Leafage

Leaves. Always liked a good leaf. I've had a little pile of eucalyptus leaves in my studio for weeks now, along with jar of rusty nails. And yesterday, I actually combined A with B and did this:

I followed the instructions by Caroline Bell in the first WoW book by Maggie  Grey. I used calico and lining paper. The darkest prints were weeds from the garden! The eucalyptus made the pan smell...interesting...but didn't really produce clear prints.

Not sure what happens next.

And talking of leaves, the torrential rain the other evening did very interesting things in our local woods. The rain poured off the neighbouring field and overran the ditches in the wood, swooshing along everything from the woodland floor as it went and carving swathes of dark, earthy paths through the carpet of leaves.

I love the way the leaves have been lined up, like pages in a book - or leaves, indeed. 

And the way the sticks and twigs are now facing the same way.

Love it. 

Beads, seeds, berries and buns

I sold some of the (no longer sticky) beads on Saturday!  Hooray.  I didn't, however, sell any of these little beaded chaps:

(hard to photograph to show the humbug shape)

which is a shame, because I liked the idea, but then again I now have a new key-ring! I hit upon the idea of making them because I found a stash of little pieces like this, left over from making books in the summer:

I added a few beads on twisted cords:

and stitched them up, but twisted, to make a humbug shape:

Maybe I should put them in the neglected etsy shop...But the thing that puts me off sorting out things for etsy? Working out how to package and post things for a reasonable sum of money...and fat things cost more to post than thin things, even if they are tiny.  How ridiculous is that?  The postage would cost more than the little humbug key-ring.

In other news, I've also been making (or rather, eating) far too many of these blackberry bakewell tarts:

I don't bother with the fiddle of arranging the berries on top, I just mix them all in.

and then of course I have to ice them (not in the recipe) otherwise I'd be lynched:

The other day I was side-tracked from my otherwise obsessive blackberry picking by thistledown, of all things...

I intend to "do something" with it, something more than "putting it in a little jar" (have you every tried to get thistledown in a jar?).  Same as I intend to "do something" with these bits:

polyester shreds from the fabric I'm preparing for class:

We're going to be playing with leaves and transfer paints, and I think the thistledown is going to feature somewhere in my autumnal layers...I think!

Inspired

 

Found the above inside a building at the Weald & Downland museum.  I went in to look at the woodcarvers, but found this old piece of horticultural netting woven with ribbon and lolly sticks by school children much more interesting...

And while I'll never be able to afford a weekend course at West Dean, I can at least watch someone scranletting in front of it:

So after a day spent in the open air watching ploughing and hurdle making, meeting lots of long dogs (not all friendly), finding piglets playing in the coppice and breathing wood smoke, I have returned home with an urgent need to

• dig out my drop spindle and find someone who can teach me to use it
• find instructions for making nettle string
• help N find a tractor - just a small one; I believe a Massey Ferguson 35X would fit the bill
• find a little place with a log fire and a few acres to plough up every now and again, and an orchard and a few piggies and some chooks and a veg patch and some sheep (for the fleece)
• buy a lottery ticket?

Meanwhile, my blog ban didn't last, but I may have found a way to deal with the creative block thanks to a  book I splashed out on at the Knitting & Stitching Show.  So I have got my To Do list under control and may even throw out my Tyvek...

Autumn

Beautiful.

Crying out to be stitched...

All within minutes of home. 

Wonderful things, whippets.  Get you out of the house.