dried hydrangea

I took this when I was on holiday in Cornwall earlier this year. It was in the house we rented and it appealed to my love of dead things! It's a dried hydrangea which has faded to a beautiful soft creamy colour - I didn't tamper with the colour after photographing it at all. It sat on a window sill in the conservatory and was getting lots of light through it, giving it an ethereal look.

I've been dealing with disappointment at missing Kat's upcoming visit to the UK in October. She's holding a couple of on-location workshops and I'm going to miss both of them because I'll be away on holiday. But it's reminded me that I haven't picked up my camera enough lately and I need to do so. It's a bit like an itch that needs scratching. But I'm a little sick of taking photos of flowers, much though I love them. It's an easy non-challenging thing to do for me - a bit formulaic, and I really want to move on to other subjects. I've recently been inspired by the blog of Nichole Robertson and her beautiful book, Paris in Colour and I think I might take her idea of choosing a colour and photographing a wide range of subjects in that colour and see if I can make it work for me. It will give me focus (no pun intended!) without tying me down to a specific subject. And getting myself out of my comfort zone will encourage me to find out how to solve the problems that come with different types of photography. 

more tapestry sampler

I think this is probably a little out of focus because it's making my eyes go funny! I've nearly finished with this sampler; I've used lots of different techniques with no real feel for a proper design so I'll finish up the weft bundles I have and call it a day and get on to something a little more structured and with more defined colour. All the weft bundles in this sampler are a mix of colours and I think it's made it look over busy. The eye isn't led through the design at all.  And my sudden decision at the bottom to put in another colour was too much too sudden. When I started it the whole thing was going to be in neutrals and then I had a 'red moment' (similar to a 'chocolate moment'!) and got too carried away.

But it's been a great learning curve for me and hopefully the next one will be more thought out! I've loved doing it.

Cherry Gallette

Just made this. Think I need a course in food photography. It honestly looks better than this and I can't wait to try it. Recipe courtesy of Waitrose magazine. Pitted cherries courtesy of husband (whose hands are still a nice shade of red!).

roses

This is one of my favourite roses in the garden. It has the most amazing scent and grows in a pot near my back door. This year it's grown one long stalk to a huge height which makes it difficult to support and it's very vulnerable. I don't think it's going to survive my husband's hedge cutting exercise this weekend!

I held back from posting this until today - the rose did survive!!

spider's web

Taken first thing this morning when the sun was just coming up and the night dew was still clinging to the spiders' webs. They looked like lots of tiny fairy hammocks!

heathland colours

I picked these few heathers and grasses on the Ashdown Forest at the weekend. The colours are soft golds and greens mixed with vivid heathers and as I wandered along I thought how I could translate these into a tapestry piece.

So today I translated this into paint in my sketchbook so I can start finding yarns and thinking about composition. Unfortunately the photograph of the grass and heather doesn't show up the vibrance of some of the colours properly. Put that down to lack of photographic ability!!

montbretia

I love these. They don't last long and they're quite invasive but those flame coloured flowers are just gorgeous.