New Stamp.

   Back to carving stamps today with this one that I hope will be the start of a new piece of work.

                                  A few things to tidy up, but I'm pretty happy with this one.

A Bit of Stitching.

     The colour of this print isn't quite right, although the original is a blue green shade. Nearly finished! I'm  not sure whether to leave the mottled background fabric showing or whether to frame right up against the central panel.

I almost never work on more than one piece at a time, but as these 2 are so similar in subject matter I have been stitching on both. As you can see I have removed the blue silk patches from this one, maybe for ever or maybe they'll return later, who knows.

Grass Printing.

                                              My box of pressed grasses ready to print with.

 I thought that the piece of cotton with the solar printed grasses needed a bit extra, so I over printed with the pressed ones.

Here I've stitched over some of the grass, but it still needs something extra, some small flowers in amongst the grasses perhaps?

Seed Pods.

 I couldn't believe the shape and texture of these seed pods, and I have no idea what plant they belong to. I spotted them in the restored garden of  Carl Linneaus in Uppsala Sweden.

 There are 1,300 species of plants grown in the garden today, which was originally laid out in 1655.

I do know that this is a black form of edible pea, but again I have no idea what the small black pods above are.

Kadriorg Palace Estonia.

 I just love these old tiled stoves in the palaces. While everyone else was looking at the old Dutch Masters' paintings, I was admiring the stoves and the Dutch tiles.

More from Tallinn.

Doors of Tallinn.

 I just love old doors and was delighted to spot a few on a short walk through the old town of Tallinn in Estonia.

                                                   A pity about the light flare on this one.

Grasses.

 I really do want to put these grass solar prints to good use, but I'm struggling to use them in an artistic way. This one above has some lovely clear images, but there is a smudge almost right in the middle.

       This is a paper mock up of a possible solution, an added panel to cover the smudge.

  I've printed the blue image onto silk, which I think will give a softer look than using more of the cotton. Perhaps over printing with the actual grasses might be better............