snippets...

raining... a lovely cooling rain has been falling off and on for much of the day

it could rain for a week solid and I wouldn't mind, even two

we've been stuck in the house for weeks anyway, between heat and the smoke-filled air, so being in for the rain is a welcome thing

the only drawback is how dark it is in the house; between the smoke and what must be dark rain clouds up above it, the lights have been all day

embroidery is nearly impossible but there are other things I've found to keep me occupied

I've been recording ink recipes in my book, replete with the blobs and splotches of ink I was wishing for

writing with a dip pen and home made ink is not quite as easy as some make it look - most of my inks turned out just fine but a few have viscosity issues, the cochineal red being the worst so I'm slowly adding gum arabic to thicken it a bit. The indigo ink is actually pretty good though it doesn't look it here - these blobs and irregularities are "operator error", but I'm getting better with practice.

for my birthday this year a very good friend made me a cloth snippet book, a place to attach all sorts of snippets and bits of cloth and thread

I've begun by taking a few fragments I've saved, off-cuts from larger pieces, tiny but precious, and stitching them in small compositions

most of these are very small, a half-inch in width, an inch and half square - hard to do anything with them, but I liked them too much to throw away

it's pleasurable to sit of an evening, with my snippet jar to hand, rooting through it for bits and pieces of pretty

arranging and re-arranging

 and thank you Karen, for both the idea of a "Snippet Jar" and the advice to never throw anything away!

next is a bit of an embroidery - not too much, I don't want to get too carried away with these, but a few stitches just to enhance things a little

a lovely way to while away the hours while the rain gently falls and the forests slowly cool