the name escapes me!

I know what this flower is because I have lots in the garden - they seed themselves everywhere. I have these pink ones and some blue ones but I can't for the life of me remember what they're called. I'm sure it will come to me eventually so I won't agonize over it!

chives

How wonderful it is to be able to go outside with my camera with no fear of it getting drenched in the rain. I wandered round the garden in the sunshine and found lots of new growth to photograph. These chives are so delicate, balancing at the top of their sinuous stems.

stitching finished for first page

This is the first page with all the stitching finished. I scanned it this time rather than photographing it and the colours look much better. Can't seem to get the hang of photographing this sort of thing - the light always seems wrong and the colours don't look good. I'm not going to finish making this into the properly backed page yet because I want to do a few more before I decide on the backing colour.

Stitch Sampler

This will be the first page of my stitch sampler book. It's two thirds finished and the stitches used are wave stitch, raised chain band and bullion. It will eventually be cut out around the silk rectangles and mounted on another piece of silk to form a page. When all the pages are finished I'm going to make them into a book, maybe making a cover of needle weaving on canvas, an idea I found in Jan Messent's wonderful book 'Celtic, Viking & Anglo-Saxon Embroidery'.

Goodbye to a true friend

Misty died today. I had never realized how aggressive some cancers are and how fast they work. Our expected twelve weeks more with her in reality became just four. There are too many empty places in the house and garden and Rosie and I are struggling and keeping close to each other.

Stitching again!

Whatever I start doing, I always seem to return to a desire to stitch, or hand embroider. So, with the help of a great book by Effie Mitrofanis, I've decided to start a little fabric book of stitch samples. These three pieces of silk are to be the basis of the first page. Boring, I know, but hopefully the start of something OK. And I'm aware that I haven't posted on my blog for too long, so I'll try to record this project as it goes along. Interspersed maybe with other stuff now and then.

My beautiful old Irish Wolfhound lady, Misty, who is just over nine years old, has been diagnosed with bone cancer. She has a huge tumour on her upper jaw which at the moment gives her no pain thankfully although the time will come. She's still able (and very enthusiastic) to eat which is good but I'm beginning to think of soft things rather than hard now. The forecast from the vet is 10 weeks, possibly extendable to 12 months if we resort to hugely aggressive surgery followed by ongoing chemotherapy. How lucky we are that we can make a considered choice on her behalf, and give her 10 weeks of happiness rather than 12 months of misery. We'll know when she's ready to go and can offer her the mercy that we are unable to offer our fellow humans!

Sketching

It's so long since I posted anything and, despite there being no need to blog regularly, I still feel guilty. I've been working on a sketching course and this is one of my studies.