Looking for Colour in a Grey World

The world has been grey for so many days, we've forgotten what the sun looks like. All our lovely bits of snow have melted off; the weather is now just warm enough not to snow, and to turn what moisture there is into fog and damp.

A good time to get out the Christmas mini-quilts and begin the annual decorating. Though I haven't quilted anything in years, I love to decorate with these:

Most of them are quilted by machine, but this one is almost entirely hand-quilted:

(Back in my quilting days, quilt backs were mostly plain. But still fun to look at if you're a quilter.)

My only bargello project (can you tell I was a big fan of meandering quilting?):

Detail of a tiny paper-pieced block:

Looking at the all the fabric trees made me want to find a real one, so on Sunday I headed out to the local tree farm. Dampness filled the air, diffusing the light and making all my photos just a little misty.

The car bumped over the trail as I headed for the farthest possible corner of the farm.

I've written before about this tree farm; it's an unconventional one where baby trees mingle with reverend old pine and spruce, nothing is ever dyed or sprayed, and trees are trimmed casually if at all. A very far cry from the manicured rows of matching, near-perfect trees at a traditional tree farm - but I like it just the way it is.

Stumps are everywhere, as are tiny new trees just starting out in life:

This stump was covered with lovely pale-green fungi, like tiny jade-coloured horns:

Some of the trees come pre-decorated; I was sorely tempted to take this one:

In fact I'd already found what would become our tree, almost the moment I set foot out of the car. But I still walked the entire farm - partly to see if there were a better tree somewhere else, and partly for the joy of traipsing through woods and fields on a misty December day, admiring the golden stubble, the pale champagne grass, the blue-green spruce, and the rusty-red-needle-carpeted ground.

I didn't find a better tree, but I did find plenty of colour under those grey skies. Then back to the car for the saw and the chosen tree, then home in the deepening twilight.

Here's our tree, lit but not yet decorated:

Judging by the photo above, I seem to have brought some of that mistiness indoors with me. (Actually my little camera couldn't get a clear shot in the dark room, so the photo was pixellated for the fun of it).

Ooh - pixellated photo = quilted tree! :)

How's your world right now? Grey, white, brown, or colourful?

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