Autumn Blaze October Stitchscape Swap

This swap is small but perfectly formed. For some reason October seems a busy month for people and we have only had eight entries into the Autumn Blaze swap. Either that or the theme wasn't inspiring to many. I love the different interpretations of pumpkins that appear here, it's fantastic to see them portrayed in such different ways, either in the field ripe for picking, close up with details or as a slightly more abstract image. 

Overall the colours in this swap really gel and speak to me of autumn. The pops of yellow, orange, red and brown are the colours you think of, but also the little flashes of blue! Not only does blue really compliment this colour palette, but we do still get a few blue skies here and there in autumn and they really bring to life the warm tones all around. I love that in Sandra's piece the wind has even been depicted, blowing the leaves off of the trees to scurry down to the ground. It's such a clever way of expressing that with just a few brush strokes. 

Beautiful stem stitches really add lovely texture to these hand panted pumpkins and below there are even some crochet leaves stitched on for added oomph. There are so many techniques put into these cards; hand embroidery, machine stitch, crochet, painting, collage, beading.... Every single swap brings up questions of how these little cards have been made, what was pulled out of a slightly forgotten stash drawer and even where it was stitched? 

Because part of the swap is to make two cards each time, one to give away and one to keep - for the receivers of the cards, they will just have a lovely card in the post but for the cards that have been made to keep, there will be memories intertwined with them with every stitch. If only we could see memories! I hope that everyone has some way of displaying their collection so that they can see the seasons and their memories reflected.

I love collecting leaves on my walks around the park with little F. I'm trying to get him as interested in nature and the seasons as I am, so the poor child ends up surrounded by leaves tucked into his pushchair, or a blanket full of conkers on his lap. Currently he isn't overly interested after the first initial examination and scrunch of a pretty leaf I hand him, and it usually ends up flung away with an impressive sideways toss for a 7 month old! 

Crackly, dried-up leaves may be of more interest but as everything goes into his mouth I'm not so keen on handing those to him for playtime, and he isn't interested if I put them in a ziplock bag so I'll just have to keep my crispy leaves for pretty photoshoots like this!

What memories or thoughts do you have when you think of Autumn? Is there anything not represented here that you could add?

As always, the full album of close-up images is on my website, along with the other themes completed this year. The themes for next year are also on the page ready to inspire you!