wordless wednesday*

*it hasn't started yet, but it looks to be a very rainy day, and for the foreseeable future too. made me want to take a little trip back to the sagebrush of eastern washington, even if only in photos. thanks for joining me!

ochre stars...

i was working on some other items for the shop today, but sitting in the crisp nearly fall sunshine inspired me to stitch up a couple of ochre stars, one purple and one orange. these little fellows always make me smile. you can find them in the shop.

thanks for all the kind words about my cardigan! hope your week is starting well.

golden autumn...

we are not quite into woolen layers weather yet, i don't think, but i know what i'll be wearing when we get there! late this week, when i probably should have been doing so many other things, i finished up the last stitches of my aidez cardigan and then forced myself through the seaming. i was a little concerned it might be too snug, but after blocking it it seems to fit well. if i were to do it again, i'd probably try to add a few stitches in the biceps, 'cause apparently i've got such huge pipes - ha! i feel like i've ended up with several cardigans that are quite slouchy and shapeless - which have their place - so i'm quite happy to have one a bit more fitted now. full details can be found on the ravelry page (link above), but a few here: knit from squishy soft cascade eco+. this is my first try with this wool and i love it. awesome stuff. i actually have an entire skein and a bit more left, so i'm debating what to do with it. i'd love to make a squishy hat, although somehow i'm always reluctant to have two different pieces out of the same yarn, even if i have no plans to wear them anywhere near each other. we'll see - maybe i will knit something for someone else!

ETA: i almost forgot to say - the wool & wood brooch i am wearing is from the very talented Lisa at lil fish studios. when i ordered it a little while back and it arrived in the mail, i knew right away it would be perfect with this cardigan, that i had only just started on at the time. check out her work if you are not familiar with it - all of it stunning!



our walk on the river today was nice, even if i was a bit disappointed not to spot any mushrooms. the forest floor was very busy with slugs though, all sorts and sizes. has got me thinking i need to stitch up some more. the original banana slug resides with my friend Em, and i got to see it again last week. i don't have a real inclination to touch any of the slugs i see in the forest, but i do find them quite fascinating, and i really liked making the first one.

the trail today was also "decorated" quite well with many piles of bear scat. we did spot a couple of bears (maybe just the same one twice), but they were on the other side of the river, where it was nice to be able to watch them but be slightly less concerned about them being a danger to us. and of course there were lots of fish. i think in years past we have gone a few weeks later, where the fish are really coming in droves, and the *ahem* fragrance of them is strong in the air as many have already spawned and died, or been dragged into the woods for eating. there was very little of that today though, which made it a more fresh air walk - ha. i'll share a few pics later this week.

now back to cooking dinner. i wish i could share more shots of the food i make, but the near lack of natural light in my kitchen combined with the general late hour i usually make dinner precludes that most of the time. so i'll share a few links instead:
• last night i made a batch of one of my favourite soups, this kicked up coconut split pea soup, which we ate with this oat soda bread i had made in the morning.
• and tonight i'm making pizza x 2. no real recipe to point you to, but one has cottage cheese, assorted peppers (spicy & sweet), a few 'shrooms, tomato and hot calebrese and is baked my usual way on the pizza stone. the second uses some magic sauce with spinach, mushrooms, garlic and bacon and i'm trying out cooking it in my cast iron pan thanks to an idea i spotted on pinterest.
hmmm, the above shows that i am distinctly settling in to winter hibernation mode, and my waistline is going with the rest of me. nuts. best get back out to hiking through the bush in search of mushrooms!

popping up...

only a couple days of rain so far, not enough to thoroughly soak the forest floor. but still, things are beginning to appear. i went for forest walks twice this week, assessing the lay of the land and eagerly keeping eyes peeled for treats and treasures of the fungi persuasion. nothing to eat yet, except that big cauliflower mushroom above; unfortunately, many creepy-crawlies had beaten me to it. ugh. but that's okay, they will all come in time, and i am enjoying watching the woods gain back their lush, over-saturated appearance, knowing there will be something new to see each time i venture into them. if you know the names of any of these, please chime in - i only know that the second from the top is a red-belted polypore fomitopsis pinicola, and the bottom is a cauliflower sparassis crispa.



autumnal tones are everywhere now. above is a recently finished custom sea urchin in rusty/creamy tones. last night i finished my handknit cardigan in its dreamy golden colour - it's blocking now but i will share soon! and the maple trees have starting changing colour with a vengeance.

what are you up to this weekend? A started work earlier than usual today, which meant i got up a nice early hour and am well into my day. i'm just waiting for some oat soda bread to come out of the oven and am trying to organize all the other things i want to get done today. post office, recycling, blackberry picking, and hopefully a good bit of stitching in too. and while i am enjoying the new rain this week, it's nice to look out and see a large swathe of blue this morning. saturday is off to a good start!

i am a bit back-logged on photos i would like to share with you, but tomorrow we are headed up island a little bit to meet my sister and kids for a walk we try to do each year, along a river where the salmon come up in large numbers to a local hatchery. it is always a pretty walk in the woods, and a joy for all of us young and old(er) to watch the thousands of fish moving upstream. so those will probably be first to come, but who knows?! fall is my favourite, and i'm sure my camera will stay busy!

------------------------------------------

also:
• Lisa has been playing with acorns, both cooking and dyeing with, so i may need to go find some more to try this as well!
• Margie is having an awesome giveaway that you should go enter.
• and since autumn is a knitter's favourite season, i really like Jenna's knitter lore.

wordless wednesday

Untitled, originally uploaded by fog and swell.

just like that

it's fall. yesterday was hot and sunny; today, well it's not. today it is 10 degrees cooler, overcast. a bit of heavy mist/drizzle fell this morning. the first two weeks of september have been probably the best weather we have had all summer, but it was bound to make a shift at some point.

and apparently i don't need much encouragement to slip into that autumn state of mind. i wore a scarf today (albeit with a tank top) - one of my cool season staples. i'm roasting up some farmers market acorn squash and corn and peppers, to put into some sort of comforting coconut curry that i haven't worked out all the details for yet. i've turned on some nina and friends while i prep the food. and i'm contemplating cracking open that bottle of red that's been sitting most of the summer (i just can't do red wine in the hot months). lastly, how could i not check out buffy in her new tv show tonight? yes, i enjoy my tv, and the fall season is here.

what about you? are you ready for fall? what is your favourite part of it? (and don't think i'm not also scrutinizing the precipitation forecast and trying to determine the best day to head into the woods in search of the first mushrooms.)

full moon rising...

a few shots from a glorious evening paddle the other night, a beautiful night with two friends exploring the estuary at high tide (and then paddling against the current of the outgoing tide to head back up the river to our start point). the moon was beautiful rising up as the sun set. it's full tonight, i think - might have to make a point to go look at it again.

other things on a monday morning:
• i've already been to the beach, where i snapped some shots of my Plush You pieces. yay, i'm done! now i just need to write up descriptions to email to Schmancy, and package them up to send to Seattle this week.
• the beach was beautiful, although the sun was already high in the sky at 9:30, and the heat building fast, so i didn't snap too many more photos before leaving.
• but i did stop again just a short way up the road to pick another bucket of blackberries - i think i'm closing in on 10lbs so far.
• further along, since i was already way out that way, there was another short detour to pick up acorns where they had gathered below the massive garry oak trees in a local park.
• i also made another stop and finally bought a small chest freezer at a really good price, so i have lots more room for berries and other things, to store up during this harvest season to carry us through the winter with goodness.
• i'm really eager to start using the freezer, but think i have to wait for A to get home from work later, to help me carry it from the truck to the house. it was hard enough to get in the truck by myself.
• until then, if you should need me, i'll be hiding in the house or in a shady spot outside. our heat wave is slowly easing back into more seasonally appropriate temps, but it still looks like a pretty hot, sunny day out there. so for now, i will make a lunch smoothie, with a few of those blackberries i just picked!

hope your week is starting well!

dyeing and foraging...

happy weekend all! we are settling in for another scorcher day, so i am hiding out in our basement suite which stays nice and cool for the most part. i may try and find myself a shady patch outside to sit and stitch in a moment, but first i wanted to share some recent natural dye results with you. my mom had given me a beautiful bouquet of red dahlias from her garden a while back, but after they were enjoyed and the flowers shrivelled up, i saved the heads. after soaking for a few days in water, i had a murky brown liquid to work with - that is what you see on the left with some fabrics dyeing away. i also mentioned a couple weeks ago that i had gathered a bunch of oregon grape berries on a forest walk. after simmering in a pot for a hour or so, i strained the liquid and used that for my second dye batch (on the right).



i think i ended up with some lovely autumnal colours, an almost dusty rose from the berries and a nice golden tone from the dahlias. with the berries i dyed silk, wool and washing linen, and the dahlias just the wool and linen. i need to mordant some more fabrics soon so i can try dyeing with mushrooms (if it ever rains again so we can get some 'shrooms). you may have seen in my friday flickr faves some gorgeous fungi dyeing from Lisa that i am in awe of.



