~ 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.

Rainbow cobwebs, puckering moons and raspberry smoothies

Raspberries galore in our garden :~))))))

with Kefir for breakfast

Blended with Kefir into a smoothy

It has taken a little perseverance for me to get to like Kefir.....but it's been worth it; and, since our raspberries are now abundant, it is sooooo delicious poured over them and even more sooooo delicious when they're blended together....tart, and smooth and sweet and! and! and! oh!

I've come to a stop with my little Blue Moon cloth since quilting the moons. There is a big tension issue. I had stitched the back piece onto the front all around the edge before I started quilting. After I finished the moons, I took out the stitching around the edges, which improved things, but still leaves some fairly serious puckering as you can see.

I love the effect of the quilting on the back....makes me think of Jupiter's bands. I was fairly careful with each stitch...not doing the usual two to three stitches at one time...so it was slow going.....even for me! Once I'd noticed the puckering, as I quilted the first moon, I tried to take note of how tight I was pulling each stitch. I was surprised to find that I gave a little tug at the end of each one. Things improved when I stopped that 'tug', but not enough. Now I need to find out is there a magic way around this....or is it a drastic measure....take all the quilting out and start again? Slowly learning here....enjoying that.

I was so happy to see these two little friends. I hadn't seen them for a while and I missed them.They sit there like little Buddhas  with their cute feet turned inwards and their throats working  in a language I can't understand. Talking of Buddha ~ behind the little dark frog on the right......

The pond is in the shade of the Elder tree and in front of the arbour and needs cleaning...badly...but when I went to do it late last autumn, when I thought it would be empty of frogs, I had to stop, as there were still two out of the four in there and three newts, which I had not known about :~) It never ceases to amaze and delight me that we put this small pond in, waited for rain to fill it, (that is never a long wait here!), then let nature do the rest....and there is so much life in there.....even though the water is green and the bottom is probably filled with a lot of slimy, decomposing leaves. I will try again this year.....

I had a surprise visitor when I was sitting, stitching, in the sunshine in the doorway of my shed last week

She came to say hello to me briefly and I was allowed to stroke her, before she wandered off, over the fence and gave the magpies, who have a nest in the hawthorn tree over there, something of a scare. They rattattattattatt~ed at her like a machine gun. It is not often we get cat visitors here, because of Tilly~dog, so this was a most welcome and special treat.