My weekend in photos:

Hello pipsqueaks!
Hope your weekend was pleasant. I heard from some of you in Finland, Saskatoon, Austria and a few glad hollows in the USA over the weekend and the news sounds similar here and there: A lovely weekend, fine weather indeed, cool nights and busy fingers with knitting and stitching and so forth. I also heard it through the grapevine that there’s been a jam, jelly and canning revolution. I won’t pretend to be the Pied Piper when it comes to the revival of domestic arts but I’m proud of every lady who did a bit of canning this week past! Way to put up some tasty goods for the winter ahead!
I spent the weekend tending my neglected yard as well as clipping grapes!

The first batch of concords is cut and the scent of purple is wafting out of the kitchen as I type this. I’m tempted to do a quick batch of jelly though it’s 11:11PM here (make a wish)…it wil be one or the other:
concocting jelly or writing letters to friends while laying in my nightie in bed.
Truly a tough call. The grapes are hard to deny but so is my stationary.


The rest of the weekend was spent tiding up a disaster of a home, fighting with the laundry pile, walking and running the dogs in the hills and across town, baking, harvesting veggies from le jardin as well as reading a bit and catching up on long overdue correspondence. Boring. I know. I am, rather admittedly, a serious homebody. I love catching up with time in the sanctuary of my home and gardens; in the quiet of my living room with a book and a red leather couch.

I had some tasty and tremendously fresh meals that revolved, for the most part, around blazing red garden tomatoes and newly baked loaves of whole wheat bread.

I cut new flowers for every vase in the house and surrounded myself with them while I feasted on my gardeny bits and pieces at the kitchen table.


I snaggled up a new house plant when I ran out for groceries and I started a new avocado pit in a canning jar. I’ve never grown a successful avocado but I have a good feeling about this little guy. He’s over in the laundry room on a shelf by the back door but I can hear him humming from here. He’s singing all about ascorbic acid and the like — a sure sign he’s planning on a sprout (I’m praying for a cotelydon or two).

And lastly, my most sincere apologies for not listing new work in the Etsy shop today! I became distracted when I strolled out to the studio and 6 hours later I walked out with this in my hands:

Built of sterling silver and 14 carat gold from scratch. All components, excluding the chain and clasp, were sawed and forged by my hands. The pendant is a shadowbox that features a landscape of a freshly ploughed field (complete with linear perspective), a suspended golden moon and a person, strolling in the distance. With fall coming on strong in Idaho and with so many of our North American farmers counting their yield — bringing in the bounty, myself included, on a very small scale — I was inclined to make a Landscape of thanksgiving today.
Well, the good times come and go, but at least there’s rain
This won’t be barren ground when September comes around
And watch the field behind the plough, turn to straight dark rows
Put another season’s promise in the ground…
[Stan Rogers]

I miss home this time of year. Autumn is when the Great Northern Plains are most glorious. The fields are swathed in flocks of snow geese and the sky is filled with the triumphant squawk of Canadas. The air is crisp and fingers begin to fumble in the fall winds. The poplar bluffs burn with a last gasp yellow and all things prepare for the season of sleep. I, on the other hand, can feel myself coming alive in this season of decay and change. I love it. I truly do.

Tête à tête!

Whew.
That was long and silly.
These are some of the treats I finished up yesterday. I’ll try to get them in the shop today and Monday for you. Also, I’ll be listing some of the last of my Missoula, Montana inventory featuring large stone settings. Oh! Additionally, I have a mountain of the Paper Lantern Necklace and Earrings series still so those dainty things will continue to trickle into the Etsy shop over the next weeks and months.

I was in a tremendous violet mood yesterday so purple chalcedony ruled in my studio. These necklaces all feature long romantic chains as per my recent obsession…hope you like them and if you reckon you can’t live without one of these little guys, I hope you nab the piece meant for you!
Over and out,
Plumarella
:::EDIT:::
Oh good gracious!
Thank you all SO much for your amazing support today!
I’m officially finished updating the shop on this gorgeous Thursday. I still have a handful of items I was going to list but I’m going to hold them over until Monday if that’s alright with you all! Have a most blessed afternoon and thank you thank you thank you with all my heart!
You never cease to amaze, astound and flabbergast!

Morning Habits

Include but are not limited to:
-cutting fresh flowers (as you saw HERE)
-watering the veggie garden and hanging flower baskets
-turning on the pickle in the studio
-feeding Mister Pinky and letting him out of the studio
-checking for red in the rhubarb patch as well as tomatoes, zuchs, cucumbers, beets and string beans

-feeding the dogs
-feeding the self
-saying hi to Sue
chatting with Burda as she strolls by with her pooch
-deadheading the roses

-consoling Farley

He happens to be terribly depressed.
Bird season opened yesterday in the great state of Idaho.

…and he didn’t get the chance to fetch me my dinner.
Poor fellow.
Poor me!
There’s nothing half so tasty as a freshly harvested, freshly baked, entirely organic, happy little free ranging Ruffed Grouse. There’s nothing half so happy as a bird dog with his quarry in mouth.
Hang on Sequoia’s Fleet Farley. Hang on. We’ll get you doing your business before you can say jackrabbit.
PS I’ll be updating the Etsy shop tomorrow morning as soon as I have new work photographed and ready to roll! See you there!
PSS On a totally unrelated topic, isn’t THIS amazing? I actually spent part of my childhood near Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada when my family was stationed in Riding Mountain National Park. We had interesting wildlife scenes similar to this, rather often, in the front yard. Spotting lynx is very uncommon. Seeing an entire posse is downright amazing!

