Monday, September 14, 2015

The Colours of Spring

Intense blue and acid yellow always suggest spring to me 



I suspect that gardeners are destined to be disappointed in their attempts to control nature - she will always have the last word no matter how much we struggle and think we know better.  I was very happy to see these shy fragrant mauve double Parma violets flowering in the garden, but when I went for a walk around the wetlands there were sheets of violets blooming their hearts out, releasing their perfume and scenting the afternoon air.  So many of them that in a couple of minutes I picked the bunch below and you couldn't even see where I had been.


 So maybe that's why instead of being destined to be perpetually disappointed by our scruffy blossoms such as this slightly insect-chewed tulip, a sturdy rebloomer from last year,


we prefer to immortalise our favourites in stitching.  I was very pleased when I finally finished this canvas in the weekend and immediately selected another blank (bargain, op shop) one to go on my frame.  


And I have all the materials put to one side so I can make a cushion of my perfect tulips, more long lasting and sturdy than the one in the garden and not given serrated edges by greedy slugs and snails


The weekend was a brilliant success on the stitching front, because apart from finishing that pesky tulip canvas I allowed myself to start this swallow (soon to be) quilt using an old cream blanket and some blue wool scraps.  

I can't claim the credit for the design because it uses the templates from this wonderful project

from a publication which never fails to inspire me.

It is another one of those projects which will use up (hopefully) a whole swathe of leftovers because I have cut the large woolen piece so that it can be framed in the manner of a medallion quilt and will put all my leftover blues around it in the form of hexagons.  (I know, who would have thought it?  I hardly ever use them.)  

And one great thing about being a gardener is that even though we are always destined for disappointment and things not looking quite as we had planned, we do get the odd reward in the form of seasonal changes and plants and flowers which thrive and make us feel it has all been worthwhile - and that next season it will be even better.  






No reports regarding the activities of Mr Shoestring this week, he caught me yet again in my sewing room cutting up more fabric for my Lucy Boston quilt and he called me "incorrigible"!  How unsympathetic that man can be.