herbs, swimming and printed panels
We are lucky enough to be having a beautiful summer here in Cornwall. Lots of visitors able to enjoy their holidays in the sunshine and sea after all that lock down. I am still doing my early morning sea swim, swimming about 800 metres most days now. The jelly fish seem to have left the area, although I am touching wood as I write this as I don’t want to get ahead of myself. This morning there were even dolphin sightings which we sadly missed as we weren’t up quite early enough!
A couple of weeks ago it was my birthday and I received a most beautiful book by the seed sistas - The sensory herbal handbook. As a result we have been out collecting and drying yarrow (as you can see in the picture above, ignoring the old home education skull!) so we can make our own yarrow tea. I mainly held Ash the whippet in place while J picked the yarrow, it’s extremely abundant around the town. The elderberries are also almost ready too. I can hardly wait to make elderberry syrup (it happens to taste very nice as well as help soothe coughs and colds!). And this year I’m going to have a go at rosehip syrup too.
All these things are inspiring me to doodle, swimmers with jellyfish, herbs and herbalists are filling my sketchbooks at the moment so I will be sharing more of those soon. While I’m doodling and stitching I have been drinking the most delicious herbal tea from Tarn and Moon it’s a kind of chocolatey mint tea that is just so soothing. I love it and I love the packaging too, so pretty.
I’m not sure which will come first sea swimmers or herbalists but I think they are both on their way soon.
A little shop news too. The ‘find beauty in the small things’ printed panels are finally here after a little shift to the left and a broken printer at the printing company! The panels are printed on a lovely medium weight cotton and are an easier option if you are not so keen on transferring patterns. I also have a few fairy garden panels in too. you can find the panels over here. They come with an emailed pdf with instructions for stitching, including the colours that I used, and a basic stitch guide.
Now back to drinking tea, sketching and stitching for a few days. My favourite things