Eight cards with a zing for spring

For my last card subscription box I was convinced I’d jumped ahead a season, though looking out of the window it was obvious I hadn’t - however I now do have the spring season cards from The Card Boys, and they’re good.

ARTIST: JESSICA SMITH

This month my strong favourites are the two designs by Jessica Smith and I’m opening and closing this post with her cards - one of which I’ve already used, there’s no higher recommendation is there than to actually share these cards with others. Though I’ll admit I’ve not been so good at that lately and have been accumulating quite a stash, but a pretty stash so it’s not all bad!

ARTIST: MARTHA DUNCAN

The simplicity of the design above is striking and I know that I’ll be struggling to part with both this one and the one below with the cheeky chirrupy bird on the coffee pot!

ARTIST: CAROLE HILLMAN

ARTIST: MELISSA DONNE

ARTIST: ROSIE FODEN

ARTIST: JESSICA SMITH

Each of these cards will I’m sure come in useful for many occasions and while I don’t know right now what they’ll be - I think I’ll know when I know if that makes sense. And that may also depend on the day, my mood and many other things, so I’m going to resist putting a label on them right now, but the one below just screams ‘when life gives you lemons’…

ARTIST: CAROLE HILLMAN

ARTIST: JESSICA SMITH

And so that’s it for another box of cards, and I’ll be doing my best over the next few months or so to make appropriate use of my pretty stash, but with plenty of birthdays and more coming up I don’t think that’ll be hard!

PS Also while I’ve been writing this post I’ve realised that our dresser top really needs a good sand - it’ll go on MOH’s list!

The Love Yourself & Nature Retreat

* I was invited to the press preview for and provided with a pair of tickets to Gardeners’ World Live so I’m marking posts from the show as 'Ad’ - as usual my views and opinions are very much my own. Be sure to check out all of my posts from the show.

This garden, designed by Ben Thornton, is a joyful riot of colour and it’s no surprise that Ben himself describes it as ‘full of colour’ - it’s inspired by his love of nature and growing. It’s definitely a place where you could escape the outside world and enjoy the wonders of nature isn’t it?

The border is busting from the seams, and surrounds an edible raised bed. In this garden Ben is showcasing his journey of becoming a grower after getting paralysed and I agree when he says that gardening doesn’t have to be perfect. Nature isn’t flawless and he says neither is his garden - in fact, neither is mine too.

He also says that by ‘letting nature in it has healed his body and mind’ - which does a lot to explain the title of his very beautiful border.

I love the colour, I love how busy it is, and I love how there’s space for flowers and edibles. But most of all I love how it makes me smile.

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was as fabulous as ever!

Three Indian Block Printed Leaves

I mentioned recently that I’d attended another Adult Learning course covering Indian Block Printing & Stitching, but hadn’t shared much of that here just yet. Not wanting to tease you I thought I should share some of that now that I’ve mentioned it, though there’s much more to come on this craft as this is the one I’m finding the most addictive so far. There’s so many possibilities, especially if I combine this with my newly found pouch-making skills!

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves!

I’ll share more about the course and its format in a future post, here I want to focus on a completed piece - or almost completed piece…

How it started…

It started quite simply, using old bedding as my background material. This was from the box-pleated ‘frill’ of an old valance sheet which I cut off and edged using my overlocker. I ironed it too - there was a lot of it, though it was much easier to iron now that it wasn’t attached to the central section which goes under the mattress! We’d not used the valance sheet for many years as not only was it hard to iron, it was also tricky to manoeuvre under the mattress and well, life’s too short for all that.

I printed the designs onto the fabric using fabric and Indian blocks at the adult learning class - and as you can see used the same block to create the design of three leaves. I also experimented with using two colour fabric paints on the middle block, adding an almost fluorescent yellow to the shimmering green, which I used on the outer leaves.

I liked this as a design and the resulting print, though the leaves kept reminding me of onions for some reason, and I’ve no idea why. Having rediscovered the joys of chain stitch as part of this course I was keen to continue that, and decided to outline the leaves and then fill in the blanks, but keeping the central design different.

I wanted to keep the green and green/yellow outline, and I wanted the central design to be prominent. Looking through my threads I opted for browns through to blush pink for the outer leaves and for oranges through to yellow for the central motif - the colours just seemed right.

Stitching was surprisingly addictive, and quick. It seems I didn’t stop and take many photos of the in-between stages, but if you look at the middle leaf that’s edged with a lime green thread, rather than the darker green used on the outer two.

I also made it up as I went along, mixing and matching strands of my threads to help ease the colour progression, and I’m really pleased with how this turned out.

So then I decided to add some beads.

Just tiny little ones.

In some of the gaps.

Again allowing my creativity to lead.

It’s quite different to how it started isn’t it?

The embroidery is done, but this piece isn’t yet fully completed as I want to incorporate it into a pouch somehow - I’m just not sure how, just yet but I’m sure I’ll know in the not too distant future. For now I’m enjoying this unique piece which I’ve created without knowing where I’d end up.