Belle Epoque










Today is our wedding anniversary - two years ago a friend gave us a rose bush for our Golden Wedding Anniversary.
It hasn't had many blooms so far but each one is gorgeous.
I need a few notecards so I'll make them from this photo.

Blackberries .....
About 50 years ago we bought a 'Himalayan Giant' blackberry plant and planted it 'out of the way' at the end of the garden.
What we didn't realise was that, OK, we have had lovely big blackberries for cooking each year - but - we have also had blackberry briars growing everywhere in the garden and they take a lot of digging out!
I guess most of our neighbours have plenty too!
Well we have enjoyed pie, crumble, bbs with custard, bbs with meringues, bbs with apples, bbs with pears, and bbs in the freezer for later, over & over & over.
50 years on and I've decided we deserve something more original. So I Googled and found new ideas .......several I'll try, though I'm not too sure about Blackberry & Apple Yorkshire Puddings!
There are lots - one link to 42 recipes is below - sorry I can never get a click link here, but copy and paste works if you are interested.
www.bbcgoodfood.com/search.do?keywords=Blackberry&searchType=recipes

Oh! I nearly forgot - mashed up, the berries make a lovely fabric and fibre dye!

"Fresh as a Daisy"

I have taken photos, drawn, and stitched daisies for years and have a daisy "gallery" of cards and pictures.


The fabric picture has old & new lace, (old from a charity shop table cloth in bad condition),
braid, beads, buttons, & stitching and it will be
framed for the "gallery".
It has been looking at me, just started, for about two weeks so I finished it today.





The small watercolour pencil pictures are old.

PC-"This & That"


Some years ago I started a "This & That" collection in a large plastic box.
Odds and ends, bits and pieces ..... this and that, have been added and it's now full.
I'm not sure whether it's a treasure chest or a box of rubbish!
I recently looked through and took out fabric and lace scraps, small cameo, friendly plastic motif, small drawing, buttons and fine ric-rac braid.
So, another fabric, or multi media postcard - still lots left in the box though!

Days have come and gone since I was last here .....
I have been very unsettled, waiting for results of an MRI scan and impatient to have some relief from back problems and hopefully being able to stand longer and walk more.
When I feel this way I can only stitch from patterns so I have been sitting for days doing small cross stitch and blackwork pieces.
The cross stitch flowers are stitched on Rustic Aida from a pattern in an old magazine,"Quick & Easy Stitch & Craft", for a birthday card.




The blue jugs are from an old magazine,
"New Stitches" - a set of ten.
The frames are from picnik, for display here.
I hope I'm not so bored that I do all ten - the stitching needs concentration and it relaxes me but what would I do with them? lol
I'll try to shake myself up next week and do something a bit more original.

Chunky Tapestry

**!>~** and *:#>* ..... I keep seeing people and having scans and tests and things and I still can't walk or stand for long ..... I know things could be worse, and are for many, but I do get frustrated!
So, yet again I sit - and cheer up by playing at stitching or www browsing!

I've recently seen several remarks on blogs like "life's so short, start everything".
This idea amuses me and it must be at the back of my mind as I'm forever starting something different in crafting - with lots of things put aside unfinished for another day.
On Friday I decided to make a challenge for the weekend when I picked up a small piece of canvas .....
by Sunday this little 11x10cm. picture was finished (amazing - something finished!)
I enjoyed doing it and it has a chunky look and feel.
I started with the ribbon "stripes" on the right, thinking I'd do something abstract.
Well, I'm really a flower person so the flowers came next ..... and then it developed bit by bit, no pattern or drawing, as a mini picture.
I couldn't find any true blue wool for a summer sky - (that must be tucked away in a safe place!) so used some from a card of marl darning wool that goes back to the 1940's.
It isn't as dark as it shows here, the marl effect gives a hint of shading quite nicely.
It's not really framed yet - probably never will be. I used a picnik mat for display effect.
Once again I sat most of the weekend - I do make myself take a short walk down the garden path at intervals - and enjoyed stitching,

Darning .....
Many years ago I quite enjoyed darning holes in the heels of my socks (in the days of the second World War we had clothing coupons and had to "make do and mend").

Maybe that's why I love this page from Jan Beaney's book, The Art of the Needle.
This book is one of my best ever Charity shop buys and I come back to it many times.
It's still available on Amazon - buy it if you love fabric and thread!



Having a browse there this morning I decided to stitch something - I wish I could stitch like Jan Beaney!!!!! A square of coarse hessian, only 9x9cm., has been in the scrap box far too long so
I made this mini textured piece - an enjoyable morning.
Now it's time for lunch .....

Ribbon Flowers
I was recently invited to post a favourite ribbon embroidery on embroidery-methods.com
so I chose this one.
http://www.embroidery-methods.com/ribbon-flowers.html
It was one of the early ones I did - and one of only a few I have framed.

.... and cross stich ....
As I still need more greetings cards - see previous post - I made a cross stitch background, copied and saved it to print onto textured card and then I can top stitch, so making several cards fairly quickly.
Next I completed the original stitching to make a more special card.
The pattern is from an old CrossStitcher magazine.



This is a print of the background - cross stitch looks good printed on textured card, better than it appears here.
I'll pin prick the top design before stitching with a single thread.

Greetings Cards

As I needed a few greetings cards, and I have bought too many recently, I appliqued flowers from a remnant, did a quickie acrylic painting and stitched on fabric earlier this week.



Yesterday I had to be at the local hospital for hip injections at 7.30am -

if they help I may continue with hip replacements later.
At last some action after months of consultations, x-rays, and scans.
Next week an MRI scan on Aorta and arteries in legs - get them sorted - hopefully have a back injection later - and by then I'll be a new woman (I hope!).
Although I had a lot of pain in my left hip yesterday today that feels better and I'll be walking more this morning to test it out.
Maybe I'll be getting a few weeds out of the garden, I haven't done my share there this year.

Pressed Flowers

I was up in the early hours as I couldn't sleep - I tried catching up on ironing as I haven't done any for ages and the pile grows!
After one thing - no more!!!
So I browsed through an old box of pressed flowers from 1996/7, when I discovered pressing flowers in the microwave soon after I retired.
Amazingly some have preserved and faded gently as in this picture, made at that time ....
...... so I recycled it into a fabric postcard .....













Then I looked out a tiled picture with pressed flowers and played with Flickr Toys to make a "magazine cover" ..... much more interesting than ironing - (that will keep!)

There are lots more flowers, microwave pressed years ago, so I'll play with them in the next few days,
But I must finish making a few greetings cards first .....