Les Zucchinis

Last night I had the girls over for cold beer and appetizers. I welcomed them into my home with a mountain of gigantic zucchinis on the kitchen table:
Emily asks me if one is supposed to grow a zucchini THIS big. My response is no. But the problem is that my little zuchs keep hiding from me in the zucchini patch. I don’t notice them until they’re at least 1.5 feet long…

It’s love at first gander for Emily who has an affinity for enormous vegetables. They make her feel as though she’s arrived home. Wait until she sees my recent cucumber harvest.

Louisa yells out: JILLY! THESE ZUCHS ARE GIGANTIC! WHAT’S IN THE WATER AT PLUME GABLES???
I reply: OH NOTHING. MY ZUCCHINI PLANTS HAVE ELEPHANTITIS OF THE FRUIT.
Louisa responds with: WHEW. GOOD TO KNOW. MAY I HAVE A GLASS OF WATER PLEASE?

Emily is amazed at how easy it is to love and cherish a pair of giant zucchinis. Her circadian rhythm begins to tick-tock her faster towards motherhood. Oh the glamour of it all…

The girls begin to act like weightlifters with the giant zucchinis. In the background, Emily discovers the zuchi-smile. She becomes a calm in the storm. She is ZENchini.

Karen gets fancy with a one armed zucchini lift.
In the process she whacks Erin who screams: JEEPERS CREEPERS KAREN!
WATCH WHAT YOU DO WITH THAT THING!
Karen says: HEY. DO YOU THINK I CAN LIFT TWO OF THESE ZUCCHINIS AT ONCE?

Erin says: COME ON KAREN. THERE’S NO WAY YOU CAN LIFT TWO ZUCCHINIS AT ONCE. YOU’D HAVE TO BE FROM PLANET KRYPTON TO DO THAT.

The lift begins.
Erin is so amazed at Karen’s superhuman strength that she begins to giggle in disbelief.

Karen holds steady…

At this point Karen is feeling very physically taxed. Her biceps are about to pop out of her arms like jack-in-the-boxes. It’s intense. I am standing across the room while taking this photo and in my left hand I hold a glistening cup of Gatorade ready for her to swallow down to replenish her electrolytes…whew…we’re talking beads of sweat on her brow and the smell of lady sweat in the air…

In order to get the job done, Emily donates her zucchi-smile to Karen. How sacrificial. If there’s one word I could use to describe this group of women, it is self-sacrifice. In a nut shell. Everyone is always willing to give up their giant zucchini for the sake of the well being of another. That’s true friendship. That’s true love. That’s true sacrifice.

Louisa looks a little devious. No matter the occasion. That’s why I like her so well.

Erin, has a habit of scowling. However, we shall forgive her this expression since she’s being squashed by zucchinis in this snapshot.

It’s so rude to be on the tele-zucchini when one is a dinner guest….humph.

Oh wait, that was a three way zuchi-call with me. Oops. I shouldn’t be so critical…

The tele-zucchini is the new pink…even if you’re getting bad news like Emily is…

…even if some news is rather shocking like it happens to be for Erin…

…especially if it’s a way to hear some juicy gossip in the neighborhood (which is what we all seem to be hearing in this snapshot).
At any rate, an evening of:
good company, a mountain range of laughter, tasty snacks and cold beverages.
Wish you could have been there!
XO

The Noisy Florist

Yesterday morning was so quiet.
I wanted to spend the entire day in the studio but I took a few moments in the morning to cut some fresh flowers for the various nooks in my home.

It’s peaceful, walking through my gardens, selecting by hand and blade the bits of flora I wish to display in the kitchen, washroom, living room and various bookshelves inside the homestead. Lately I’ve been picking flowers for my studio space as well because to look over at a vase filled with long stem roses and sunflowers on the huge tree stump in the middle of my studio floor instantly brightens me. The freshness is transported from my sight to my heart to my hands and suddenly everything is coming up sterling-roses.

It’s always satisfying to bring the outdoors in, even if the outdoors are cultivated, as is the case in my yard. To be fair, I have a heap of odds and ends that I’ve collected over time out in the wideness of nature:
sun bleached bones and antlers
wasp nests
stones
shells
seed pods
…culminating in a lovely sort of house of curiosities.
The flowers are the cherry on top even if they’re short lived.

The blues were bright, the yarrow bleeding tones of yellow and rust. The sunflowers looked like they’d been sent to earth on a flower barge, pushed by solar winds, to settle in the soil of my backyardscape.

The scent of the Russian sage drifts into my bedroom from where it sits on the bathroom counter. It’s still humming with the buzz of bees.

The roses, delicate and stalwart. Loquacious and fine.
Happy to spend their blooms in the peace of my home.

If I had chosen another path, I might have been a noisy florist for it’s just so fun to harvest blossoms and witness the gladness they manage to imbue a space with.

I did make it into the studio after fooling around with these flowers for a spell and I whipped up something so delicate, ladylike and old world….I cannot wait to show it to you.
And finally, thank you so much for your wonderful WONDERFUL responses to my last blog post. RW is home today and when he read the last bloggity as well as your splendid reflections he was delighted indeed!
Love you all to smithereenies,
Jillian
PS Did I inform you as to the loveliness of my weekend last? I had the darling Miss Stacey visit me and we went hiking, made pear jam together, ate a bunch of tasty food, sipped tea and margaritas and spent some time making some jewels in my studio. Plus, she informed me of the bizarre black market on Etsy which was a FASCINATING education of sorts, though a teenie bit saddening. It was altogether a truly restful weekend spent in the excellent company of a wonderful woman. Wowsers. Sometimes I feel so lucky that my socks might blow right off my feet…knowing all of you kind of affects me like that…your amazingness makes me feel like I’m in a wind tunnel walking into an unnaturally beautiful and strong breeze.
Now. I’m getting off my duff and out to
do a bit of work.