Slow Saturday

I think the cat's position pretty much sums up Saturday. Slow, lazy, relaxed, hot, sunny, sleepy.....his favourite kind of day. His itinerary included; snoozing in the garden, cleaning his right paw, snoozing in a different part of the garden, cleaning his left paw, meandering in for a quick snack and to check on the humans, choosing a new part of the garden, stretching, another snooze....and then because all of that was so exhausting, sleeping it off under a bush somewhere before tea.
I did manage to stay awake and actually was highly productive in a relaxed sort of a way as I managed lots of sewing and finished off two little stitchscapes. Unfortunately I was so engrossed in my stitching I am now sporting a rather lobster-like sunburn on my arms but it was all worth it.

I'd had an idea to try and make colour grouped landscapes, and as I had some black 7.5cm frames to hand, thought that the brights of orange and yellow would look super against a black frame. I've managed to squeeze seven fabric strips into this little square so it's a bit of a sunset explosion!

I like how much texture can be crammed into one little frame and each fabric strip is like a snapshot of the pattern. At the top there is back stitch following the lines of pattern, then just french knots going crazy a layer down, satin stitch circles, back stitches again following the faint wishy lines of the space dyed fabric and a two strand (so slightly thicker) back stitch around the edges of the batik fabric. It reminds me of when you get rolls of cloud that are tinged with gold at the edges and do create this layered effect.

I wanted the bottom layers to be a stark contrast against the yellow to really help it POP so went with mainly black fabrics. The bottom one was a white polka dot on black, but as I have worked back stitch cross hatching across it you can't really tell that it was a spotty fabric before. The upper dark layer is definitely spotty, and rather than keep this black as well, I have highlighted it with a silvery grey which has a kind of dappled effect. The bottom of course, would not be completed without a few bullion knot flowers!

My next colour theme was blue as I wanted to try out a previously un-used (what a momentous occasion!!) sandy beach print. It is the second print I own based on sand, but this one was a justified purchase as it has footprints in- which makes it different to the other one and therefore necessary...
The blues are just gorgeous and I am really pleased with how this one turned out- but I'm going to keep you waiting for another blog post to show you. Muwhaha!

Of course, later on that evening we had a terrific lightning show. From the view beyond those trees there were constant streaks of light dashing across the sky and flashes within the clouds. It didn't seem to hit the ground anywhere (not like Stansted airport's fuel depot- what a palava!) and we didn't have any thunder, or much rain particularly, but it was very awe inspiring nonetheless.