Sometimes it pays to take time and to LOOK as one rushes through the garden at this time of year.
I found some beautiful white spring crocus which I had bought in March at Bream Creek Show and completely forgotten that I’d planted. Look at the amazing white vein down the full- length of the leaf. Stunning. Can see Jane Nicholas doing this in stumpwork.
I have a fascination with fungi.
Of the embroidered sort…especially stumpwork.
This is what I’ve been doing.
The oak leaves.
The acorns.
Putting the caps on the toadstools.
This is what I might do next.
I’ve known Jane Nicholas for a number of years since I met her when I enrolled in a ‘how to’ class for stumpwork at our local embroidery shop, A Stitch In Time. In the course of conversation, she found out that I was a book and paper-artist and our friendship developed on a number of levels because we have similar backgrounds and we both deal in forms of communication and creative expression. I felt the ringing of those kindred spirit bells, – a sure sign there is a good friendship in the offing.
A stitch in time saves nine they say.
A week ago, I attended a masterclass of stumpwork embroidery in a shop called A Stitch In Time.
In fact I saved no stitches at all. I had hundreds of stitches to accomplish before the piece I was working on would be finished.
The embroidered mirror frame continues to grow as A Thousand Glass Flowers wends its way across a reading population. 
This last couple of weeks, I’ve embroidered a couple of figs and an owl. Each segment was embroidered on a calico slip in a much smaller hoop, then cut out and attached to the main embroidery with little stab stitches and stuffed to give it dimension. The beads for eyes and seeds are added last.
Its grown quite a bit. I find I can’t wait to shut the computer and set up my lamp, my special specs and start the next section. When I am tired of creating new elements, I return to the leaves in the separate hoop and stitch those. 
I have 3 oak-styled leaves to do now and then two smaller light green leaves.
*Title of post based on an iconic Australian tourism ad.*
Have you noticed I haven’t been round for a few days? You’re supposed to chorus with relieved tones: ‘Yes, where the b****y hell’ve you been?’
Was Shakespeare right? That a rose by any other name would smell as sweet? What if a rose was called Pigswilliam or Foxscent or Pricklius Garderobei? If one could get past the connotations of the name and smell the flower itself, of course it would smell divine, but its getting past those images that might be the difficult part.
I don’t know about other writers but sometimes I just need to move into some other area entirely… something creative but far from the word and the rules of wordsmithing. I attend an embroidery group on Fridays and I’ve been watching all the talented ladies put together a beautiful mirror frame designed by Jane Nicholas and surrounded with stumpwork insects and flowers. 
The results are little short of jaw-dropping and I really badly need to stitch one for myself. It’ll take me a year, I think… interspersed with the odd embroidered blanket…
