Hedgerow harvest

Hedgerow harvest

Friday 11 September 2020

Wild flowers of the Cotswolds in stitch.

I have been working on this piece for 3 years. Not continually but as July comes around and these flowers are on the ridge in the hay meadow close by. Finally finished it ! The flowers are cushion calamint, scabious, bladder campion, knapweed, ox-eye daisy, and lesser bindweed or convolvulus. The butterfly is a common blue or though they are not so common any more. It is 40 cm x 14 cm - so long and thin, not ideal for photography. Trying to finish a few summer pieces before we get deeply into Autumn.



 

Friday 4 September 2020

Summer cloth - slow stitching and hand embroidery.

I have been working on this summer cloth for the last 6 weeks. very enjoyable too ! The circles came from my large circular meditation cloth - same motif around the border. I used colours from the garden and wild flowers. The birds, butterflies etc outlines came from the drawings on tracing paper I make to transfer drawing to cloth. I end up with pages and pages of these outlines and they are beautiful in thier own right. I just put the ideas togther to contrast.
The idea is to conjure up all the things I like about summer. An evocation of the season. A rejoicing too. As it takes so long to stitch it like recording time within the work. Looking at some pieces I can remember the music or story I was listening to as I stitched. Thats why embroiderers were sometimes accused of magic and witchcraft. They trapped things into the stitches. Lets hope I have caught summer here and can loook at it in the long dark cold days of winter. It will be shown at Quenington next June.


 

Tuesday 1 September 2020

Perpetual Journal August 2020

August journal. Its been a busy month and now its over we have a new kitchen so its all been worthwhile. We have never had a new fitted kitchen and all our appliances were very old so this has been a complete change. Meanwhile in the great outdoors, the seasons have moved on and cooler nights and an abundance of fruits and berries means Autumn has come.