Midday

 Once I'm on a roll there's no stopping me. 

 Al the lovely comments from the last post encouraged me into production.

 'Noon a purple glow' is done.

 Does it work?
Click and click again to view large.

Its certainly different to 'Veils of Morning' but a suitable companion piece for an exhibition.

I really feel as if I've stepped up a notch with these because they are not like any piece I've done before but at the same time small motifs are what I'm used to. 

To have allowed the small to become the large has been a bit of a leap if not of faith, then of hope. 

 Its like 'take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves' ...or 'Many a mickle makes a muckle'. 

Well I hope my muckle has been made. 

 I enjoyed making these little seaweedy pieces, making the purple glow but still keeping the lime and aqua.

 Another piece that I have shown in progress is finished too. Its on the same sized canvas, but is all one piece of felt made first with prefelts, then stitched and not cut out!

 This is 'Where the cricket sings'. 

 It has a 1950s look. I like that. I got very excited by the leaf shape in the left of centre when I'd done it, and also if you look in the top left you can see where the seaweed began. 

This is how it happens for me. Accident, serendipity ..whatever.

We had an afternoon out on monday. We found what we called, when we were little, 'The Cows Mouth'. 

Since no one we ask has ever heard of it I can only think it was a name my dad made up. We went there on many a sunday afternoon when we were little, and played in the streams here and on the bridges.  Here's my mum having a bittersweet moment, remembering happy times.

My parents also took our children there and my Mum showed me where she found the younger son  hanging by his fingertips from the bridge over deep fast flowing water when he was about 6. 

(He always came home from walks soaking wet.)

On the way home we stopped in a very pretty village called Scorton where they were having a bicycle and barrow event, and there were lots of bikes and wheelbarrows about, decorated in various ways.

The village was so pretty but  the white noise of the adjacent M6  spoilt it for me.

My own gardening efforts have taken a turn for the worse. 

I saw a beautiful red beetle so pretty I just couldn't stand on it. On further research I find its a scarlet lily beetle...right next to my fritillaries. No wonder there were only three flowers this year. I have taken the GQT advice given to Clarrie Grundy and squished the eggs.

I got all the snails off the hostas and threw them in the electricity substation land at the back of our house...but not until I'd painted them  each with a yellow spot. 

I'm looking to see if they have homing tendencies.