Lumps and Bumps . . .

. . . workshop for West Country Embroiderers.  Not a very elegant title!  I can't remember now if it was my creation or our programme secretary's when we were discussing what I was going to do!  Also known as 'calico gardens' or just textured stitches.  Traditionally it is done all in creams, on calico . . .

(no prizes for composition for the above, but it does include a lot of different ways of doing this work)

. . .but I thought - why not colour? and stitched a red tree . . .

. . .closely followed by an undersea sort of scene in blues . . .

. . . and a doodle in greens and pinks.

Another element I like to include in this is doing 'normal' stitches, like cross stitch, herringbone, and then wrapping them, buttonholing along them or weaving across them.

Oversewing objects that don't generally get included in embroidery is another option.  Guess the objects.  No prizes!

Varying thick /thin threads is rather fun too.  (Knotted cretan stitch)

Unfortunately I didn't get to take photos of people's work this time.  Sorry everyone!

About time . . .

. . . this blog became active again. Neglecting it so long is very bad, especially as I did say at New year that I wanted to blog more regularly this year. Ah well, here we go again with another walk on Upton heath.

I love the textury quality of this heathland, spiny green gorse, faded brown heather and broken rusty bracken, and the misty quality of the leafless birches in the background. Silver birches and rusty bracken.

It is a site of special scientific interest where sand lizards may be found. Next time we go to where this metal plate is I must do a rubbing!!!!!

Nostalgic journey . . .

. . . to the local woods . . .

. . . where the cricket club lurks and the scout and guide camps are held. This clearing has over the years seen my husband doing clever things with sticks, string, matches etc with 'health and safety' an alien concept, and in their turn some of our daughters boiling potatoes on a wood fire and finding their way around the woods gaining various badges. I was never a guide myself, but DH got a huge amount from scouting and the girls some unusual experiences as brownies and guides. We went primarily to look for some autumn colour, but there's hardly any here yet. The best I could do are these pix, some bracken, a fallen oak twig and part of a beech tree:

. . . and another . .

6. I've had a bit of a thing this year or so about growing trees. Last autumn we collected seeds and put them in pots. And some of them have been growing - here's a horse chestnut and some oak trees! When we came to live here my Mum was with us and she brought along a small chestnut tree growing in a pot. Rather foolishly perhaps we planted it in the garden, then after a bit realised it was going to get too big and we'd have to cut it down. We decided to leave it till it had produced some conkers of its own, and then to grow trees from them. It produced its first viable conkers last year, and now 3 or 4 are growing, and yes, sadly the tree has been cut down.