I’m still casting around the house and yard for motifs in this lock-down. The box we use in the living room has dovetail joints which have always fascinated me.  The are wider at the inner edge for strength and notoriously difficult to make. You can even see the pencil marks where the person who made the box lined the joints up. You couldn’t see them originally as the box was covered in black leather which I removed and varnished the wood.These little embedded shapes are all around us if we take the trouble to look. I then created the fabric picture after the little sketch with offcuts from a dresss and furnishing fabric, Dresses hold memories and meaning which add yet more dimensions to the pieces/ painted marks on the frame are first forays into brush work in the middle of this pandemic. I have ideas for a new painting which I will approach very slowly so watch this space! I can be slow now though, more than ever.

Still seeing what emerges as inspiration around the house and back yard in this lock-down situation. It can be the simplest little tactile thing, like the squares of wood securing our plank table on the surface. On I go with choosing fabrics, creating a little pic, and even letting colour back in through choice of fabric and painting the sanded frame. Still have lots of ideas, some work some don’t. Will keep posting them on here. Locked out of Facebook again, hey ho!

I made this little fabric patchwork pic and drawn/dyed elements last week to go in one of the small frames I have. Am still finding it hard to approach painting and more ambitious drawing but am taking the pressure right off myself. I know this is because of the corona virus situation. I keep fretting about everyone suffering in hospital, but am able to sew and make stuff still.

I noticed these little fern fronds beginning to sprout in the pots in our back yard. I took some photos last Thursday which you can see just after it rained. I remembered a drawing of fern spirals I made a couple of years back which you can see too.They start to unfurl at exactly this time of year every year, and there is a comfort in that. The patterns of nature that are imprinted in the makeup of these plants goes on despite what is happening to us. They seem to be so symbolic of hope and potential. I incorporated sneaky drawn and painted elements into my patchwork as a low key way of getting back into drawing and colour. It seems to be working a tiny bit! Ideas are coming as I focus on my lock-down world of the house and back yard. So I will keep seeing what comes up next,and go with the flow in this micro rather than macro way of making and doing.