As a beginner at creating mosaics, I am constantly checking out the work of experienced mosaic artists.  Jacqueline Iskander has some of the most beautiful and exact mosaics I have seen.  Her website is continually changing and she has a journal with a tutorial that I enjoy keeping up with.        

   

It’s Fall Frenzy weekend in Leland.  Many of the fishtown stores are closing for the season, actually some of the downtown stores are also scaling back to late fall hours or closing for the season also.  Hence, the Fall Frenzy, lots of end of season closeouts.  Since we stay open daily till New Year’s and a few days a week through the winter, we decided to highlight one of our jewelry artists and have a trunk show of her work this weekend.  It was a beautiful display and received very well by customers today.  In spite of the lousy weather that we started the day with, there were quite a few people milling around town.  Here is the beautiful jewelry display.  Be sure to visit the jewelry page at our site as we do have some of Roxanne’s pieces for sale online.

H Langner jewelry

The colors this year really have been the best I have ever seen.  The sun was shining this morning on Pyramid Point and South Manitou Island over this stand of hardwoods…

As we get immersed in our daily routines, it can be easy to forget how beautiful our corner of northern Michigan is.  Visitors are always amazed at beauty of the Lake Michigan sunsets while I have to admit, I don’t always get off the couch to look.  Tonight I did and it was worth the effort!

Today has been crazy.  Started out very dreary this morning, clearing up to a beautiful afternoon.  Here is a photo I took on my way home from Leland.  The autumn colors were absolutely brilliant.  Barely an hour later it turned into these awful, fast moving storms.  Who would ever know that Lake Michigan is out there?  It was hard to believe it was the same week, much less the same part of a day…the upside is the hint of a Lake Michigan sunset in the last photo.

Just had a great couple of days off.  Headed over to Boyne Mountain with my friend, Peggy, to see a presentation by Kaffe Fassett.  Peggy also attended the quilting workshop.  I honestly have no desire whatsoever to quilt, although I do love patchwork.  Not sewing.  Kaffe’s lecture and slideshow were so much fun and such an inspiration.  Of course, now I will have to see if I can live up to it.  As a beginning knitter, it seems that I am tearing out and reknitting more than I would like, but so far I am not discouraged.  I had decided that I would only knit scarves or pillows as it seemed much less complicated to knit straight lines and I have had moderate success with scarves.  But, after listening to Kaffe, (and his claim that he has only had about 25 minutes of knitting instruction) it would seem that the world is the limit, so after I finish my current scarf project, I think I may undertake the striped sweater in his new book “Kaffe knits again.”  Just looking at his work in different mediums makes me want to do everything.  I already have two mosaic projects in progress and many more ideas.  I can’t imagine how I will ever have time for work!   Here are some examples of  Kaffe’s  work in knitting, mosaic and needlepoint.  The color is spectacular.  

 Here is a link to his website  www.kaffefassett.com  in case you want to check it out, too.

Hopefully, we won’t be seeing any of that white stuff for a while.  I am actually amazed that my flower boxes in front of the store are doing so well.  I can’t even think about putting in mums like everyone else!     

The weather has been so beautiful in Leland all summer and into the fall.  Colors seem to be slow to change, but it won’t be long before there is a change in temperature along with other surprises.  Here is a reminder of things to come – from years past.