Daisies, ribbons and even more seed packets!

Rain fell for a sizeable part of the day, so gardening and allotmenting were put aside. I did venture out to take a few photos of the garden. These Mexican daisies are everywhere, blooming away like crazy. The lemon verbena is doing well, and smells heavenly. Such a fresh sharp scent. You can't resist brushing your hand against the leaves as you pass by.

The thyme's covered in little flowers attracting busy bees, the purple of the verbena looks wonderful against the mustardy yellow of the dill with its plentiful umbels. There's the vibrant sunshine yellow of the rudbeckia, the flagrant orange of crocosmia ... a garden, however imperfect, is a blessing, isn't it?

I popped into town for some groceries, and managed a quick rummage in a charity shop too. Picked up this signed copy of 'Tidelands' by Philippa Gregory - I do love a hefty hardback book with a nice dust jacket- as well as a few crafty supples. Four rolls of ribbon, a little sewing kit with pre-threaded needles and these sheets of pearlised adhesive paper. That bundle set me back a grand total of £2.57. A bargain, wouldn't you say? Ribbons are always useful for adding a flourish to present wrapping, and the white and yellow ones are particularly pretty.

The other thing I did today was to continue my experiments with gelli printing, which is getting totally addictive. More seed packets were assembled.

I particularly liked the colour combinations of these two pieces, so stuck 'em in my 'quilt ideas' notebook, where I collect photos and quick sketches and thoughts about quilts I'd like to make in future. I'd love to get some fabric paints and translate these colours and patterns into cloth. I love the raspberry colour on the left, and the blackberry purple with the sludgy green on the right. I can imagine quilting stitches being used to sew around the circular shapes caused by the bubble wrap, making the surface of the quilt resemble the original bubble wrap itself.

Not sure if it'd work, but I'd love a mixture of fabrics in such a quilt - silky material that's printed on, alongside the smooth luxury of velvet. Rich sumptuous shades. Jewel-like colours. Wouldn't that be something?

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Threads of Freedom and charity shop bargains

It's Saturday afternoon, and I haven't done half the things I'd meant to. Partly because I spent most of this morning messing about with paints, stencils and the gell plate. Never mind, everything on today's 'To Do' list will join tomorrow's 'To Do' list ... it's hardly life or death if I don't haul the hoover around the room or pull up weeds in the front garden. I thought I'd show you what I made on Wednesday. I'd gone to my monthly StitchArt group, and this time we did something a little different. There's a project called 'Threads of Freedom' which is working with various community groups across the city. It's about creating little stitched pieces, some of which will be included in a textile panel to go on display at Leeds art gallery. There was lots of fabric we could choose from to sew with, and I picked this vintage tray cloth with the roses embroidery. My own embroidery's not a patch on those flo...

Another week's flown by ...

Saturday's rolled around again, and it's not been the most eventful of days. Cleaning and hoovering, a walk to the shops to buy groceries, an hour on the allotment, then home to do some odd tasks in the garden. The strawberry plants are sending out runners, so I've been dealing with those, plus deadheading the perennial sunflowers, and cutting back the gone-over flowers on the sage and marjoram. I'm sad to see those blooms gone as the bees loved them. This afternoon I spent a few hours finishing 'Dawnlands' by Philippa Gregory. It's a really good book, a page turner where you care about the characters and want to be reassured everything's going to work out well for them. Plus you become enraged about the corruption of the so-called justice system at the time of the Stuart kings and queens, about transportation of prisoners to the West Indies, and about the vile nature of the sugar trade in the 1600s and the vast profits made from it....

Folding a zine and an alternative use for a bank card

Hello again, and excuse me while I scratch my insect bites. I don't know what it is, but at this time of year I'm invariably itching like crazy because I've been bitten by bugs. It seems to coincide with blackberry-picking season, but whether that's purely coincidental I don't know. Whatever's biting me, I'm obviously a tasty morsel in their world! I might try using a highly scented oil like Tea Tree oil, see if that deters them. Anyway, let's get on to more pleasant matters - I'm having a go at making a zine style booklet. Because I didn't have any paper large enough, I joined together two A3 sheets of sketchpad paper, using torn pieces of book pages for the joining. I thought that'd look less noticeable than packing tape or similar. Having chosen my colour scheme I used acrylic paint and an unwanted plastic bank card to apply the paint. Plus a stencil, sponge and modelling paste. Applying paint with a ATM card wa...

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