Marinating & pumpkins

While I don't have a pumpkin patch, I do have a couple of nice squash vines growing right now. You may have noticed a link in my friends and favs to www.earthbox.com
This is a picture of my Earthbox planted with squash and some bell peppers. It's my first attempt, I'll let you know how they all progress. Optimist that I am, I hope to be serving squash on Thanksgiving. Anyway, about marinating....
I've been asked many times where my ideas come from for my designs. Well, they tend to pop into my head any old time and I seem to have spurts of ideas rather than a constant scheduled trickle of inspiration. Because of that I keep a sketch book handy and make some basic notes and sketches so I don't lose an idea. I am usually working on more than one design at once and usually in different stages of completion. For example I may be binding one quilt while cutting out another and also writing the instructions for one of them.
When I am getting ready to start a new project there are times when I have to let the concept marinate for a bit before I get started. While I am marinating an idea, I will sometimes take a break and stitch up some fun little whimsy of a project for a change of pace, after I water my squash of course. I enjoy doing redwork and so I made a couple of redwork wristlets as gifts and then had so much fun I made a few more and put some in my Etsy shop. I still had some more marinating to do, so I drew up a couple of little redwork illustrations to share with you.
Yes, one of them has a pumpkin. You can download them both for free from my website www.thistledownquilts.com or www.Quiltersshowcase.com and stitch them into fun little projects for yourself. Hope you enjoy the marinade results.
Linda