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The sweet peas have beaten me - a sunny weekend busy elsewhere has meant no deadheading and a sudden rush of seed pods. ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ It is easy to get overwhelmed at this time of year - too much to do, too many things near collapse. ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ It is easy to forget that really very little of it actually matters and that enjoying the garden is meant to be the point - not it becoming yet another section on the to do list.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ I will therefore concentrate my rescue efforts on the hazel tripods and leave the tunnels to fade into green. ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ They have done well - so much glory from such small seeds. I will let them bow out gently.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ This surprise burgundy flake in amongst the matucana reminded me how much I like them and how I should deliberately sow some next year.
Today I shall be prepping this pile of plant dyed fabrics, packing them up into the sampler boxes which will go into the Studio Club shop on Friday morning.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ I don't dye great yardages of fabric - and I have no intention of doing that - but I do dye small interesting pieces from my stash, adding them into the dye pots each week, and then saving them up to create very special packs of colour to spark creativity.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ In this pile there are vintage damasks and linens, some old cotton lace, lush velvets and soft threads.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ They are coloured with bracken, plum, dock, nettle, and alchemilla mollis - all picked here, all dyed over a three of four week process.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ The last set of boxes sold out really fast - which is one reason that I am reserving them for the Members only shop. If you want to join the Studio Club you can find out all the details at snapdragonlife.com.⁠⁠
Flowers picked, stripped and plonked in a jug. ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ I was planning to do a fancy arrangement but then they looked so light and pretty as they are.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Simple so often the best.
The tansy is about to flower in the Studio Meadow.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ When I arranged flowers for weddings I always thought that the best thing about having properly seasonal flowers was that you would remember every year as plants came into bloom. ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ I got very involved with weddings, couples became good friends and I still associate plants in my garden with specific people. ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Tansy would not be a good plant for a wedding though really - its history is a dark one, tied up with abortion and despair - but it is the plant I associate with my first attempt to dye fabric with plants. Every year it blooms I realise how far I have come.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ For that first attempt was was a failure - too big a piece of fabric, not enough scouring and then a hissy fit at the lack of colour, which ended up with chucking too much ferrous sulphate into the pan and ruining it further into a blotchy grey.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ This weekend I go to Gartur Stitch Farm @katgoldin to learn more about dyeing with local plants and indigo with Julia @woollenflower . ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Then, after that, I shall harvest this year's tansy . . . .⁠⁠ ⁠⁠
A sunny evening in the studio.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ The fabrics I have been dyeing over the weekend rinsed and drying on the clothes horse.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Maybe it is the heat, maybe its the perfect ripeness of the plants - I don't know - but this batch of foraged colour is particularly mouthwatering. Lush and soft and perfectly balanced.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ This is the last lengths that I am dyeing for the summer sampler sets of plant dyed fabrics, ribbons and threads that will go into the Studio Members shop at the end of the week. I will email out the link when they are live.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Making things like this is small scale and slow - so much love and care goes into these sampler sets, from the picking of the plants to the hand drawing of the gift cards. I wouldn't have it any other way.⁠⁠ If you aren’t already a member of the Studio Club and would like to join - to see behind the scenes, get the monthly journal and access all the members only blogs, courses and shop - the link is in my bio.
'You have to be fast to get the sweet peas'.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ This is what I was told last Sunday at Drymen Community Garden Open Day. ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ They were talking about the dozen or so bunches I've been taking down to the Crop Swap outside the Village shop on Drymen Main Street each Saturday morning for the past couple of months.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ They are first things to be snapped up from the table. I was delighted to find that many were being taken to neighbours, dropped off with the newspaper on the way home.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ If feels right for this most generous of flowers.
Did you have a spirograph as a child?⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ The dahlias have started blooming and I'm thinking I could use one to draw them.
This is my Studio - where everything happens. ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ At the moment it is surrounded by a bright and jazzy mix of loosestrife and buttercups and poppies - teasels, tansy and sanguisorba rising up, ready to carry on the next act of the show.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ This little patch of land - really just a bank of spoil from building the studio - is different every day, an ever changing inspiration.⁠⁠ A reminder that things ebb and flow, bright and muted, high and low. ⁠⁠ The heart of the Studio Club.
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About Snapdragon Life

At Snapdragon Life I gently guide you through bringing the changing seasons into your daily life, helping you slow down, so that you can experience increased well being, calm and creativity.

 

Learn more about why here

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