~ 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

~ 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.

~ Keep Going ~

Slow progress on a slow cloth

This is going to be one of nine sections on a larger cloth.

When I was first training in,and then practicing,massage,
aromatherapy and cranio~sacral therapy, I owned them. They were mine and I did not worry about who else or how many others were also doing it. It was what I was meant to do at that time. I had no fear. 

Since then, since I have stopped doing the therapies, since I have lost the passion I had for doing them, I have also lost myself and I know fear. I think I even fear being good at something again...or allowing myself to be good at something again.

I am finally, after seven months, finding my story in this Magic Cloth. I am finding, as I hoped I would, that I am thinking about it even when I am not working on it. I am becoming immersed in it; it is talking to me and maybe I am opening up to owning myself again. 

This is what I hoped for when I started doing Jude's classes. My instincts told me it was important for me to invest in this and I am so glad I listened.

One of the most precious gifts Jude has given me are two little words that she tells us all ~ keep going ~  Those two words have indeed kept me going, one step, one idea, one stitch at a time and before I know it, that one step has become a mile, that one idea has blossomed into a hundred ideas, and that one stitch is slowly becoming a whole quilt.....I am grateful.

~ Imbolc : Stitching : and Six-Word-Days ~

the crocuses are in bloom

this morning in our garden 

I am feeling quiet, and words are keeping a distance, so please excuse this laundry-list of a post....

It is Imbolc again, and we have the fire and candles lit and the little hearth alter in place to honour Brigid and the return of the light.

I wasn't sure what to do with this piece

but....

....Jude's Cloth to Cloth class came to the rescue

and I had great fun doing a small weave.

I like it!

We had a dusting of snow, so I gave the cloth a little snow ceremony. 

I have been taking part in 41 6-word Days with j and julia. It's a great community and I love condensing the description of my day to six words....I can cope with that number!

Happy Imbolc, and greetings to February ~

Cariad mawr

H x

~ Clear skies ~ St Dwynwen's ~ and a bit of a sociable day ~

My Man had told me of this astro event more than a week ago,

 and we were so hoping for clear skies.

This is what we saw at dusk.

It helped to 'fill the well'

 Crescent moon and venus

at one and seven o' clock

Yesterday was St Dwynwen's Day...our Welsh equivalent of St Valentines day, but without any of the commercialism. Because of that, I love to celebrate this day of cariad, and made my love a card ~

 The linen base and next layer of silk were dyed

in a pot of old, dried bay leaves. The heart ~ green

(for the heart chakra) ~ from a velvet thrifted skirt

We had tea, (blackberry and blueberry), in one of our favourite cafes and talked about art and writing, and the great special offer I purchased at Jude's Small Journeys that morning. I have been wanting to do this for a long time, and was so happy to finally manage it :~))) ~ They are fantastic..as are all her classes....even her pdf's are beautiful ~

On Monday we had a most sociable day...very unusual for us....and we enjoyed it. We had gone to Cardigan to visit the dentist, and afterwards happened to meet My Man's boss from years ago, when he used to be a printer. We went in to the printshop and there, after 18 years, still attached to the wall with yellowing, aged tape, were My Man's line~drawings!

Later I asked him if he had come face to face with his younger self in there....

We also had a chance meeting with a friend we had not seen for a long time, who's book we promoted in the bookshop we used to have in Cardigan over 13 years ago. 

We went to this art cafe to catch~up with lots of his news....

I had mocha coffee...oh yummm

that's him on the left. The gentleman on the right joined us and we had a 

most interesting conversation about building with lime , WWll bomber 

planes(!), and what our friend had planned for tonight (Thursday).

A visit with a friend who shared her delicious lunch of home made tomato soup and humus rounded off this rather companiable day. 

Cardigan was abloom with happy~making pansies :~)

We were lucky to see this, as later the clouds came in and the wet 

stuff came back.

little blue tit outside my shed

I thought I had not taken many photos over the last five months, but, looking through the camera had me pleasantly surprised....I must have been on auto pilot!

Evening Primrose and Poppies 

in the Gwbert evening sun

 A window display in Cardigan

Marchnad Yd ~ Corn Market

A mistake that I liked

The elder leaf dye in its pan in the greenhouse, where I left it until it

dried out.

The result, below, was greener than this picture shows, but now, months later, is close to the colour it has faded to.

from the garden....

.....memories of summer....

...and Yule...

our willow Yule 'tree'

I have been sewing leaves, collected in Cardigan on the 

September full moon, into my Moleskin.

These two were sewn in on the January full moon

 We still have LIGHT ~

. .

. .

. .

and the shadows have had me dancing this month

Have a good week ~

Cariad Mawr

H x