Glimpses of light in the gloom of January

I am hanging on to any glimpse of light to get through this gloomy January and was struck by the joyful shadows created by my little artists models.

Mental light was created by volunteering to join an Extinction Rebellion samba band, and to decorate a drum.

Spirits raised by the colours on this test layout for the bookshelf quilt

Thoughts on fragmentation have turned to leaves and the decay of leaves. Plum showed some little quilts she had made,  trapping fabric under tulle, and this coincided with seeing one of the last journal quilts for 2019, where a participant had trapped poinsettia bracts and leaves under tulle. Going to my large supply of dried leaves, I tried that technique.

My intent was to crumple the squares to make the leaves fragment, but they look so lovely,  don’t know  if I can bring myself to do that!

I forgot to photograph the lovely, stitched gingerbread man, sent to me by Benta, before I packed him with the Xmas decorations, so please see her post where she shows her fantastic creativity with machine embroidery.

Positive actions for January:

• providing sewing assistance at The Repair Cafe in Oxford, where we repaired 12 items of clothing and the other repairers fixed 37 of the other 62 items that were brought for repair. Look out for the day of The Big Fix in the UK on 15th February, and volunteer or take along something to be fixed.
• Tickets booked to hear the wonderful “Lost Words’” again, touring the UK this spring
• Buying an electric cargo bike to share with my husband - we live at the top of a l-o-n-g hill, buses re infrequent at the weekend and traffic is therefore very heavy. Two trips up the hill with laden  panniers have already proved the benefit of this decision.If you haven’t tried an electric bike - they are amazing!