The shape of a day
I’m sitting here in the studio as the light drops out of the day. The sky has gone that flat grey which swallows colour; the trees silhouetted, their edges sharp and defined. The mountains have receded into a darker version of themselves. I think the kookaburras may have had their last laugh now that the frogs have started up. I can almost see the light disappearing in real time. Darker, darker, darker. It’s an unusual time for me to be in the studio and I’m noticing how different the space feels in the evening. The windows, which are so full of light during the day, now hold this wide, dimmed view, and the whole room feels hushed and contained.
The last fortnight has felt… balanced… but not in the way that word sometimes gets used, like something perfected or achieved. Perhaps it’s more that I’ve stopped resisting the way my time is pulled in so many directions. Studio practice and admin, life admin, meals, movement, mothering, the garden — all of it needing a place, all of it asking for attention in different ways.
There have been several moments in the studio where I’ve felt that familiar pull to keep going; where creativity is flowing and ideas are clicking into place, and it would be so simple to let the whole day disappear into this rhythm. But I’ve chosen to pause the momentum to ensure I get other things done as well, so there won’t be a ripple-on cost later: food prep not done, admin pushed, my body not moved, the afternoon becoming tighter and more stressful than it needs to be. This pausing feels big. Being able to honour the shape of the day as a whole, not desperately following the electric thread of the creative impulse. Rather than: now-or-never, I’m leaning into: now-and-again tomorrow.
The equinox has just passed, almost quietly, and I only realised afterwards that this gentle rebalancing of my days has been happening alongside that moment where light and dark briefly meet as equals. I kind of love that I didn’t notice it at the time, that the alignment was so unintentional.
Some leaves are just beginning to turn. That subtle shift from green into that in-between, slightly dulled brown, before they tip fully into their fire-bright hues. Colour arriving slowly, just nudging the edges, before stepping forward in full, luminous glory. Classic-Uma has already found some dazzling leaves, while I’m still just noticing the beginnings of the shift.
I have had a couple of gentle preliminary conversations about quilt commissions over the past few weeks. Another sign of the turning of the season. I find it hard to imagine stepping into the depth of commission work while the days are still pulling me outward in so many directions. Quilting, and even more so quilt commissions, feel like they belong to the cooler months, when the rhythm shifts inward again and longer stretches of studio time become possible. Still, it’s there now, beginning to take shape.
Across the past few weeks, I’ve been working on a pair of Arthur pants by Sew Liberated with my artist-bestie Shelley Krycer. After four long sessions, several toiles and many cups of tea, we’ve finally each finished a pair. I have done a lot of garment sewing over time, but I genuinely cannot believe how long these took. There are so many panels, so many flat-felled and French seams, such a slow, considered construction. Thankfully, I’m completely in love with them and never want to take them off. On one hand, I want to make another pair. On the other, I’m hesitant about starting something which requires so much time. Perhaps it’s something for after the school holidays…
Out in the garden, I’ve finally done the thing I always say I’ll do and rarely manage — clearing space for a proper early autumn planting so the winter crop has a chance to settle in. The corn has come out, and in its place broccoli, cauliflower, leafy greens, beetroot, spring onions, and peas. Lots of peas. A whole row of peas. There is always that quiet mix of trepidation and hope when you turn the soil and tuck the seedlings in. Gardening seems to hold more hope than almost anything else I do.
At the same time, the garden is still very much in its late-summer abundance. Mornings before school drop-off are spent quickly gathering what’s ready — baskets filling with fruit, veg and flowers. Everything coming in at once, needing to be used, preserved, shared. We haven’t bought fruit in weeks now, just eating between what’s growing here and what friends and neighbours have to trade. I don’t quite feel the melancholy of the harvest ending yet. There is still too much coming in, too much warmth lingering. But I can feel myself tilting, almost without noticing. Planting for what’s next while still gathering what is here. Beginning, slowly, to turn toward the cooler months.
And alongside all of this, the days themselves are doing that strange early-autumn dance. Cold mornings with woolly layers, breath visible in the air, dew sitting heavy on everything. Then by mid-morning the heat returns and it’s summer again. The valley carries the faint smell of planned burns, smoke drifting through in soft, intermittent waves — yet another signal that something is shifting, even if it hasn’t fully arrived yet.
And now the studio is dark, mountains shrouded in night, the sounds outside taking over from the light. I’m so aware of how different the feeling is from the middle of the day, and how much I’ve enjoyed being here at this hour, just witnessing it.
