~ For Grace ~

She was weaving in the Rosemary
with a steady, perfect rhythm,
and I wondered...
do they do it perfectly from
the first try,
or like me,
 do they have to 
practice?

These also brought great joy to us three, when they were born on our garden fence many years ago.

  

:: ~ ::

Although I harvest nettles for drying through the summer, I make sure I leave plenty for the butterflies who lay their eggs on them. In the greenhouse at the moment, this is happening....

I love how they wrap themselves inside so as to be safe from birds.

Peacock butterfly caterpillar

It will turn into this....although this one is a little tired and has lost its vibrant colour....

I think this one is a Red Admiral caterpillar:

 

 Some of the things that have been made here this summer...

Mullein flower remedy

Yarrow and Mullein flower remedies

 

raspberry jam

Our first attempt ever, at wine~making. Lemon Balm.

The wine is nearly ready to bottle. We have loved watching the air bubbles releasing, getting slower and slower.

What have you made this summer....?

Cariad mawr

H x

~ 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

~ Winter Solstice Cloth ~

I started this cloth in 2011 in Jude's class ~ Magic Diaries 1.

 I wasn't happy with the centre piece....

....so, thinking of Jude's courage when she cut Magic Cloth 2, with heart-in-mouth, I cut it out....

and replaced it with a very dark purple silk velvet.

  

I left it for months after this....

...until a few weeks ago, when I started again, with Jude's reindeer and Cernunos as inspiration. 

The reindeer also fit in with a story I was excited to come across as I was working on the cloth, of 'Elen of the Ways', a Welsh and Scottish antlered goddess. I was fascinated to learn that female reindeer are antlered, the only female deer to be so, and I loved that Elen is the Welsh version of my name. I wonder why, seeing as the language we spoke in our house was Welsh, my parents didn't choose Elen instead of Helen....

Elen means fawn or doe and is said to shine like the sun, which was perfect for what I was doing here. It just felt so right for me to be stitching her as a female. 

I enjoyed working with this Horned Goddess and the Sun on this year's Winter Solstice, though my heart was in my mouth again a lot of the time, as I did not draw the antlers on and did them by eye. I was so pleased with the effect of the 'magic-thread', and a single strand 'split backstitch' was so fine to 'draw' the face.
 

I took away the moon on the right, as it did not fit in with the sun. I am not sure what to put there yet, though I have drawn in some acorns.  It needs balance....a pulling together, and I don't know what that is....so, I will just look for a while....

The centre spiral will be changed. The outer spiral took me a few days to accept, as it was off course....but I've promised myself not to get caught up in the idea of perfection any more,(as you can see from the shape of my leaves!), and now I love its elliptical path.

I fell in love with thread beads when I did the snowy field....it's the first time I've really used them for effect like this, and I was grinning in my heart as I worked.

This was supposed to be posted on the day of the Solstice, but I was too busy stitching, and time ran away with me.....so now I have had time to add a tree in that top right corner. I am waiting for the centre to tell me what it needs, and then with a few finishing touches I think this will finally be finished....it might just take until this year's Winter Solstice! Goodness I work even more slowly than I thought.

Cariad Mawr

H x

~ The Tilly Keepers ~

Continuing from last post.....

I am now playing with the moons...

The cyanotype feather in the centre is Tilly supported by her keepers and flying free

The moons were quite a challenge with many different blues tried, but not quite right, until I finally found this piece hiding in my shed. The white moon was initially on a blue background, but it looked wrong. I wonder if the grey, which is a piece of silk I dyed with black beans, works because this is the colour of sky we are so accustomed to here!

 The two moons, one of them blue, are included as she died in August and it was a blue~moon month.

It is nearly finished now. The leaves represent the four of us, with the two (young) green ones being Tilly and Our Boy, and the two (older) brown ones, me and My Man. 

The hills she sees from where she rests.

I included the heart for the white heart~marking she had on her forehead,  and because she lives on in ours.

I have loved working on this. It has kept me close to Tilly during these months of missing her.

It has also made me realise just how much I have learnt, and continue to learn, from Jude. Not only techniques of stitching and composition, which I treasure, but the gifts of stretching my thinking, looking with new eyes ~ deeper into things;  encouraging the confidence to tell my stories in the medium of cloth.

~ Joy~Making ~

It started like this.....

My Man had pulled into a lay-by on the bike, and saw this (rather nice) jacket. He knows of my love of fabric, so he went to investigate, and saw a little chrysalis on the cuff (left side in picture). He brought it home, and I put it for safe keeping in my shed.

The chrysalis was its own glowing little jewel with gold iridescent highlights.

On Monday I went in to check how it was, and saw this....

and the breathtaking, newly born Red Admiral was close by, with wings still wet, and trailing butterfly watercolours on my hands when it crawled on, for me to take it to safety outside. There are many spider friends and sticky webs in my shed.

Look at those beautiful "magic thread" antennae.

 It quickly tucked itself under a large

raspberry leaf....

 

and stayed there....

until yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon, when it came around to the top of the leaf....

I missed its flight, so I hope it goes safely to wherever it needs to go, and lives to lay its eggs in the Spring.  I almost felt like a midwife.

We are back to the grey and wet today, but we have been so grateful for some of this....

 On Sunday we went to the beach. 

The sea was galloping with happiness 

The pebbles were smiling at the sun,

This little moth flew by and carefully chose a safe and sunny stone to rest on, staying for the whole time we were there.

People and dogs were enjoying the sea and the beach, and we....

we sat and soaked it all up, drinking aromatic spicy Chai tea that I had prepared that morning.

My Man

We stayed for about three hours, taking photos and film, lying back against surprisingly comfortable stones with eyes closed, writing, mindful of each moment, as days such as this have been so rare for us here this year.

We went to the library book sale and found
a few treasures.

and picked up a bag of gram flour from the
excellent Indian shop, for making pancakes :~)

We met a lovely, friendly feline...

The grasses and mosses on The Tilly Keepers
turned into the hills she sees from where
she rests. I've grown to like them...I 
wasn't sure for a while. I did enjoy cutting
the pieces to fit...like making a jigsaw puzzle. 
I am now playing with the moons.