A Little Stitching in the Garden

Yesterday was a perfect summer's day. I spent the afternoon sitting in the shade of our fig tree, gently stitching the hours away in the company of a good friend. She was hand quilting and I was finishing my 'going for gold'

piece for the Guild exhibition in October.We sipped iced tea and caught up with each others news whilst our respective husbands were at a local steam train yard doing men type things with engines and such like. We were joined in the evening by our family and friends for a meal together in the garden. Next year we will be able to use our new sunken garden as work on it progresses at a steady rate.

A day last week was given over to preparing 25 books for an altered book course  to be run during a Guild meeting in November. As the classes only last two hours we knew we would have to do the initial procion dying up front ready for everyone to embellish the open page.So Biddy, Bev, Fran and myself set to and had a great time sploshing the dyes about. They took a good twenty four hours to dry completely as we really did drench them in colour. They looked a bit garish the next day so I spent a few hours with some metallic rubs and pastels and softened the edges and toned back some of the colours and  stacked the books for storing. At this point I realised how lovely they looked in their unadorned state and decided to photograph them. I have stored them in their open position to let them settle a bit and know that when I get them out in November I will remember the fun we had in July dying them.