the patchwork dress: thanksgiving

I've not posted as much as I'd intended to for the November gratitude month - but I have been thinking about it. Seeing as it is Thanksgiving (tomorrow I think) - I also want to give thanks for...

The wonderful surroundings where I live!... On a good day (not today as the rain is horizontal and lashing winds!) it looks like this! - a walk through the fields just across from my house. I can walk all the way to Loch Lomondside across these fields. The view of the mountains in front that surround the loch. In winter they are breathtaking with their snowy tops. I also love when these fields fill with wintering geese. You can hear them fly over in the morning and back again at night. Walking through the field, you disturb them - they all begin honking, and then take off to circle round a few times until they find an undisturbed patch of grazing..

Moments of stillness, of doing nothing. Just being. As the world goes on around you, you just stop... and observe, connect with where you are now. This happens a lot when I take photographs, it's a very connective process.

I give thanks for all the crafty connectivity I have come into in the last couple of years. This weekend visited the Country Living Christmas Fair, which included a large percentage of individual makers - some friends, some faces from last year I could chat with. I bought myself this Polish pottery mug and spoon, just to make ceremony out of a coffee at home. A rare treat I only get at weekends now... for a while longer anyway! I came away with a few pottery treats - it was so nice just to have something tactile and earthy in my hands after lots of cerebral work at computer and drawing board. The spoon has such a nice feeling to it, even though I don't take sugar, I just had to have it for ceremonial stirring!