and to some other berries that i definitely am not dyeing with - blackberries! this heat is making the berries quite happy and they are ripening all over the place. i hope to get out and pick some more this afternoon. i am filling up the freezer (okay, and also filling up my belly) for winter baking and smoothies, but a couple friends and i have also hatched a plan to take a large crop over to the local u-brew place and make some blackberry wine. yum.

okay, best get back to my stitching - this piece is taking too much time and i am feeling the deadline crunch! must finish this weekend so i can send my pieces of to Schmancy for Plush You!

friday flickr faves: late summer daze

1. this morning's harvest, 2. Dye Party, 3. sandstone and log layers, 4. Untitled, 5. color, 6. so delicate, 7. golden, 8. Cloudberry picking, 9. evening, 10. doubles, 11. mushroom madness, 12. under the wings, 13. russula virescens, 14. on the grill, 15. bright, 16. aglow

a heat wave is keeping summer around here, but cooler mornings and that changing light show autumn is creeping in just the same. please click through on the links to see these beautiful photos in larger size, from some of my lovely flickr contacts. wishing you all happy weekend!

lichenscapes...

one of the things i love along the columbia river gorge is all the colourful lichen growing on the rocks. i got very distracted taking photos of it this trip. the colours and textures are amazing. we have lots of moss around here, but I don't notice the lichen as much. then again, maybe i'm not looking close enough. but the dry shrub-steppe environment east of the cascades is so very different from my own wet coast, and the change in ecosystem fascinates me.

little lizards scurry between rocks, small brown bunnies rest between sage brush bushes rustling in the afternoon wind, rattlesnakes sun themselves...oh yeah, and at night the mice come out in force! this was the first year we had to set traps inside my truck, as a couple had snuck in and made themselves at home. gross. actually, the traps are still set, just in case a few came north with us (don't tell the border patrol i may have smuggled wildlife into the country!).

uh, moving on... this was our third year in a row visiting this area of washington state. i love it most of the time, although the heat and sun kind of overwhelmed me this trip. very thankful for the river to cool off in on those hot days. i had thought this would be our last summer hurrah and i was feeling very ready for cooler fall temps upon returning home, but it seems not to be. after our summer that wasn't, we have plunged into september with a heat wave that seems to have no rain in sight. soon enough i know there will be a wet swath of clouds that hangs over the island for much of the winter, so i suppose i should enjoy it. although i'm a bit jealous, seeing lisa and joni's wonderful mushroom finds, and knowing ours won't be popping up in this dry weather. good thing there is foraging to be done of a different kind, with the blackberries beginning to hang dark and heavy from their branches. i picked a couple small buckets last night, and plan for more, if i can squeeze a few more bags amongst the strawberries and blueberries already crowding our small freezer.



hmmm, this post seems to be taking a lot of random, tangential turns. hope i'm not boring you too much; just enjoy the photos! the spider above was one of many we saw - late summer seems prime time for web spinning. we even spotted a tree filled with dozens of big fat ones in their webs; unfortunately spotted after i'd been sitting under the tree for quite a while, and there were some just inches above my head!

it always takes me a bit to get back into focus after a holiday, but i hope this weekend i will be able to finish the special pieces i am working on and then get some new items in the shop! thanks to those who have been emptying it out! i also have some cool dye results to share, and more pics from our escape. but i will stop rambling for now, and instead get back to dreaming about the tasty margaritas i will be sipping tonight with friends, cooling my brain off.

-----------------------------------------

other things i'm liking recently:
• i made heidi's magic sauce last night, so so delicious. i can see it will become a staple.
• and incidentally, i poured the sauce on this prawn, tomato & white bean recipe from martha and it was all divine. the remaining sauce in the pan was sopped up with crusty bread.
• and just to round off this foodie link list, lisa made some yummy looking soup with her recent foraging find.

wordless wednesday...

----------------------------------

okay, slightly less wordless. i'm home again - thanks for the well wishes on my travels, we had a great time. i am a bit up to my eyeballs, but regular blogging shall resume shortly. for now i hope you'll enjoy this late night shot from our campsite, what a beautiful night it was.

away...

hey folks. i'm headed south for a few days to hang out with the lizards amongst the sagebrush. and maybe climb some rocks. okay, and maybe also to see these folks. i'll be back after the long weekend with hopefully more pics like the ones above. and some other new stuff (sometimes i sew and knit and dye, if ya didn't know). wishing you all a great labour day holiday if you're in north america, or just a great step into september (!!!) if you're elsewhere.

---------------------------------------------

ps. the shop will remain open while i'm away, but any orders won't be shipped until after the 6th. thanks for your understanding!

scenes from the weekend...

