Happy St David's Day!

Happy St David’s Day! Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus!

Here are some photos to celebrate my national patron saint’s day today. Beautiful daffodils – the symbol of Wales - with droplets on their petals and leaves. I love droplets on things, I think they look so gorgeous like little jewels shimmering in the light.

I wondered if you might like to know a bit about Saint David (Dewi Sant in Welsh).

He was born around 5oo AD but no one is sure exactly when. It is said that an angel foretold his birth to Saint Patrick 30 years before. His mother was Saint Non, daughter of a Chieftain and his father was the son of a king. David was born on a clifftop in Pembrokeshire during a storm and apparently you can still see the handprints of Non on a rock. At David’s birth a bolt of lightning split the rock. Non later became a nun and near the site of David’s birth are the ruins of St Non’s Chapel. A new chapel has been built nearby and there is also St Non’s well which is said to have healing properties.

Stained Glass Window of St David.

(Artist unknown.)

Saint David was taught by Saint Paulinus in Carmarthenshire. He became a teacher and preacher, a bishop and later an archbishop, founding several monasteries and churches in Wales. A monastery he founded in the Glyn Rhosyn valley became St David’s Cathedral. He was at the centre of the Welsh Church in the 6^th century and went on pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Rome.

Saint David’s symbol is a dove and he is also patron saint of vegetarians and vegans. I’m a vegetarian so he’s my patron saint twice over. This is due to the fact that he only drank water and ate only bread, vegetables and herbs. He also taught his followers not to eat meat or drink beer and as well as that, the monks had to pull their own ploughs instead of using animals. He lived simply and encouraged monks to spend their evenings in prayer, reading and writing. Apparently though, some monks were not happy with the austere life he insisted on and they tried to poison him. Saint Scuthyn knew about this and travelled from Ireland on the back of a sea monster to warn him. (I’d love to have seen that!) David blessed the bread he was about to eat, ate it and was all right.

The most famous miracle associated with Saint David was when he was preaching in Llanddewi Brefi. Such a large crowd had gathered that not everyone could hear him. In order for him to be heard and seen, the ground rose underneath him forming a small hill. As the late historian John Davies commented, it was quite an unnecessary miracle considering how many hills there are in Wales!

In the late 11^th century, a book called Buchedd Dewi (Life of St David) was written by a man called Rhygyfarch. It contains the traditional tales that we now have about St David and is said to have been taken from documents discovered in the archives of the cathedral, though it is believed to be more legend than truth.

Saint David is said to have lived for 100 years. He died on 1^st March and it is also said that the monastery was ‘filled with angels as Christ received his soul.’ His last sermon, according to Rhygyfarch, contained the words,

‘Do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about.’

‘Do the little things’ (‘Gwnewch y pethau bychain’ in Welsh) is well known in Wales and is about simplicity in life.

David was buried at St David’s Cathedral in St David’s, Pembrokeshire – the smallest city in Britain. It was, and still is, a popular place for pilgrims and visitors. They say that four journeys to St David’s is equal to one pilgrimage to Jerusalem and two to Rome. (If that’s the case, I’ve been to Jerusalem at least once and to Rome several times considering the number of trips I’ve taken to St David’s.)

His shrine resides inside the cathedral, containing relics that are meant to be his bones. It was restored and re-dedicated in 2012 with five icons painted by Sarah Crisp. They were made with egg tempera and gesso and are displayed in niches around the shrine. St David is in the centre, St Patrick to the left, St Andrew to the right and at the back are St Non and St Justinian, a contemporary of St David.

St David by Sarah Crisp.

St David’s Day has been a festival since the 18^th century, though sadly still not a holiday, but we love celebrating it. An Eisteddfod is usually held in many schools with competitions for poetry, singing etc. and lots of girls wear traditional Welsh costume consisting of a tall black hat, shawl, pinafore and red skirt. Many of us wear daffodils pinned to our chests. Men sometimes wear leeks though – the other symbol of Wales – and our flag with the red dragon will be flying. We may also eat lots of Welsh cakes!

You can find more about St David and the Cathedral by clicking stdavidscathedral.org.uk

I hope you’ve found some of this interesting. If not, I hope you’ve liked the photos. Whether you’re Welsh or not, have a lovely day.      

Butterfly Nature

I don't know if you've noticed but I sometimes flit like a butterfly between my works in progress. I've had to leave this work for now because I need more supplies to complete it and haven't had time to get them yet.

