The Family Pumpkin Patch

Each year, my parents grow pumpkins for their grandkids to carve at Halloween.  My parents live on 5 acres now, so they have room to grow plenty of pumpkins for us and our friends.  The pumpkins look especially good this year.

There were a couple of flowers still in bloom on the vines.  It's too late for them to turn into pumpkins!

Normally we carve the pumpkins together too, but this year our schedules worked out so that we harvested a little too early to carve on the same day.  Of course we started out with lunch and cookie decorating for the kids.

I couldn't resist sampling the parsley in the garden.  It was so juicy and sweet!

The dogs got a chance to play too.  My parents' place is fenced, so they can safely run and play chase in a large area.  Here they are running through an area that was tilled for planting next year.

The black and white dog is Glacier, and the brown dog is Gobi.  Chase is their favorite game.  They ran for hours.

After we played around for a while, we decided it was time to load up the pumpkins.  My dad cut them off the vines.

 Then we washed the dirt off.

The next part was fun - we loaded them into a trailer and used my parent's little tractor to haul them over to the cars.

At the end of the day, we each drove home with a load of pumpkins.

Do you have any harvest or seasonal activities for autumn?  I'd love to hear about it!

Picasso Challenge

I've decided to participate in the Etsy Beadweavers Team October Challenge "Inspired by Picasso".  I started out by doing a Google search for Picasso images.  When I found one I liked, I threw that image into the search bar to find more like it (up to that time, I hadn't realized it was possible to search and image that way).  The painting I chose to inspire my beadwork piece is Dance of the Veils, from Picasso's African period.

 I like this painting because of the sense of motion Picasso was able to convey with geometric shapes.  I especially liked the curving triangles with the heavy black outlines and the cross-hatching.  I decided that this outlined, curved triangle was the shape I wanted to feature in my beadwork piece.

I made my first attempts during my recent camping trip.  After I came home, I continued to work on it.  It took me many tries to get the shape to look the way I wanted it to.

Attempt 1:  Not technically feasible

Attempt 2:  Too suggestive

Attempt 3:  Too Rounded

Attempt 4:  Too curly

Finally I managed to make some curving triangles that had just a little bit of curl (I like the 3-D curl, attempt 4 just had a bit too much curl).  I sewed my new triangles together into a bracelet.

Now I need to attach a clasp that won't detract from the bracelet.  I like the clean lines that the triangles make.  I don't want to attach the clasp to the tips of the triangles because I think that will obscure their pointiness (is that a word?).  I will probably attach the clasp to the long side of the two ending triangles.

So if you were going to do a Picasso-inspired project, which painting or period would you choose?  Or would you want to choose a different artist all together?