Colorful September 'Gifts'

Jonathan has become our resident "Butterfly Farmer" in that he finds butterfly eggs, puts them in a jar and awaits their hatching into caterpillars.  He faithfully feeds the caterpillars their favorite food (dill for swallowtails and milkweed for monarchs) until they enter the chrysallis.  We all keep checking the jars to see if there is any sign of movement from those little pods and call everyone to witness the miracle of the butterfly emerging.  So far we've had 6 butterflies emerge.  This picture is a black eastern swallowtail drying its wings shortly after emerging from the chrysallis.

A local woman has seen some of the items I've made for the Artisan Guild and decided that I might be able to use some antique grain sacks and handkerchiefs that were her grandmothers.  She also blessed me with antique laces and an antique quilt top that her great-great-grandmother had made.  The handstitching is beautiful! (unfortunately, the photo doesn't show the detail)

September brings lots of changes... School schedules return, sweaters need to be pulled out, and fall festivals start.  I attended my first fall fiber festival in early September.  The Endless Mountain Fiber Festival is a small festival that started just a few years ago, but has become a great place to start the fiber festival season.

Whenever I attend a fiber event, I'm re-energized to create using all the wonderful materials available.  (Like the bags full of alpaca and wool waiting in the garage to be washed!)





It's so fun to see what others are doing in the 'fiber world'.  I thought I'd share a few of the ones that caught my eye...

The teapot covers on display were really neat.  I loved this one with the mice (the only kind of mice that I can tolerate!)




This handsome rabbit is needle felted.  It was displayed in a real rabbit cage so I had just passed by it thinking it was another fiber animal for sale. (We don't need anymore of those!)  I heard someone exclaim, "It looks so real!"  I took a second look and had to get a picture to share with the kids.  The artist did an amazing job.