Late spring in the cottage garden

The first flowers of the cottage garden make living thru the dismal grey rainy winters of the Pacific Northwest all worth it. When I was growing up I used to hear the adults say this is "God's country" but I thought to myself that there is so many other beautiful places on this planet, why would one say that? I came to realize as I got older that the reason Oregon natives called this slice of earth "God's Country" was because of the rewards springs holds for us putting up with dismal winter months.

So here is the first tour of my cottage garden of the season. What is so unique about a cottage garden is that it never looks the same year to year with so many surprises.

When I mulched this spring I was able to get "mushroom compost" from a local Organic Mushroom farm. Very different in texture as it has a sawdust base, and the color is light brown rather than black as other compost mulches. But mushroom compost is supposed to be the ultimate for vegetable and flower gardening as well as highly regarded by landscapers as a base for sod. So that will be a later post on how well it does for me.

I no longer have any pink columbine, they have cross polinated with the yellow with this interesting combination. 

The lupines have reverted back to the non-hybrid colors and are reseeding freely like the those in the wild

This is the really "green" part of the warm season. This is the view from my house. Large fields of young wheat against the foothills of the Cascade mountains.

By August these fields will be completely gold in color

Fall on the front porch

The best part of the season, is that my dark red house really does lend itself to fall colors. I will be honest that I am not a big fan of Autumn (as I have stated that in my past blog posts). Autumn signals a long rainy winter here in Oregon with little sun. But when my flowers are tired, I really do embrace the season. Plus my porch really does look bare.

I was starting to wonder if I was ever going to be able to decorate my porch for fall. We had an outstandingly beautiful summer her in the Pacific Northwest. Usually we gracefully transition into fall with September still summer dry, but not this September. We had 2 big rainstorms dumping EIGHT inches of rain! Normal is just a half inch of rain for the entire month. Needless to say, it was a mess cleaning up my summer porch garden.

Once that icky weather moved on, we were treated to some beautiful Indian summer sun and 75f.  Today I brought out the fall decor.  I must admit that this current fall display will only be fully functional until the next rain and wind event comes along. While my south facing front porch is tranquil and relaxing in the summer and early fall, it becomes a nasty windy place to be in the late fall and winter.  Our inclement weather blows in from the southwest. I learned quickly the first year we lived in this house, that anything that wasn't anchored, would be blown into the field across the road.

The Squirrel Haven Nut Farm sign

~long story~

but a sign I had at another house we lived at several years ago and a not so nice neighbor. 

It always gave us a chuckle, and still does :)

Just before sunset, the colors are amazing!

My Creative Studio

Nope, I am not going for pretty in my working studio! My goal has always been function with plenty of space. Since we are empty nesters, I am afforded the opportunity to use the 2nd largest bedroom as my work space. Facing south with large windows, there is plenty of natural light as well as a view of lovely farmland and mountains. I have to admit, I did clean up a little. Well, it must have been a lot as the hubs came in and said it was really nice in here. The upside is that I got all the thread and little scraps of fabric off the rug!

Keyword: INSPIRE

Greets me each morning

 I snapped this photo in the evening, I couldn't get enough back light during the day to show the entire room. Basically my creative space is divided into 3 parts. Textile and Sewing; Mixed Media; Graphic Arts and Home Office. I have a monster of a corner desk. It was a good idea and functioned well 8 years ago when I was working a day job that required me to have home office space for work related storage. Now that I am 100% self employed, I really don't need this big desk, so being one who strives to work with what I already have, I reconfigured this desk to a peninsula style. It serves as wrapping and mailing station as well as extra space for big projects

 Above is my sewing and textile art center. My big table is one of those folding cutting tables--I hated those black legs, so I got some decorator Velcro and added fabric panels for a skirt. I can store a lot out of sight under that table! Again, you will see that I organize with what I already have or can pick up real cheap. I have 2 idea boards that were garage sale bulletin boards that I covered with fabric. My large ironing board was 10 bucks at a garage sale down the street. It was a real score.

  I love that I can look outside when I am sewing. Both the thread rack and the cup caddie were tag sale finds too. I saved baby food jars when my granddaughters were babies, they make perfect button jars that I can organize by color.

 I have 2 closets. One side is packing and mailing boxes. Above is my fabric storage. I will admit cleaning this up a bit paid off. I found some fabric I forgot I had (aka new project!) and decided I could fit more fabric (aka time to buy more!)

 The opposite side of the room I have set up for Mixed Media and just about any other project that strikes me. I also store quite a bit of my selling inventory too .I do shows now and then, so many of those display fixtures are part of my office store too.

 This is where the graphic art and home office happens (obviously) Since I ditched the day job, I have seriously expanded the graphic art part of my total business. It's fun to create with the old images of the early 20th century. I have become hooked on postcards that date 1900-1950. The artists of that era were incredibly talented!

 Lastly, I pulled up the blinds to snap a pic of what I see out my studio window in our Oregon summer. We have wheat and grass seed fields on 2 sides. It is hard to see, but we also have beautiful mountains in the distance. This pic was taken in the morning, but the mountains are much more defined in the evening.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of my creative studio!

a perfect summer evening!

Ah yes, on an evening like tonite it is so good to be home! What you are looking at is a pic I shot looking straight south from my front porch at dusk. These are the beautiful late summer colors of the farm land that surrounds our home here in Sublimity, Oregon. It is no wonder why the early settlers named this little town~just because of the "sublime" scenery. The half moon was so bright and not a whisper of a breeze tonite, a perfect summer evening in my book!

I snapped the photo below a few minutes earlier, on the other side of the house. I love when the fields are this beautiful golden color in late summer