The inspirations needlecraft show was on in Ottawa this weekend, and since I’m always looking for an excuse to look at fabric, I totally took advantage and toured around the show for a few hours on Friday.

No matter how much I try to deny my addiction, there is no disguising the fact that I am addicted to vintage prints. The six pictured above I picked up for a mere $1.75 a fat quarter, which is great – I love cheap gorgoues fabrics. These will make some great guitar straps when I am done admring them.

In addition to restocking my stash of japanese cherry blossoms (this time in red!), I picked up a whole new collection of japanese prints. Bunnies, owls, some geat sashiko-style designs, along with some sashiko thread and needles for some japanese quilting projects I’ve been working on.

The non-traiditonal nubbly yarn dyes were back too….last time is was tan with purple, this time it’s fall colours – browns, oranges, taupes. These feel so great and cosy and comfy to the touch.

The best find of all was these turtles – so cute!

PS – I’m clearing out my stash, so if anyone wants a bunch of practice sewing/screenprinting/odd scrap fabrics, email me. mintyfresh at lilybug dot ca….I’m happy to hand them off for new loving. Update: fabric is all taken. Thanks guys!

Princess and Neko always seem to be the ones fighting to see who can have the most limbs in their food dish. I’m not sure who the winner really is there.

The weather forecast keeps calling for flurries…..I’m excited. I want a little snow, just for a minute, long enough to luxuriate in.

I’ve been listening to some of the not-quite-released Modest Mouse covers by Sun Kil Moon. I can’t wait to get my hands on the full album – I like my Modest Mouse, but I heart my Modest Mouse remixed with acoustic guitar – sometimes you can hardly tell what some it was originally, except for the odd lyric that twigs. Great autumn music.

I’m also hooked on watching Six Feet Under…..starting from the very beginning. I’m not a TV person by nature….I find it tough to sit still for long periods of time, but this is easy. It’s completely captivating. Now I just wish I could get my hands on more of it.

ugh. i am sick. again. and because of this, I’m moping around at home, generally making no sense and staring at the ceiling thinking thinking thinking. For whatever reason, there hasn’t been a lot of downtime lately. I feel like I’ve always been on the go, up to something, even if that something is sitting on my bed. I need schedule detox.

I was trying to remember tonight when I first realized that fall was my favourite season, but I can’t. I’m stumped. there’s something about the season that I find inherently soothing, though. It’s impossible to resist the temptation to be warm and cosy as the cold starts to sneak in, in the mornings, in the frost on the windows, in the need to pack away sandals and replace them with kneesocks and boots, the hunt for mittens, the craving for hot soup, the return of scarves and peppermint tea.

Truthfully, I find something comforting in digging out my sweaters for fall, in watching the leaves pile up on the sidewalks, in tromping through them, kicking them around, listening to their dry crackles. People keep talking about flurries, about the *christmas decorations* that are starting to show up (this should be outlawed – halloween isn’t over yet!) in malls, in the kowloon market, and everywhere else, and I know, I KNOW that this means fall is moving on, it’s almost gone, it’s running out of season. I need more fall…I’m not done with it yet.

Despite my love of fall though, and even though christmas decor before december grates on me, I can’t help but sit here waiting for the first gentle snowfall, the one we get every year, where the snow leaves it’s mark on everything, soft and clean and fresh. I don’t love winter by any stretch of the imagination, but there’s something that strikes me as so utterly romantic about that first snowfall that I can’t help but sit and wait for it to happen.

Because when it does, I’m going to be out there in the dark, sitting on a swingset, twirling around getting snowflakes on my nose, and listening to the sound of snow falling.