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CHRISTMAS ANGEL An embroidered angel featured in Issue 12 of The Stitcher’s Journal

I love making angels. For many years, I made angels dressed in scraps of antique silk and lace, and paper wings. Then I discovered antique documents and applied them to card angel shapes. HERE you can read an article which appeared in Issue 12 of The Stitcher’s Journal showing you how to make an appliqué and […]

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Lady Ottoline Morrell – gardener and stitcher

How I envy Lady Ottoline Morrell – well, perhaps not her features (Augustus John, who painted her, said she had a ‘prognathous jaw and bold baronial nose’ – not that these prevented her from having numerous lovers, including Roger Fry and Bertrand Russell), but her life. With funds and time and bold tastes she created […]

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My week as a cook in France…

We have just returned from France, where Mr Z was participating in Music at Albignac, a series of piano summer schools run by pianist and author Paul Roberts and his partner, arts journalist and fabulous cook, Jenny Gilbert. Mr Z knew them at York University but they had lost touch, only to discover recently that […]

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Sketches in the margin…

Last year I started buying antique documents and experimenting with paper collage and a little mixed media. One document was so exquisite I had it printed across a width of linen and made a bolster, embroidering a little in the margins – my first attempt at machine embroidery (I have been doing a lot more […]

The medicine chest of the past - essences and tinctures of herbs and flowers.

Syrup of rhubarb and other cures

Those who visit my stand at fairs will know that I like to include vintage bottles in my displays. I like the shapes, the uneven, cloudy glass and the different colours and textures (vivid greens and blues with a ridged edge for poisons). Most of all, I like the chemists’ dispensing bottles with their intriguing […]

Large etched storm lantern with candle

Let there be light

I have been working at home this week and feeling keenly the lack of light, the days getting shorter and darker. Having unpacked and sorted out my unit after the Midwinter Fair last week I decided to take a couple of my large glass lanterns home. I put two of the white pillar candles I […]

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Hydrangeas

My car is filled to the roof with over 200 glorious hydrangea heads, their stems stripped of leaves, ready to take to the Country Living Fair this week. This afternoon my husband pruned the Virginia creeper so that I can take the stems to the fair and twist them into a wreath base for my […]

Bulbs

Bulbs

It is time to plant bulbs. Time also for the annual argument about the best planting method. I prefer to choose an area, dig it out to the required depth, scatter the bulbs, fix them in the soil and cover them up, planting out my wallflowers, hesperis and mysotis as I go. He prefers to […]

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