Courage, dear heart.

I found this little box at the antique fair and knew exactly what I needed to do with it. It's just the right size for a pocket, a tangible reminder to keep going when times are tough, like some kindly words from a good friend that you can carry around with you. The quote is by C.S. Lewis.

Fear grows if you tend it....

I thought I'd share this with you, again a personal piece I made a while ago. I was stitching my way through a period of anxiety.. I shared glimpses of it with you in this post. It's a patchwork of vintage fabrics including a very old piece of quilting which is almost threadbare in places. It is edged in a lovely raw knobbly silk (not vintage - I do occasionally mix in bits of new fabric!). The piece with the tiny red pattern on in the image above,  I picked up at my local car boot sale. That's one of the things I  love about gathering vintage materials, remembering where I found them and wondering what stories they have to tell.

More things I forgot to remember....

I had such a lovely response from you to my last post on these little textile reminders that I thought I would show you some more. I really appreciate all your comments and it's good to know that aspects of my work sometimes strike a chord in others. I'm working on a bigger, more detailed piece like these little ones, I look forward to sharing it with you....

Number 678

You may have guessed there is a story behind this piece.....where we live is quite rural and my husband is always finding creatures to rescue, rabbits, owls, exhausted racing pigeons....he came across an injured blackbird, it was unable to get up and fly and was about to be run over, as it was lying in the middle of a busy main road. He managed to pick it up (much to the annoyance of some of the other drivers!) and he took it to our local wildlife rescue centre where they nursed the bird back to health and set it free. We were given a reference number for our bird so we could phone and see how it was, number 678. I made this piece to remember him by, wherever he is now......

Stitching solace....

I shared details of this piece back in this post of 2011 but I never showed you the whole thing. Again this is something I made for myself, one of a number of pieces like this. Everything I make is meaningful to me but some more so than others, maybe that's why I was reluctant to show you before now.....here are some details again. There was a lot of meditative slow stitching in this one...do you find stitching a source of solace too?