Miscellaneous.

Congratulations Tom! I made this card, in great haste, this morning to congratulate one of our grandsons who took part in and completed the Bristol Half Marathon at the weekend. He ran for the charity Help for Heroes, hence the motif on the card. I hope he raises lots of money for them. I'm sure someone will notice that I have placed the colours in the wrong sequence, having promoted the army and demoted the navy - sorry chaps.

I then went on to fasten my latest batch of machine embroidered trees to my Quarry piece. Do you think I've done enough? I've looked at it so much I can't see it any more but I think it is finished.

Then I allowed myself to play with the first page of my next project - the Sacred Herbs book. This first herb is mugwort. I don't think I had even heard of it until I started looking into the nine sacred herbs. It's astounding that between them these nine simple plants had the power to treat just about every illness known to man. Note that I said 'treat' and not 'cure', however, they must have done some good or they'd never have been so revered. I had already written the description of each herb and collected a few bits and pieces for decorating the pages. The colour here looks dismal but in fact is a light, warm beige with hints of soft green and dusty peach. I may add a small medallion at each corner if I can come up with something suitable. I have used my favourite automatic stitch with raised chain band worked over it as the edging, and will do the same for each page. The medieval text is a torn strip from a colour photocopy and the woodcut illustration is a black and white photocopy which I have aged with a Distress Ink pad whose colour is named Old Paper. I am not worried about copyright as I am making it for myself and it will never be sold. I think the next herb on the list is plantain - those lovely 'quilted' leaves.