The irises are flowering

 

Irises are the strangest looking flowers, aren't they?  These purple ones on my allotment are flowering, and they're such a beautiful colour.  

There aren't many flowers on my plot at the moment.  The hyacinths have finished, the tulips are nearly over, but the Love-in-a-mist are about to emerge in their jewel-like shades of pink, purple and blue.  Also the vivid orange of Calendula.  That should keep the bees happy and well fed.  

Back at home, I've been finishing a couple of crafty projects that've hung around for too long.  I stretched this fishy embroidery over a square of cardboard, then added a felt backing and a hanging loop.  (Funny, but until I took this photo I never realised the doors on the bookcase weren't hanging entirely level.  How could I not have noticed?)

I also made the stripey binding for this wall hanging.  

It's waiting for me to hang it on the wall, which I will get around to.  Honestly, I will!

I had another session playing around the paints and the gell plate, and in particular adding colour to this padded envelope, with the idea of eventually making it into a junk journal cover.

I made some painty papers, including printing on tracing paper which works really well. 

The padded envelope ended up red and gold, and a lot brighter than it appears in this photo, which has bleached out a lot of the colour.  I don't know the theory of why cameras don't always capture the colour as we see it.  Maybe I should google that?  

I also slow-stitched a little fabric brooch.  It's got the tiniest gold sequins, part of a vintage earring and a scrap of printed cotton with 'Why not?' on it.  Again, the colour's not as bold in the picture as on the actual brooch.  

It's backed with this lovely tweed.  Wish I had more of it.  

Oh, one more daft little thing - I finally found a good use for the metal bobbins I've kept from my previous sewing machine.  I can't use them in my current machine as they're the wrong size and are metal, not plastic.  But I realised I can use them as beads, of a kind.  I added one to the tie on this journal.  It works pretty well, don't you think?