~ Mostly Cyanotype ~

Cyanotyping has taken hold! For the last few months, whenever there is the slightest hint of sunshine, My Man goes rushing to his observatory to take a solar image, and I race to the dark drawer to take out the previously prepared cyanotype cloths and papers and labels.

Over on What If Diaries, Jude, has been what~iffing buttons...one of my favourite things. It seemed a natural progression, (sympathetic evolution, as Jude would call it), to put buttons and cyanotype together, so yesterday, I was in a blue heaven....

It is so hot that I am actually wearing a dress! Almost unheard of.

I am so happy with the results of this What If

A little daisy managed to get in there too.....

.....and of course ~ moons

garden foliage has been put to good use

I wanted to have something of us three, as Our Boy could go off exploring at any time now. I had the idea of our handprints on an old piece of linen....and finally got Our Boy's print yesterday.

Top ~ My Man, centre ~ me, bottom ~ Our Boy

I love hands...it's the first thing I notice about a person. I have a textile piece I did of Our Boy's hand when he was much smaller...

We had some pretty peony blossoms in the garden

and when all the petals had fallen off...

I thought I would try dyeing with them....

...just an ordinary brown...but I like it.

I have been harvesting nettles...

....and drying them. I have a dryer, but, as my word for this year is 'simplicity', I prefer to try to keep to that whenever possible.

One I did a few months ago, on Indian cotton....my favourite for doing cyanotype on

Crepescular Rays on the way to work this morning...

A dew~dropped cobweb in the bay tree

A few weeks ago, when it was still cold, but things needed planting desperately. It has been so hot for a week...and we are soaking it all up....it is the first time since 2007 that we are having a summer.  Last night, we, (me and My Man), slept on the floor of my shed....with our heads by the open doors, so we could star~gaze. The street lights get turned off after midnight now, so we could see the Milky Way and the Summer Triangle. It was bliss. I didn't want to go to sleep, but I must have, as I was being woken up at 4am by a little bird trilling away at us, telling us it was time to get up :~))

So, I have been playing with cloth a lot, but not so much stitching recently....although I did this for the Super Moon last month...

Backed with silk,and, as

I tore it for a ragged 

edge, I thought, what if

I use the silk threads

to stitch it with. It is

the first time I have 

used silk for stitching.

Oh my..it is a completely

different experience....

the sound, the feel...

June Super Moon

I made.....

 a Sage Summer Solstice Flower Essence...

Sage enhances the capacity for drawing wisdom from experience and is particularly recommended for people who find it hard to find purpose and meaning in life. They may feel resentful about events in their lives, seeing them as ill-fated or undeserved.

Sage is a remedy especially suitable for our later years, for helping to accept what life throws up for us in a calm and detached way. It helps to enhance the wisdom that comes naturally from years of experience. Such wisdom enables us to be in touch with our spiritual selves, to perceive a higher purpose in life and to experience inner peace. It is a remedy to use during changes and transitions, as it enhances the sage in all of us.

Anne McIntyre

I so love making flower essences. 

I made my very first one, Elder, on the Summer Solstice of 2001, and I was hooked from that day. 

To ask the spirit of a plant if we can work with them, and to receive the unmistakeable yes or no 'reply', whether it be for flower essences, or for making herbal remedies, is one of the most special experiences in my life....it is something I have done since I was a young child in one way or another, and it never fails to uplift.

It has been impossible to catch up here, but I have tried to include some of the things I've been doing for the last weeks.

We are sleeping in the shed again tonight....can't wait.

Cariad Mawr
H x