Autumn would be my favorite season...

...if it weren't followed by winter! I'm always a bit sad this time of year, knowing that we're heading for shorter days and colder temps; February is the shortest month of the year but I'm already dreading how long it seems to take to make it through to March. Not that March is noticeably better, but at least there's the tantalizing possibility of that first little peek of spring, and knowing that soon everything will be turning green and there'll be beautiful weather ahead for months to come.

We're actually having a mini heat wave here for a few days, hitting around 90F during the warmest part of the day, but we recently had some pretty cool days so I made use of them by getting most of the fall clean-up yard work done already. I'll probably do a bit more trimming on some of the bushes and trees, but it's nice to have the bulk of the work finished this early, especially since I'll be heading to North Carolina one month from today for a Mirabilia retreat that Nora Corbett will be attending. It's getting close enough now that I need to start figuring out how to pack so that I can just take a carry-on bag, and my flights have already been changed a couple of times so when it gets a bit closer I'll have to figure out if I need to change anything with those. I wish it was close enough to drive, but I know I would go crazy being in a car for that long!

I haven't been doing a lot of stitching because I've been busy outside, but I did finish part 2 or Erica Michaels' Quilting A-Bee-Cs:

Part 3 has arrived, but I'm not sure when I'll get to it at this point. I was going to work on it after I finished my Any Town Tiny Town, but Just Nan released another amazing 3D house design that I've already kitted up and that I'm excited to start:

The main part of the house is stitched together on one piece of fabric in a cross shape, then sewn together. The chart has every side being stitched in the same orientation on the fabric, but that means when it is assembled some of the sides will have the top legs of the stitches going in a different direction than some of the other sides. I think when I stitch it, I'll probably turn it as needed to make sure all of the sides have the stitches going the same way when assembled (since I'm just weird that way!).

First, I need to finish my Any Town, which I should be able to do tonight or tomorrow; I need to finish the flower shop, add a tree next to it and then go back and add some French knots and buttons:

I was concerned that the buildings I designed would be too big and they are, but I couldn't really get them any smaller and still make them look like the originals so I'm just not going to worry about it! Someday I'll probably stitch the town as charted, though probably not for a while since I still have Harvest Tiny Town to get to.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!