Blossom on the trees and wild garlic in the hedgerow

Spring has to be the prettiest of the four seasons. The apple blossom is on the trees, pink and white and so delicate.

The wild garlic is flowering.

Even though we've had little rain lately, the country lanes and bridleways are still green and lush. I've been occupying myself with the usual kind of things - tidying the garden and allotment, and planting seeds. The courgettes are sprouting, as are the salvias, though the geums are stubbornly refusing to germinate. I've been stuck into some good books too.

This P.D. James was a cracker, with a very satisfying twist in the tale. It's set in a hospital, and the writer's clearly an expert on the subject. Deeply knowledgeable but not showing off about that knowledge. I also loved the cover with this striking print by Angela Harding.

I'm a few chapters into a biography of Agatha Christie, written by Lucy Worsley. I'm a big fan of Christie's crime novels, and devoured them one after another when I was a teenager. I know some of them haven't aged well, with their attitudes to class and race, but Christie was superb with her plots and ingenious with her methods of literary murder. Worsley's writing style is a tad annoying - too many exclamation marks for a start - but I'm enjoyable all the same.

On the sewing front, today was the last day of Ann Wood's 100 day stitchbook challenge. My 20th page is complete, and now the task of assembling the book begins.

The last page, with its shiny beetles, for some reason brings to mind those Fifties fabrics with space age patterns and names like Atomic. I don't know why, but creative impulses aren't always logical, are they?

But I am tempted to sew more of these insects and incorporate that '50s vibe too. Anyway, back to the stitchbook.

I've got the embroidery for the front cover ready, and I've decided to add this Jessie Chorley design to the back cover.

One more mini sized crafty task I set myself. I'd acquired a pack of little tags, complete with adhesive squares on the reverse of them. They're meant for card making or other papercraft. However, they were a bit twee with their bland colours and 'Just for you' message, so I was going to ditch them.

But I altered them instead. Removing the tiny metal bow and sticking a piece of gel printed paper over the tag before gluing the bow on again.

I'm pleased with how they turned out, and will definitely find a use for them.

That's all for now. Hope you're enjoying your day and keeping well. Bye for now.

Comments

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...

rubykittyruby

Search This Blog