The middle of June

 And just another week until the longest day! Always a bit of a relief to me as I don't like these light mornings although I am happy to have daylight until almost 10 at night! Especially when the weather is good and you can be outside. We have not had much of that this week although has certainly bucked up a bit today with lots of sunshine.

The one day that we ventured out this week turned out to be the wettest, of course. We arranged to meet a friend at Crowcombe Heathfield Station for coffee. Famous for being featured in 'A Hard Days Night', it is a very pretty and quiet little station and would have been perfect for a few photographs. But. Crowcombe is on the edge of the Quantock Hills which were covered in mist and it was cold and wet at the station. We enjoyed our coffee and chat, saw a train come and go - diesel sadly, not steam - browsed the bookshop and then moved on towards the coast to Williton where we stopped at an excellent butcher for sausages and where it was dry and almost sunny! However, we had no plans to visit the sea and headed home to enjoy a fresh pasty for a late lunch.

The Stitch Journal has grown again - here is my work from the last week.

I have been working on my rust pieces this week. This is the sample I showed you last week

and here it is after rust and tea treatment.

I have added it to my original sample and you can see the differentce.

I used stronger tea for the first sample and may have left it for longer although I don't remember keeping notes so can not be sure. I like both samples and it is good to be able to see a difference.

I did a small sample with a rusty butterfly that lives in the garden. It is difficult to see the two butterflies but again, I could have used stronger tea and left it for longer. 

I shall add this sample to my roll and stitch into it I think.

Also this week I have started on another piece which is now ready for some tea/rust treatment.

This piece is aproximately A4 size. I layered scraps of linens onto some light weight interfacing and stiched across the whole thing 1" apart to hold it together.

I have then appliqued pieces of linen to form the flowers and leaves. I plan to dye this flat with some strategically placed rusty items before adding more embroidery, beads etc. Hopefully some progress this week.

A few pictures from the garden. Philip grew some teasel plants last year fron seed and these have shot up over the last few weeks.

I am looking forward to seeing these flower - a blue/purple I think.

And this lovely small tortoiseshell came for a visit.

Have a good week everyone.