Fall Fungi and Red-and-Green Motifs

It's been a little gray around here lately, and it's been feeling like incipient autumn is sucking out the color from our garden. We have only a few hardy blooms left over, and I know that it's time to go out and buy some mums to cheer things up. Most of the leaves on our trees are still green, so we haven't yet experienced Fall's vibrant golds and brilliant reds yet. But I ventured out into my garden with my camera to see what autumn color and textures I could capture.

The recent rains have enlivened our mushroom population, and it's always fun to go outside after a rainshower to see what new friends have popped up.

These two look like finely carved porcelain bowls. I love how the light diffuses through them as if they are lit from inside.

And I noticed a thriving "bouquet" of wood fungus growing on a stump. This little colony has doubled in size since the summer.

My kids have really gotten to be amateur mushroom hunters, and my almost-three-year old (who has now learned to look and not touch or eat) spotted these tiny, fuzzy mushrooms growing in the grass. The largest ones are only a few centimeters across.
I also noticed some dazzling red and green combinations throughout our yard--a red maple leaf nestled in the vinca and other groundcover with a trace of rain caught my eye.

I also noticed the red-veined bottoms of shiso leaves. The plant, whose leaves are green on top, had re-seeded itself from last summer in a tidy little row. Orange-red seed pods from Lily of the Valley. They look very Halloween to me.Probably one of the last, lonely wild strawberries. I love its nubby texture.So, the Fall color is out there, it just takes some searching to find.

I've been learning lots of new knitting and crochet tricks by following Resurrection Fern's beautiful and helpful series of knitting, crochet, and felting tutorials. Each little project has given me that little nudge to try some things that had intimidated me--knitting in the round, crochet, etc. So far I have crocheted an acorn necklace, knitted up a coffee cozie (and, for my son, a viola chin rest, which is just a narrower cozie stuffed with wool and sewed up at the ends!!), and started on one of the little knitted trees. I'd love to see what you've come up with by trying the tutorials.

I'll be taking a little bit of a blog break for the next few weeks. All I want to do is knit and crochet and felt these days, but reality is getting a little bit in the way. Work and a childcare crisis are taking up my time, and I need some time away from the siren call of the blogosphere and Flickr to attend to these pressing issues.

Happy Autumn!