This Wednesday morning I’ll be getting up early and heading up north for three days of classes at Squam Art Workshops.  I’m excited and nervous and thrilled and curious.

My friend Cal and I are carpooling.  It’s a five hour drive and I think we’re both grateful for the company.  She’ll be teaching a class at Squam called Unconventional Embroidery.  Doesn’t that sound fun?

I will be back next week with photos and stories to share.

image by Jen Gray via Squam

image via Zara

Gorgeous quilt seen on Bloesem blog this morning. These colors are just the thing to pick me up on such a dreary day.

image via Boden

This was totally one of those “how have I not seen your work before” moments when I came across the shop of Yellena James. Honestly, stop reading this post and go take a look for yourself. Amazing!

Yellena is an artist and illustrator from Portland, OR. Her work is filled with color and movement. I love the organic shapes and how each piece has a real sense of depth.I had a hard time picking out just a few to show here. You can see more in her shop.

image via Building Block

No, not that story of O, this is a PG-rated blog people. What I’m talking about is the story of Olive our new little pup!

Olive was found in a soup kitchen in Georgia. My friend Jane volunteers at the kitchen and when she met Olive and her brother she took them in and tried to find them  homes. She brought them to her local shelter where Olive’s brother was adopted out almost immediately.

Fast forward a few months, Jane is up here in the mountains (she lives half the year there and half here), when she receives a call from the shelter. Olive’s time has run out and they are going to euthanize her the following day. When Jane hears this she drives down to Georgia to rescue Olive and brings her back up here.

When Jane sent photos out asking for help to find this sweet girl a home I knew it was meant to be. These are the original photos that wooed me. How sweet is that little face?

We’ve had her for a week now. She and Dexter are getting along really well, they wrestle and run together like old friends. She still doesn’t really know her name (or that she shouldn’t chew on shoes) but it will all come in time.

Both literally and figuratively. Early this month, the Mr. and I bought our first house! During the month of August we’ve decided to keep the house we are renting now so that we can take our time cleaning and painting before we start settling in.

The new house is in Mount Tremper, a little hamlet in Woodstock, NY.  We’ll be at a higher elevation than we are now which means more snow and longer periods of cold (so I’ve been told) but the mountain views and old stone walls make up for it.

I hope to share photos of the progress we are making soon.  The house is in very good condition but the previous owner and I have wildly divergent ideas about color so painting is tops on my list.

Here are some pics I snapped earlier today of the current bedroom colors. There are three total – one will be my studio, one the guest bedroom and one our bedroom.

This purple room will be my studio which I’m painting Potters Clay by Martha Stewart -

This is our bedroom. I’m not opposed to yellow at all  but this one is a bit too bright for me. I’m going to paint it Lemon Drop by Behr -

And the guest bedroom, well, I’m not sure what to do.  It’s the darkest of the three bedrooms and doesn’t get much light. I thought rather than trying to fight it I would go with it and put a dark color on the walls. These are four colors that I’m thinking about. Any thoughts?

image via Leah Duncan