Diary for July & August

by Judith Baines

I put this nature diary together into two readymade books of good quality cartridge paper.  For the second six months of the year I embroidered a slip-cover celebrating some of the plants that I had found from July to December.  I chose an Elizabethan style of pattern, couching down gold thread to make a design in which to embroider the flowers and berries.  I had great fun choosing appropriate stitches.  The fields and verges take on a lovely misty bloom in July and I tried to capture this with random chain stitches and stem stitch on a piece of sponged cloth.  The under-rated, regal dock I outlined with gutta on silk and then painted and embroidered it with French knots.   The gutta seals the silk and so allowed me to cut it out.

In August the angelica bloomed but I have never seen it so lush and beautiful as it is on Arran this year.  On the verge of a field in Dippen where I walk with my latest dog, Phoebe, the angelica plants are magnificent, up to my chest with great domes of tiny flowers, in a mist of maroon, white and green.

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