• am now finished two out of three of my pieces for plush you! in seattle. now for the hardest one...
• A and i went paddleboarding on the river yesterday evening. the tide was high and we headed up river away from the wind, where the water gets very clear when the surface isn't ruffled, watching for salmon swimming upstream and the sea creatures that are quite willing to chase them. curious to look down below your board and see a fish 'swimming' sideways, only to realize that is because it is in the mouth of a seal. said seal popped up above the surface looking very pleased with the fat salmon in its mouth.
• baked this easy little bread from 101 cookbooks. just as the name says, it was easy, and also delicious.
• baked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. except different. that is to say this recipe has been in the family forever, and i get pretty free with the substitutions, so they are never the same twice.
• did some early recon on a nearby forest trail, assessing the mushroom possibilities. i don't know that it has too many prospects for that, but i did pick a bunch of oregon grape berries for dyeing - i'll keep you posted once the jar stews for a few days.
• still plugging away at my aidez cardigan. it's nearly there, almost. i think i have to rip back a bit on one of the sleeves, which is disgruntling, but i am nearly done the body to a point where i will split off for the armholes.

how was your weekend? i hope anyone on the east coast is safe and warm after irene stormed through. i do not mean to downplay the seriousness of the storm or the damage many folks suffered, but it did almost have me wishing for a rainy day around here. we'll have many of those soon enough though.

wishing you a good start to your week!

fogust...

on sunday, i was sitting on a towel on the sand, watching A surf his paddleboard through mist that was turning to rain, my camera snapping away. the day before had been hot and humid, barely a breeze. and yet i hadn't been able to un-notice the high cirrus clouds above, signalling a weather change. sunday woke up in heavy fog, and even though it lightened here and there, there had been a definite shift. august, and the wind was picking up; i was getting cold even with my thick cowichan sweater.

suddenly there was a young man beside me (suddenly because peering through a camera lens at the sea makes me lose my peripheral vision). actually truth be told, before i even noticed him, i noticed that he'd placed his SLR down in the soft, salty sand *shudder*. but maybe that's just me? anyway, it turned out he was a visitor from switzerland, asking if i would capture his arrival on the far west coast of canada. i did, and then we got to chatting a bit, about cameras, and photography. he asked a question i hadn't really thought about before: do you like to shoot happy pictures or sad pictures?







i don't know if i could define it in such simple terms, and i definitely do like a bright blue sky day and a bright smiling face, but yes, i love a gloomy, moody photo. kind of like i love a gloomy, moody day, like the ones these photos were taken on. on the west coast people often call this month "fogust", for obvious reasons. a misty day spent walking in the rainforest, following rickety stairs and ramps down to the shore where waves appear out of the grey to crash on the sand, sound perfect to me. as you can see we encountered a fair bit of fog and wet after that first sunny day, and my camera kept clicking quite happily.





hope you are all heading into a happy weekend, be it hot and sunny (i think that's what we're in for) or grey and gloomy, this last august weekend. i know i will be spending time stitching as the submission deadline for my plush you! pieces quickly approaches. while those are my main priority for the next little bit, i do hope to fit in some shop stitching too, but no promises at the moment.

----------------------------------------------

other things i'm liking today:
• the photo gallery from the ucluelet aquarium. we had fun there last weekend - can't wait until they finish building their new home!
• Annie's TILT mosaics are always filled with the beauty of nature and the people who explore it.
• and if you couldn't tell by my love of mossy, damp forests, i am right on board with Lisa in my eagerness for mushroom season to begin.

wordless wednesday...

giveaway winner!

thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway and for all your well wishes on my shop (and blog). i loved hearing about all your favourite sea creatures. i don't know if i could every pick just one, there are so many that are dear to my heart. however, the little guy above did a good job of trying to win me over, during out trip to the ucluelet aquarium yesterday. he is a grunt sculpin, a curious little fish. he likes to scoot along the sea floor, using those wispy front fins to grip the bottom. i think he might fall under that "so ugly it's cute" category, but i think he's awesome.

okay! i'll stop leaving you hanging. the winner of the starfish is:



elisa.b! elisa, please email me at fogandswell [at] gmail [dot] com with your mailing address so i can send the sea stars on their way. thanks to all for your support - hope you're having a good start to your week.

-----------------------------------

other good things today:
• i just received my soap order from tara at on a branch and they all smell divine. can't wait to try them out.
• pinterest is a very good place to find dinner ideas; tonight i'm making mushroom & kale stuffed phyllo pastry. just from the smell of the mushrooms sauteeing, i can tell you it will be delicious.