Will it ever rain again?

Another sunny day, and it's amazing the countryside's so green & lush when we've not had more than the merest sprinkle of raindrops for the best part of two months. I was hoping for a bumper crop of strawberries on my allotment, but the plants are desperately thirsty and I don't reckon I'll be scoffing bowlfuls of plump, juicy berries this year.

But at least the foxgloves are almost ready to flower, and they've self-seeded everywhere. It should be quite a show.

A couple of years ago, at least, I planted a packet of red clover seeds, and not a single one germinated. Then, low and behold, look what's popped up. The seeds must've been lying dormant until conditions suited them.

A patch of this also appeared. I know it's a plant classed as a 'green manure' as it's good for the soil, but can't recall it's actual name. However, it's a bee magnet. They absolutely love it, and we've all got to do our bit to help the pollinators, haven't we?

Back at home, I've been happily crafting. I used a piece of acrylic painted material from Wednesday's StitchArt class, embroidering and slow-stitching this fabric tag. I've added seed beads, tiny gold sequins and a few scraps of sari silk and ribbon too.

Today I put my needle and threads aside, and instead took up the scissors and glue stick. Look at this mess! I was having fun with making and decorating junk journals, using lots of the food packaging and plastic clothing labels I'd squirrelled away.

I made a whole stack of tags and journal cards, covering many in gell prints.

It's amazing how engrossed you can become in cutting and pasting and finding ingenious ways to add interest to a page.

One final photo before I go. I nipped into my local charity shop on Saturday, and for the princely sum of 50 pence picked up this handsome hardback. A book that's been on my 'must read' list for ages.

Not that I'll read it anytime soon. It can wait until the dark nights and frosts make their reappearance much later in the year. Blazing sunny days just aren't suitable for ghost stories, are they?

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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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