay

The rising sun, and on the plains descend;

Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend...

~ from To A Snow-Drop by William Wordsworth

Monday in Seattle. Picture and Quote for the Week, First Signs of Spring at Discovery Park

very first blossoms appearing at Discovery Park, Seattle, Jan 31, 2011

Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees,

Rock'd in the cradle of the western breeze.

~William Cowper

Monday in Seattle. Picture and Quote for the Week, Winter Thoughts

bare trees and view of the snowy Olympic Mountains from Discovery Park, Seattle

In the depths of winter I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

~ Albert Camus

Monday in Seattle. Picture and Quote for the Week, Autumn Leaves Discovery Park

autumn leaves, Discovery Park, Seattle

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

~Albert Camus

Autumn in the Pacific Northwest. A Sensory Treat

It's officially still summer, but it already feels like autumn here in the Pacific Northwest. I'm originally from southern Ontario, and fall in Seattle is quite a different experience. I find it starts sooner - I already see lots of yellow and falling leaves in my walks around Discovery Park.

Fall here is a bit softer, visually and in terms of temperatures, not the abundant blazing colors of my Canadian past, but still beautiful, and continuing along its mild path, right through late November's American Thanksgiving. And fall is delicious, with the harvest coming in from both Western and Eastern Wasington and the best apples all year round available right now.

Not to mention the flowers...

On Etsy, MrKittysSoapShop curated this lovely treasury celebrating the magic that is autumn in the Pacific Northwest.

I'm thrilled my "Seattle's Bluest Skies" bracelet from Bumbershoot Designs was included.  This is a truly Seattle-inspired design, for more about this jewelry design, see this blog post. And the sky in Seattle today is just exactly this shade of blue...

Monday in Seattle. Picture and Quote for the Week, Daisies and Driftwood at Discovery Park, Seattle

daisies and driftwood, Discovery Park, Seattle

Over the shoulders and slopes of the dune I saw the white daisies go down to the sea,

A host in the sunshine, an army in June, The people God sends us to set our heart free.

~William Bliss Carman

Look What I Found. Mixed Media Monday

Oh my. All you have to do is go to Bumbershoot Supplies to see "what I found" :)

But for this week's Mixed Media Monday challenge, I focused on one of the most special places in the world to me, the ocean. We are blessed  in Seattle to be very close to water everywhere, including salt water in the form of Puget Sound. And the Pacific Ocean is not too far away.

This is a 6x6 inch art quilt using my hand dyed cloth as a base and featuring some of the treasures I have collected in my trips to the beach.

One of my favorite poets, ee cummings, captures my feelings about the sea so well:

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)

it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

Discovery Park Wildflower Bracelet Featured in this Lovely Collection

Buried in Betsy's Closet, a blog featuring fashion accessories, has included my Discovery Park Wildflower Bracelet , offered at Bumbershoot Designs, in this collection, Wild Flowers. Check it out!  Many thanks to Marianna!

This pretty charm bracelet combines mint green and frosted white vintage 1960's West German lucite leaves, rose pink vintage lucite flowers and vintage clear round glass bead “dewdrops” as accents. The leaves and flowers are wonderfully detailed, with delicate veining and serrated edges on the leaves. Everything is attached to a 1960's vintage 8 inch sterling silver double link bracelet chain. All findings and the clasp are sterling silver. Vintage lucite is a lovely material to wear - is light in weight, and makes a soft jingle that is quite pleasing.

Discovery Park, one of Seattle’s natural jewels, is home to many wildflowers, including the tiny pink ones that inspired this design.

Enchanted. Mixed Media Monday

My first ever posting for the challenge blog, Mixed Media Monday. The challenge was "enchanted". This is a 6x6 inch art quilt, with sun printed cloth, bits of bark and twigs collected on my walks through Seattle's Discovery Park, with vintage sequins, beads and glass pearls and a bit of stamping and foiling. To me, the forest is an enchanted place. The inspiration for this piece was my imagining of the forest in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and my daughter's performance in that play.

The Cornucopia of Autumn

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;"

~John Keats

Yellow Leaves

"That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang."

~William Shakespeare

I love fall.

Soarin', flyin'

As I do several times a week, I walked at Discovery Park this morning. Discovery is a true natural jewel in the Seattle park system, and I treasure my time spent there. But today was very, very special. As I came out of the woods, heading for the bluff and that magnificent view of Puget Sound, I saw two eagles. You can regularly see eagles surfing the air currents that come in from the water, and it is always a thrill to see those magnificent birds. But today they were so low, just above the tree tops and very close to the edge of the bluff, that I thought for sure I could reach up and pluck them out of the sky. They were not too big, and beautifully sleek. What a breathtaking experience to be so close to these magnificent creatures, in flight yet! Eventually one landed in the top of a nearby tree, and I stood for a while, just to watch. Sadly, I did not have my camera with me (I promise never again to go to Discovery Park without my camera). But I wanted to write about this because I don't want to forget how privileged and inspired I felt to have had this experience today.

The photo above was taken at Discovery Park several days ago and the eagles I saw today were surfing right above the tree to the right of the picture. Just imagine that!

Brrrr!

Don't put away those woolies yet! We have had two more days of snow here in Seattle. Of all the winters I've been here (since Nov 91), this one is the coldest, with the most episodes of snow. We haven't had a lot of snow the last two days, not like at Christmas when we were snowbound for 9 days, but it is still cold, cold, cold. A good day for this:

I crocheted this scarf with Noro's Kureyon sock yarn, very simple single and double crochet pattern and to me it looks just like Discovery Park in the fall (I'll post more about Discovery Park later, it is one of Seattle's jewels and I get a lot of inspiration there). I love the fringe, alternating shades of dangling green vintage Japanese crystal beads. Perfect for cold, wet, grey, cold, did I say cold? days - they wink and sparkle like mad. Just like little pine trees, only shiny. I feel warmer just to see them.