wild blaeberries and wild sewing

Most people are familiar with blueberries, today they are recognised as a superfood, packed with health giving antioxidants. Made into delicious smoothies and indulgent muffins they have so many uses. 

Fewer people  would know of its smaller cousin the bilberry or blaeberry.

As a child I was brought up on the north west coast of scotland. The land is windswipt and heather clad. Heather made a great playground, I remember making dens in the springy mounds. In amongst the heather mounds we would often find wild Blaeberries. I think the word is just used in Scotland, but I may be wrong.

Shiny garnet/ black jewels.

Smaller than blueberries and difficult to find as the bushes are low growing and mingle with the heather.

Artistic licence means my version are crimson with black stems. I also added gold flakes before stitching which shimmer as if in the sunshine.

The Blaeberry panel was made with paper cloth sewn and fixed to a wooden panel.

Another of my wild sewing series.

Linking to Paint party friday

Inky skies

last week I had been working small on sewn landscape collages, this week I started working on larger pieces

Muted purples and inky skies.

Then working larger using paper cloth and intuitive sewing!

A little cottage nestles in the swirls

I use the paper cloth to help me choose where to take the lines.

And, my 'cast off blanket' is finished, and my leg cast is off too.....

slowly getting back to normality.  ;)

'Wee ones' and a sombre self portrait!

 Yes, I have  been busy sewing this week again!

This week lots of  'wee ones' made from paper cloth like this!

This is one I made earlier ;)

 appliquéd and sewn
 then stretched over small wooden panels.

once stretched the panels were backed neatly with felt. Ready to be hung.

detail

The above are some close up details.

On this piece I needle felted a few orange tufty flowers.

 And finally..
 linking up to paint party friday and their special birthday party self portrait theme. As regular visitors may know I am laid up with a foot fracture and seem to have spent the whole of 2015 hibernating so my self portrait looks rather sombre. I  only wear glasses for reading and drawing, so to my annoyance had to draw myself wearing them..perhaps that added to my sombre mood. ;)

self portrait

collage with thread

Well I am still recuperating from my foot fracture, thanks for all your well wishes, they really cheered me up.
Life on crutches is very frustrating and I have been looking for ways to fill my time that require minimal movement. Painting you would think would be simple with one leg, and it is! Cleaning up though is not so quite so simple!
 Crutches require both arms and hands, so cleaning brushes, emptying water, in fact getting messy is really not good. Collage making too, with glue and paper is equally messy and difficult.
Sewing however is not messy, It can be done with my foot elevated and pedal-less! I discovered my machine can be used without the foot pedal, using a switch on the machine instead... simple!! This made me very happy.. ;)

I made a stack of paper cloth over christmas which was fortunate and used stitch instead of glue to collage everything together,

This gives you an idea of scale, it is reasonably large.

you may also remember my ' cast off' crochet blanket, well it is growing slowly.....

It probably wont be finished by the time my leg cast is removed, however I am not expecting miracles and know it will be a little while till I can throw away the crutches, so I will be needing a sofa project for a wee while yet!

Linking up to

Paint party friday