Inspired by Fall Colors

I live in Berkeley, in an area that is directly across from the Golden Gate. Among other things, the area is known as the fog belt—which is both good and bad. Good because when the inland areas are sweltering in 100° + summer heat, the temperature in Berkeley is often a good 20° cooler—thanks to the fog, our “natural air conditioning” which comes pouring in through the Golden Gate on summer mornings. It’s bad because it makes it hard to grow herbs and vegetables such as tomatoes and basil that need heat and sun. Until recently, growing tomatoes had been terribly disappointing.

Fall colors

When you live near the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, the term fall colors takes on an entirely different meaning. Yes, we do have some deciduous trees whose leaves turn yellow, red, and orange—in their own subtle ways. But for me, fall colors are something entirely different

After living in our house for over 20 years, we finally figured it out. The best spot to plant tomatoes and basil is a 2 foot-wide strip of dirt between the driveway and the west side of the house. It gets afternoon sun—the time of day when it’s most likely to be clear because the fog has burned off, and the heat and light reflect off the house to warm the plants. Even so, it often takes until October (or November), for the tomatoes to get really ripe and for the basil to be bushy enough to start plucking enough leaves to make pesto.

To fill out the menu, a friend who lives one block over has a fig tree. Faced with the same growing issues, if the figs get ripe at all, they too are at their peak in October.

So my favorite fall colors are green (basil), purple (figs), and orange (cherry tomatoes). For those of you who are up on your color theory—that is a triadic color scheme. When I saw those colors sitting on my kitchen counter, I knew that I had to arrange a still life and take photos.

If you you’ve been wondering where the quilting/crafting part was going to come in—here it is. I’ve been playing around with printing on fabric for a while now. I’ve co-authored two books (More Photo Fun, and Innovative Fabric Imagery for Quilts) and made a DVD (Lynn Koolish Teaches You Printing on Fabric). I love playing with Photoshop Elements and knew that when I was taking those still-life photos, they were going to be printed on fabric and made into a quilt. So here’s the image I plan to use, modified in Photoshop Elements of course, but you’ll have to check back later to see what I do with it—I’m still working on that part.