Summer garden colours in stitch.

 Too hot and dry in the garden but some flowers like it. The colours are bright and beautiful.

 I wanted to have a piece I could pick up add some stitches to and put down. So I gathered together some fabric scraps and loosely based on these abstract collages I made ( Sue Dove online workshop)

 assembled, played, pinned and stitched down. Then it gets addictive like a jig-saw puzzle.

Then it takes over so you can't think of anything but swirling bright colours and which bit to stitch next in which colour? Such is embroidery for me. The backing is a bit of blanket so it is quilting nicely. I have put a little free machine embroidery in patches of colour to help blend, catch down and contrast textures. I don't know how big it will get, just seeing where it takes me. I can keep adding as I go and layering over if I change my mind about colours. Stitching is just running stitch- like kantha stitching.

Some more birds plus some wild orchids.

 More birds going into the sky.

 The fabric ( piece of a wedding dress) is very fragile but then so is the ecosystem. So I am putting in seeding stitches as stay stitches - hence mending the sky.

 These are our swifts that come and nest in our cottage roof each year.

 This is our new pond area. It was hot at the weekend and the best time was sitting under the new parasol pond watching. We have tadpoles and damselflies.

 Yesterday we went on a wildflower walk at Westonbirt Aboretum- common spotted orchid.

 Butterfly orchid,

Twayblade. Really worth going out with experts- so many names to learn and interesting facts.