wildflowers as inspiration

 Some small pieces I am working on, inspiration from my journal. Ladies bedstraw top right, Great Knapweed still to be stitched bottom right. I will be at Chapel Arts, Cheltenham at the Glos Guild Gallery on Thurs Aug 12th with my journals if you want to pop in and see them in person. 11-3.

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.

 

Nature journal for June.

 My perpetual journal pages for June. Drawing regularly is such a pleasure. It takes all the concentration to do and is so peaceful. I have included a few close ups at the ene, including that bad chicken I posted about on Instagram. (Put in a separate enclosure for bullying the others)

Betony.

 Betony added to the perpetual journal. Photographed in an empty studio. We have now got to the painting of the walls stage. But we did take a morning off to have a walk at Westonbirt Aboretum and enjoy the trees, wild flowers and butterflies. Marbled Whites liked the Betony. A new flower for me so good to draw and learn. It was a great medicinal herb. Back to the decorating now.

Perpetual journal.

 The weather is warm and heavy. No rain for several weeks so the veg gardening is suffering, but lots of flowers in the fields, verges and garden. I decided to make my perpetual journal into 2 books from Jan- June and July-Dec. So I have stitched together and bound the first volume (not very professionally but it is only for me!) Now I have cut the next leaves and started on the July pages.

These poppies self seed themselves all over the garden. They are large and gorgeous. The heads as beautiful as the flowers.In the studio I am having a massive clear out and tidy up because I have a break in work now the exhibition at Quenington is finished. I really miss stitching but it has to be done now and tidying and chucking out is very satisfying.

Wild flowers in the Field Book - finished!

 Finished the wild flower side of the Field Book. Cow parsley, cowslip, speedwell, ribwort plantain,

 vetch, pineapple mayweed ( a type of Chamomile) daisy,

 buttercup, dandelion,

red clover. There are many more but that is all the space I had!
We had a wonderful day out yesterday at Slimbridge WWT. We saw kingfishers fishing. No pictures because my camera doesn't do zoom close up but very exciting because we had really good sightings. They are nesting in a bank opposite to the kingfisher hide. The picture below is from Zeiss hide - there are avocets in the water there but you will have to take my word for it.  We also saw a spoonbill and heard a cuckoo. My cup overfloweth.

Wild flowers of the field margins.

 I thought you might like to see the field margin where these wild flowers are growing. What a perfect time of year!

 Cow parsley, cowslip,ribwort plantain, vetch and mayweed.

Rose Bay Willow Herb - in stitch.

We have been away visiting family and we have had internet troubles too. So this is the third of those sketchbook diary pieces. August 7th 2018. We walked along the green lane and came out on the road to a huge patch of rose bay willow herb. The sky was bright blue and the flowers bright pink, what a contrast. It is a mixture of hand and machine stitching.

This is my walking stitch, a theme that will be coming up in my next series of work but now it is eyes down getting ready for the Rodmarton Manor exhibition next week.

Playing with paint and monoprints.

 A wet Sunday afternoon so I got out my acrylic paints, rollers and geli plate.

 Just playing around with ideas of the enormous field with crops at different times of the year.

 These are on paper,

 then on fabric.

 One to stitch into. A pick up and put down piece for slow stitching.

Also working on a Rose Bay willow herb in stitch. Another diary story, third in the series.

Field Scabious.

This is the second piece in this diary/sketchbook series. 23rd July - yoga on the common, my green and turquoise mat, heat, Field Scabious, wind through the dried grasses, grass baked crisp.

 2 layers of fabric- outer painted with dyes, inner painted white and printed side panel. I drew the flower. Hand stitched.

 I used the drawings I made in July 2 years ago as reference.

July wild flowers and new piece begun.

 Tuesday was the July wild flower walk at Westonbirt. The guides show you around and sometimes pick common flowers to look at closely and show you how to identify them. This time I collected up the picked specimens so the bunch in the jug, bought home to draw, wasn't picked by me but the experts so nothing rare! However there are different types of soils and habitats within Westonbirt so a huge variety of plants to learn about.

 Hairy bell flower, St John's wort and bush vetch here.

 I have started a new stitched piece inspired by sycamore keys scattered on our local footpath.

Tiny Y Y Ys- all over the path.( fly stitch and question marks?) Away for a holiday now, will post a few pics on instagram- also louisemaywatson.

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.