A Summer of Outdoor Living

Setting off in our kayaks from Spring Island

View from our tent on Spring Island

This summer has been a summer of outdoor living, of breathing in the good, sweet, fresh sea air of Canada's west coast. Sometimes camping, sometimes kayaking, sometimes staying by a fresh water lake. Free of the responsibilities of running a business and preparing for new quilting classes, I have been able to enjoy all of this in a way I haven't been free to in years. And it is so good for the soul, for health, for re-kindling a sense of joy in our world. I have done very little stitching this summer, apart from new leaves on my "traveller's blanket", and finishing my entry for "Garden Tapestry", a juried show of work made by members of the Surface Design Association of Vancouver Island. (Happily it was juried in, and will debut in a Duncan gallery in October.) But I sense it's been a time of refreshment for me, and know that the creative life and stitching is somehow linked to this time spent moving slowly, noticing the small things as well as the enormity of God's creation, and that come the fall, I will be in just the right space to get back to work. I'm so very thankful.