Work in progress - an embroidery based on a collage I made of natural ink samples

Natural dye results from lavender prunings

A lower production week as I’ve been a little under the weather with a cold (rather frustrating just as the sun finally makes an appearance). I completed my daily drawings for the month of May - coloured pencil drawings of leaves. I delayed moving into full-on full colour as the cold Spring we’ve been having here in the UK has meant that a lot of flowers are much later to come out this year. So greens it has been - I’ve really enjoyed looking at the different shapes of leaves and tones of greens… always a relaxing way to begin the day.

I’ve made a good start on a new embroidery - this one is based on a collage I made earlier in the year from a test sheet of natural ink samples. I’ve enjoyed translating the uneven shapes of the ink blobs into stitch, and matching the colours of naturally dyed threads to create a similar palette. The colours are soft but they really do pop on this dark grey lined (dyed with acorn galls and iron).

Finally, another set of dye results from using prunings of lavender bushes from the edge of my veg patch. The branches were dead, so I wasn’t sure what (if any) colour could be extracted. It won’t set the world on fire, but I was surprised how much colour was there, especially on the yarn and woollen blanket squares.