Defeated by the heat

The summer heat this year - to which we in Yorkshire are so unaccustomed - has completely defeated me. I'm not really grumbling too much as I know so many people have enjoyed it, and it is far better to see the sunshine than the constant rains of recent years, but I have felt ill and constantly exhausted as a result - hence my lengthy absence. I have been stitching in the slightly cooler evenings though and there are completed birthday gifts to show you.

 First of all, a hardanger kit which I bought last year and has been waiting until I felt confident enough to tackle it. It's now completed and made into a cushion - in time for this weekend's local flower and handicraft show. I'm entering this into the soft furnishings category.

This kit was a birthday gift from my son - now turned into a beautiful pin cushion, which will certainly never have a pin stuck in it during my lifetime! Far too pretty for that so it will sit on my hearth to be admired.

 This little sampler bag was also a birthday gift - a kit from Jane Greenoff. Also now complete. See, I have been busy.

 Apart from the cushion I'm also entering two of my stitched books into the craft contest - my flower sampler book into the embroidery category ...

... and the Playing With Rainbows book into the 'any other item' category.

I've made a silk fabric patch to hide my name for the duration of the show.

And then there's the 3D box garden from the Owen Davies workshop in July. 

Here's where it was by the end of the workshop.

 Here it is with all the plush work finished - what a mess!!

 And after it had been shorn. Much better! The trimmings have been saved and put to one side for next spring when I'll put them out in a small wire cage hung from the bird feeder for the birds to use to line their nests.

 

 The gardens at the college where we stayed for that weekend were a great source of inspiration for future projects.

 Isn't this mossy wall beautiful in the late afternoon sunshine?

And here is the finished garden. I made some walls and a box to sit it inside - well it is supposed to be a box garden.

I covered the outside of the walls/box with heavy calico, covered them with gesso, painted with ivory coloured emulsion paint and then dirtied them up a little with a dry brush and a tiny bit of raw umber acrylic paint. Then I rubbed green and grey chalk pastels on paper then painted on the resulting dust to create a mossy appearance to the base of the walls.