Primulas

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!!! Aren't they? We went to a local garden centre last weekend and walked through a rather unassuming door into the most enormous greenhouse, absolutely chocca full of different varieties of Primula! The smell was amazing strangely enough. Primulas aren't usually something I associate with a lovely smell but it was really sweet and pretty.

Me, being me, ended up coming away with three of my favourite types of Primula, and ones I think of as rather unusual like the amazing purple one above with the petals outlined in white. The lighter purple one below has similar sized flower heads but the petals look smaller and are more scrumpled and fluffy looking, and the brilliant pink Primula below that looks amazing with its larger petals and orange centres. I just think they are beautiful, imagine a whole garden covered in these amazing colours!

Colour is creeping into the garden without my buying it in in pots. The Japanese Quince tree has a lovely deep pink blossom on it. We don't get very much from this tree, and have never eaten the fruit from it- I'm never quite sure what you do with a quince. Jam? Jelly? Crumble?
We keep talking about getting some other fruit trees in the garden although have never quite gotten around to it. I would really like one of those enormous blossom trees that carpet the ground with pale pink confetti flowers.

We also have Hyacinths, Narcissus, Daffodils, Crocuses, Snowdrops, Tulips, Alliums, Primroses....popping up all over the place. I cant wait for the Bluebells to come through and mirror the colour of the late Spring sky- we are nearly there, just a couple more months to go!

I am trying to channel these colours into my current stitchscape which is perhaps one of the more rainbow-esque 'scapes I have done. I've just finished working on my flowing river this evening, although earlier today it looked more like this with the bullion knots starting to march all the way around. It's quite a large swathe of blue going through the centre of the embroidery but I can't stop myself running my fingers over it as the whip stitches I have used are quite tall and have a great texture. The swirly parts I have 'whipped' over a few more times so they are thicker and bolder lines. I have also used a variegated DMC embroidery thread which adds more subtle colour interest and reminds me of the sun catching the water and turning some ripples brighter than others. I am just moving on to the fabulous apple fabric and then I will be turning green as I head on upwards towards the sky!