Plum Birthday Journal

 Hello lovely ladies. It's my birthday month and as I shared last September a journal I had made for myself, I'm back this month to do the same. As I go on my weekly scavenger hunts I often find random vintage textiles that are of wildly varying colours - but alas - there is a method to my madness (I think!) and these dusty forgotten lovely pieces of cloth come home with me where I wash them tenderly and sort them into baskets. Over the summer I gathered a few plum coloured fabrics and so they all came together in my new birthday journal. 

September

I created a collage of different bits of vintage trims and velvety flowers. I found this vintage silver plated leaf decoration in a thrift store that really made me happy, I thought it added the perfect touch to my cover of of fanciful flowers.

I made a trip home this summer where I had time to pull out some old family photo albums.

What a joy it is to see an old photograph and suddenly find long lost memories washing over you. This photograph of me as a little girl made me recall that my very first memories are here in this apartment on Eglinton Avenue. I distinctly remember my very young self looking up in absolute wonder at very long crystal clear icicles hanging from the eaves of the entrance. Winter is such a magical time when you are young. I also remember my Dad taking us to a nearby park where we would ride a toboggan down the icy hills into piles of fluffy snow.

    

    

                                          
           

 

         

I'm already playing with my next basket of fabrics in fiery colours of burnt orange, rusty golden browns and dark rich reds, in anticipation of my favourite autumn season. I'll be back with another share. Thanks for looking and I hope you feel inspired.

Love, Lisa xoxoxox

 

Departing summer hath assumed

An aspect tenderly illumed,

The gentlest look of spring;

That calls from yonder leafy shade

Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,

A timely carolling.

No faint and hesitating trill,

Such tribute as to winter chill

The lonely redbreast pays!

Clear, loud, and lively is the din,

From social warblers gathering in

Their harvest of sweet lays.

Nor doth the example fail to cheer

Me, conscious that my leaf is sere,

And yellow on the bough:—

Fall, rosy garlands, from my head!

Ye myrtle wreaths, your fragrance shed

Around a younger brow!

Yet will I temperately rejoice;

Wide is the range, and free the choice

Of undiscordant themes;

Which, haply, kindred souls may prize

Not less than vernal ecstasies,

And passion's feverish dreams.

For deathless powers to verse belong,

And they like Demi-gods are strong

On whom the Muses smile;

But some their function have disclaimed,

Best pleased with what is aptliest framed

To enervate and defile.

Not such the initiatory strains

Committed to the silent plains

In Britain's earliest dawn:

Trembled the groves, the stars grew pale,

While all-too-daringly the veil

Of nature was withdrawn!

Nor such the spirit-stirring note

When the live chords Alcæus smote,

Inflamed by sense of wrong;

Woe! woe to Tyrants! from the lyre

Broke threateningly, in sparkles dire

Of fierce vindictive song.

And not unhallowed was the page

By wingèd Love inscribed, to assuage

The pangs of vain pursuit;

Love listening while the Maid

With finest touch of passion swayed

Her own Æolian lute.

O ye, who patiently explore

The wreck of Herculanean lore,

What rapture! could ye seize

Some Theban fragment, or unroll

One precious, tender-hearted scroll

Of pure Simonides.

That were, indeed, a genuine birth

Of poesy; a bursting forth

Of genius from the dust:

What Horace gloried to behold,

What Maro loved, shall we enfold?

Can haughty Time be just!

September 1819

by William Wordsworth