I kind of like working on several pieces at a time though as it gives me a break to work on one instead of another for a while. It also allows me to be flexible; if I'm feeling tired or something, I can work on easier things like simple sewing or drawing, like this, my drawing of an ocelot:

If I'm feeling at my best, I can work on more complicated things like intricate sewing, painting or detailed work, this painting for example:

Then there's all the other stuff in between for when I'm feeling in between. 😄

If you remember, I carried out an experiment with rusting fabric last year (you can see my post by clicking HERE) I left it for a while to decide what to do with the fabric I'd coloured with the rust and now I've carried on with it. Here is the result of the rust dyeing:

I've added a rust heart to one of the fabric pieces using rusting powder:

And this is how I've sewn it so far (complete with pins holding some of it together 😊 )

I've printed a key onto fabric which will be involved in some way.

I'll show you the developments as they come.

I found this in my garden the other day:

I love the shape of it. It's only a little piece of faded plant but I find it really beautiful. Maybe it'll end up in a piece of work. 😉

Marianne North

You may remember that in a post last year I mentioned artist Marianne North because I’d seen a programme about her. Well, due to that I became interested in her and I’ve done some research on her.

Marianne North was born in October 1830 and was the eldest daughter of Frederick North, a Liberal MP for Hastings, and Janet North, daughter of Sir John Marjoribanks MP.

Marianne North

She originally trained as a vocalist but her voice failed and she turned to painting. After her mother died in 1855 Marianne travelled with her father to Syria and along the Nile in Egypt.

After her father’s death in 1869, Marianne, now aged nearly 40, continued travelling with the intention of painting the flowers, landscapes, animals and birds she found. She had a true passion for recording the things she saw, some of which was new to science and as she painted with scientific accuracy, the viewer could see exactly what the plant looked like. She said:

‘I had long dreamed of going to some tropical country to paint its peculiar vegetation on the spot in natural abundant luxuriance.’

Marianne North

Marianne North

That’s just what she did. Over the years Marianne travelled to Sicily, Canada, the United States, Jamaica, Brazil, Tenerife, Japan, Borneo, Java, Ceylon and India. After encouragement from Charles Darwin, she also visited Australia and New Zealand.

Marianne North

Marianne North

Marianne travelled through rough landscapes and through jungle, staying in huts, living there until she had recorded everything she wanted to. She lived in India for 18 months and visited many areas all over the world which were unknown to a lot of Europeans. She also travelled unaccompanied, something very unusual for a Victorian woman.

Marianne North

During 18 years of travel, Marianne created 832 paintings, brightly coloured and valuable to science and art. She discovered new species and due to this, Marianne had one genus named after her: Northia, and four species: Areca northiana, Crinum northianum, Kniphofia northiana and Nepenthes northiana.

Marianne North

Marianne North

Marianne had a gallery built in Kew Gardens. It was designed by James Ferguson but she paid for it herself and personally arranged all the pictures inside, row upon row, all tightly packed together. The gallery opened in 1882.

Marianne North

Due to failing health, Marianne retired to Gloucestershire and she died in 1890.

Marianne North was very adventurous for the time that she lived in, but she was well connected and had support from the people she knew. Many Victorian women didn’t have the means or the freedom to do something similar even if they wanted to. However, what Marianne did was a great achievement. Her work is beautiful, colourful and detailed and she had a great determination and dedication to her aim. It allowed people who might never travel to the countries she visited to see the plants and landscapes of exotic lands. She was obviously a strong woman and deserves to be remembered more than she is, alongside the male explorers of the same era.

New beginnings

We’re in the second week of February already. Do you think this year is going fast as well? 😉

I’ve begun a new project:

You’ll see what it is soon, for now it’s a work in progress. Maybe you could try and guess what it is but it might be quite obvious by its shape.  😊

Speaking of beginning new things, did you make new year’s resolutions? Have you kept to them? I don’t make resolutions, I gave it up a long time ago because expecting to do something new in a new year never worked for me. I try to practice mindfulness (I say try because I sometimes forget 😃 ) and I love the idea that comes with it that every day is a new beginning, a time to start again with whatever you intended to do. Even every hour – or even every minute – is an opportunity to begin again. It’s kind of like saying if you’re having a bad day, take some time out and start anew. It’s something I try to keep in mind if what I’m working on doesn’t seem to be going as I thought it would.

I came across this poem recently. It goes along the same lines of taking each day as it comes and I thought I’d share it with you:

Write it on your heart

that every day is the best day in the year.

He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day

Who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.

You have done what you could.

Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in.

Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;

begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit

to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,

with its hopes and invitations,

to waste a moment on the yesterday.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

So if you’re annoyed or down about not sticking to resolutions, don’t be. Have a break and begin again tomorrow. Don’t be hard on yourself. 😊 I think I see Spring as more of a new beginning than the new year as Spring is when nature is waking up and the plants really begin to sprout new shoots.

The winter flowering jasmine and violas are still going in the garden, providing lovely colour and the primroses are blooming:

My mother’s camellia has blossomed like mad:

I’ve done some quick sketches of the blooms:

And also of some mini daffodils:

I hope to involve them in my work at some point, a painting maybe, or in some textiles.

The camellia always flowers in January and brings beautiful colour to the grey days. It also seems to attract blue tits. I’ve seen quite a few pecking at the centre of the flowers but I don’t know what it is they’re after. Part of the flower? Insects? If you know, do tell me!  J

Autumn Wall Hanging

I've finished my Autumn version of my Wild Nature wall hanging. You can see the Spring/Summer version here if you haven't seen it: Wild Nature

With this one, I've used the rich ambers, browns, reds and golds of autumn leaves and tree bark. I've tried to evoke the warm tones of the natural world as the year draws to a close and nature begins to prepare itself for winter with its shorter, colder days.

I began with strips of amber and brown fabric.....

.....then sewed on them with decorative machine stitching.

I printed the amber and yellow toned leaf pattern on to organza, layered it on top of the strips and stitching, then embroidered the swirls and leaves by hand.

I created a string with the same colours to hang it.

Here's a close up of my hand stitching:

I machine embroidered leaves on gold organza with brown and gold coloured thread.

Then I sewed them to the wall hanging and put it all together. Once finished, it looked like this:

I'm very pleased with the result and really like the colours. I think the leaves being different in colour to the main body provide contrast and a bit of depth.

As we've come to February and the 1st being Imbolc and the 2nd being Candlemass, hopefully Spring will be here soon. I came across this old rhyme today:

If Candlemass Day be fair and bright

Winter will have another fight.

If Candlemass Day brings cloud and rain

Winter will not come again.

It was cloudy and rainy here, so fingers crossed! 😃

More animals!

I know Christmas is well and truly over now and cracker jokes aren't that great, but I liked this one because it's connected to what I do:

Why are Christmas trees so bad at sewing?

Because they drop their needles! 

😄😒

*Tumbleweed goes rolling by*

Anyway.....

I was lucky enough to get Tim Peake's book Hello, is this Planet Earth? for Christmas. I love it. The photos of Earth from the International Space Station are fantastic and may inspire some art I do in the future. The expanse of the continents and the curve of the Earth make you realise what a wonderful, beautiful place the Earth is. It made me wonder if everyone had the chance to go up into space, just enough to look back on our home planet, would it be enough to inspire love for our world and put various things into perspective? Would it be enough to see we all live on this one planet and we need to share it and look after it?

The animals we share it with would appreciate it, I'm sure. I've done a few more drawings while I've been trying to recover from my cold. 

This is a magpie:

 

Here's a snow leopard. I think they're absolutely beautiful creatures.

 

A red squirrel:

 

And here are two I drew a while ago but I haven't put them on my blog yet. A little owl:

And an avocet:

 

 

I hope you're enjoying the new year so far.  

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you had a lovely Christmas. I developed a cold on Christmas Day and my mother did on Boxing Day so we weren't feeling very festive and we feel like we hardly had a Christmas because it went so fast. But everyone is happy and safe and that's the important thing. 

For the last week I've been snuggled up trying to get better, kind of really getting into the "hygge" idea that's become popular. It's not really a new idea to me though. I've always spent time in winter being cosy indoors. Here in Wales we have the word "cwtch" which means "hug" but there's also "cwtched up" which means being cosy and comfortable, preferably by a fireside with a blanket or warm clothes and something warm to drink. That's similar to "hygge" isn't it? 

Due to this cold - and Christmas - I haven't been able to finish my Autumn wall hanging yet but I'm hoping to get back to the colours soon. I find January the darkest month of the year, especially after twelfth night when the decorations and lights have come down, so hopefully the colours of my sewing will help. 

It's lovely to see flowers out at this time of year too, not because of global warming but because they're winter flowering varieties. They brighten things up a bit. This is winter flowering jasmine: 

 

and here are some violas:
 

I love violas. Their petals look like cute little faces. 

I love things that bring colour and light to the darkness, so at this time of year - and with all the terrible things going on in the world - here's a small message to you and myself to remember that we can achieve things if we really want to, with compassion, empathy and respect. We can shine, we are made of the same atoms as stars and to quote Professor Brian Cox;

"We are the cosmos made conscious."

So: