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’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.
A couple of days before Christmas, I went to the framers to collect my stumpwork medieval mirror. I could barely remember what I chose as a frame although I recall I didn’t want any sort of mount on the assumption that the embroidery itself would form a border to the mirror which would rest in the very centre of the stitching.
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…
I seem to have been writing and diving into nothing but wordage for months now. But lately I’ve started to notice that a stitch is creeping into my mind. Not the sort of stitch that causes pain, but the threading of a needle with soft, lustred thread and then pulling it through crisp silk fabric.
Marius's Mules by SJA Turney
If I wasn’t a fantasy writer, I should dearly love to write historical fiction. And as a reader, this year I have tried to read mostly hist.fict. which includes those I listed in my shopping spree last night as well as a re-visit of the unparalleled Dorothy Dunnett. To me, these top rated authors are paying an enormous compliment to time past, to our ancestors, to the breadth of experience that has brought us to this point in our existence. None more so than those who write of ancient Rome. I have read Marius’ Mules this year and below is my review of it for Amazon.com:
