Summer Speed

Can't believe it's been a few months since the last blog post - I seem to have got caught up in a house move, a leaking roof, trying to gain some inroads into overgrown garden borders, holidaying in the rain, and wishing all my tomatoes would ripen before autumn heads this way.

Seemed to manage to coordinate the absurdities of the UK summer weather when we took our family holiday by dodging showers in the Castle, ensconcing ourselves in the Butterfly Sanctuary when buckets of rain were non-stop and lazing on the beach (after battling with the worse-for-wear beach shelter - who says the tent poles needed that elastic cord) when the sun deemed to pay us a visit.



Oh and the ice-cream helped.

An Itch To Stitch

Its a strange time at the moment - caught between selling and buying a house, things in boxes, things not in boxes, life in limbo. I felt I needed to distract myself from scouring the web for sites such as "how to move house in 10 easy steps" or for waiting to accost the postman each morning for any letter that might speed up the process.

So I had to find a way to "step away, nothing to see here" and embroidery was that way. Last year I was given some of Jenny Hart's Sublime Stitching books and kits and it didn't take me long to get back into the swing of a little gentle sewing. Embroidery is therapeutic, I curl up on my red chair, feet tucked beneath me, sink back into the cushions, thread a needle and sew sew sew. There is something about the order of sewing, the rhythm, that slows your breathing and thoughts down into a calmness that is so needed right now.

This is the work in progress:





If you're new to embroidery, the Jenny Hart books are excellent - they include a load of transfer patterns that you just iron onto your fabric (I love using linen and linen-type materials). The instructions for the stitches are also very well written - even the French knot can be mastered with ease!



You can find her books on Amazon, but the Sublime Stitching website has a wealth of other patterns and kits too.