mixed colours?

I didn't manage to follow the one colour a week regime - but today it was a very typical autumn day for us: the forecast was for sunny spells, but in fact it was overcast and hazy - so I decided to walk around and take pix of our autumn colours. and one of the neighbours lit a turf fire; we could smell it - the famous "typical irish" countryside scent for autumn and winter! though most people now use oil/coal for heating,  a few, esp. older people still burn peat. actually you can buy small clay/china cottages in some places together with very small pieces of peat - to burn them, a bit like incense!

so here are some of my autumn colours:

a lot of plants still carry fruits/berries; yellow and red raspberries, medlars, flowering quinces - and also potatoes. some of the late ones are quite small, but usually I use them as seed potatoes, so that is fine. the very small ones are scrubbed and fried in some butter to be eaten immediately - one of the special joys of autumn:)) the blue ones (middle left, at the bottom) are a real treat - they are purple inside and out!  the pink ones only have a coloured skin and are yellow inside.

of course not all are edible - I don't trust the fungi that pop up here and there (I know a lot of wild plants, but I am very careful with fungi!) and some of the ornamental trees do carry berries, which are not edible - or at least not nice to eat. the blueberry has phantastic autumn colour - but no berries left on it. elderberries on the other hand are one of my favourites, maybe especially so because the trees here don't carry much most years. you have to pick what you can in a good year - like this one. 

I also love the red dahlia - this is the one that gives such lovely orange dyes. didn't try the asters though. the japanese maples turn a fiery red now - the leaves are very pretty pressed and dried for collages and other arty things.  

I started with christmas presents - I want to do tablemats in crochet and tried two hexagon shapes. very similar, only the white starts with simple sc in the middle and fewer chain stitches for the "holes". the fabric looks a bit denser than the green one - might not be a bad thing for a tablemat?

the green one looks more open - actually without blocking it has a funny swirly 3-D shape! it springs up along the chain swirls and lies flatter in between. I will have to block it to stay flat, though I still have to decide which one I am going to make. the green one has a pretty center with little clusters of dc's. I also have to dig out the other colours, though I am not sure yet which ones will work best with the dark green. off to open the treasure chests (aka suitcases filled with cones:)) to have a hunt around....