Work in Progress.

Hello. Did you miss me? :0) I haven't posted anything for a couple of weeks because I've had back pain, which means I've had to do exercises and I've taken up yoga, yet another thing to add to my "to do" list. It was such a lovely day yesterday I decided to try doing yoga in the garden in the fresh air. It was a new experience and quite nice to do it while listening to the birds tweeting around me. I didn't know birds could join twitter though. :D

As I haven't been able to do much work, I haven't completed a piece or a painting yet, but I have got a work in progress at the moment, so here it is, my "Leaves" project. I've made it so far with strips of green fabric in two different shades.

I've stitched them together with decorative stitching.

I've printed a leaf pattern on to organza and I'm going to stitch that on top with hand embroidery.

I think I've been inspired to work on this project because all the plants are in bloom and the weather has been so fine. It's the kind of thing that makes you want to create art about nature, but then there's plenty of inspiration to be found at any time of year: the rich colour of autumn leaves, the patterns of bare twigs and frost in winter.......

The birds who visit my garden seem to be doing well. The magpies have had three chicks which have all fledged and yesterday I saw a mother sparrow feeding her newly fledged chick. The young one was fluttering his wings and chirping as she turned to him with the food. I think there were more chicks hiding in the tree. It was a wonderful thing to see, I've never seen that before, only on TV programmes. It's amazing what you can find in your own garden.