New embroidery- Meadow grasses.

 This is my first new piece of embroidery after a bit of a break. So it seems a bit disconnected at the moment.

 I did the meadow grasses first

 and then the meditational ripples of lines that are about the wind in those grasses.

Yesterday I put in the Meadow Brown butterfly that feeds on the grasses. They are 3 things that need bringing togther with colour or design. Who knows? Sometimes things have to be unpicked or they are abandoned. Just sent a few abandoned pieces to a textile up cycler in U.S.A. so will see if she can make something of them rather than lying neglected in a drawer. But I think this one is a puzzle I will fathom out. All my designs start like this - it's problem solving to fit the story. The story this time is how that wind through those meadow grasses made me feel peaceful, free and content. Sound corny? Perhaps it just is. Which is what I said of those wavy meditation lines.

Meditation circle - borders.

 Slowly putting in the borders on the meditation circle. There will be a circle in each corner, one for each season. Haven't worked out what is going in the rest of the border- maybe more circles? Have tried to get the borders straight! Much undoing. Need more tacking stitches I think.

This is Winter circle - same colours as the middle of the large circle. Turning cooler here in the mornings and evenings and with the Bank Holiday on Monday there is a definite turn of the seasons, as the children go back to school the following week. Have a good holiday weekend everyone, the weather is supposed to be warm and dry again.

Been to the seaside.

 Been away in Norfolk visiting family with our family. My daughter on the beach.

Glowering skies over the beach. Caught up with all my sisters and much fun was had with my little great neice especially on the beach! Back in the studio when I have caught up with the washing. I miss stitching when I am away- must be a 'stitchaholic'.

Wild flowers of the Ridge.

 It's been a busy week with Hagis coming to stay. Lots of walks and play time because he does miss his family.

 Managed a little stitching on a long strip that records the flowers on the ridge I showed you last time. This is cushion calamint or wild basil and scabious next.

Rosebay or fireweed. Meditation circle.

 Here is the Rosebay Willowherb we were discussing. Such beautiful bright pink spikes. I have stitched it lots of times.

 I have gone back to my meditation piece to add the colours of summer. I have also made my border outline of a square.

Yesterday I put in blue sky and pink rosebay colours. It begins in the centre with winter colours and comes into spring greens. By the outside it will be Autumn and back to Winter for the border. Well that is the plan. These first 2 weeks of August are called dog days and the season does hang on the cusp at the moment. The fields are shorn and the sultriness pervades like time has stopped. First signs are peeping in like the brown withered seeds of the docks and the first thistles setting. There were goldfinch feeding on the thistle seed.

Perpetual journal July and the flowers of the Ridge.

 You have seen lots of these pages already but I thought I would show them together.

 I have started to look at the flowers that grow along a ridge in the middle of one of our nearby fields. It is a hayfield that cattle graze in at times but this ridge is always overgrown allowing wild flowers and insects to thrive. I started to make a list of the flowers growing there. Of course it changes during the year and it seems year to year because I wrote a list in July 2016 and no rosebay willowherb this year.

 It is covered in the pink and white discs of field bindweed and the wind ripples through the grasses like seaweed in the water. Hoping to make some embroideries from this work. Starting gently with drawing the flowers in my journal. We have Haggis the dog for the next 12 days so more walks to help with the observatio.