An Island in Stitch

My boot soles are now a few centimetres thicker today and I don’t think the weather forecast is set to get any better. Those last few bulbs are going to be my Achilles heel.  Ha Ha.

So here I have been in my workroom looking at pictures that I took in the summer of trips out, trying to be inspired, when I strayed a bit and started looking at magazines. Here I found a brilliant picture of somewhere that we visited this year.  Ynys Llanddwyn, Newborough Bay, Anglesey. Well that was it, I had an urge to replicate this in stitch.

Starting with the original image I roughly drew out the positions for each piece of fabric. Once pinned on I backed the whole piece with some pelmet stiffening. This gave a solid foundation to withstand the repeated machine stitching. Small details were added for the little hut and the lighthouse. I stitched, frayed and painted with watercolour to add highlights and depth to the picture. I am very pleased with the result, I hope you like it too.

Here is a little bit of folklore that accompanied the picture in the magazine.

Ynys Llanddwyn is unofficially known as Lovers’ Island, named after St Dwynwen, who lived here in the 5th century, she is said to have given advise to lovers seeking help with their relationships. On her death her hermits cell on the island, but no longer there, became a place of pilgrimage. Even now St Dwynwen’s Day,  January 25th is the north Welsh equivalent of St Valentines Day.

All my information and image came from the Landscape Magazine UK.

 

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And ‘Sew to Bed’

The garden is now 90% put to bed for the winter, just the last remaining few bulbs to plant this weekend weather permitting.

A review of the year starts me going off on tangents thinking about next season. Things that have done well and quite a lot that have now been pottered up for sale or binned. Pottered up for sale doesn’t mean that I am selling someone a rubbish plant, just something that doesn’t fit into the scheme of things. I often grow things that I have bought or have been given only to find that the colour is wrong and cannot be placed anywhere else or it might outgrow it’s allotted space. These would always be labelled as such.

So , what has done well this year ? Well my spring highlight was my blue poppy flowering for the first time and as we speak the plant is still looking green and fresh.

All the Roscoea have done really well and a couple have only just stopped flowering.

Another first for me this year Gladiolus papilio ‘Ruby’, bought two seasons ago and has given me four spikes of flower.

Verbascum ‘The Bride’, grown from seed this year and producing large self supporting spires of the most beautiful flowers, even now in mid November they are still flowering well.

And a stalwart of my autumn garden, Chrysanthemum ‘Jessie Cooper’ the only chrysant’ I grow but boy is it a beauty. Decease free, long lasting in a vase, still flowering now.

Saxifraga fortunei, really worth the wait to see all this mass of frothy white stars.

Whereas the roses were pretty poor this year, the Auricula have done very well along with iris and day lilies. The spring bulbs looked great but with the usual problem of Spanish bluebells which increase faster than I can cope with, weedkiller will be my last resort. The Autumn colour has been phenomenal this year with all of the Sorbus colouring up and producing berries, lots of the climbing roses bearing hips. My Ginkgo and twisted willow are now the only trees that are still to fully colour up. So as the last leaves drop the big sweep up starts, the seed catalogues are already filled in, seeds chosen and plants ordered from Nurseries. My workroom beckons, all this inspiration from trips out and things I’ve seen fire up the juices, so watch this space……