The Hare that Haunts

Sharing some hare art...

I love hares - there's just something about them.  I'm often drawn to paintings and ceramics that include hares - I've shared below a few of the hares I have in my house!

I really love the work of Janet Treby, and I particularly love her hares.  I have a limited edition print of the 'Hare Study with Crow ' below which my hubby bought for me a number of years ago, I think after taking note of the amount of time I stood gazing at it in a gallery in St Ives!  It was probably the best present I've ever had and I've never tired of looking at it in situ in my kitchen.

I also have an art card of her work below in a little frame.  Greetings cards are great for collecting 'art', and I have a number that I've kept and framed in absence of owning an original or larger print.

I also have these couple of ceramic leaping hares from Elemental Ceramics - Mandy also makes the most beautiful bowls and vases.

I was lucky enough to see some REAL hares when we holidayed in North Wales - sadly they were too far away to photograph, but it was a thrill to see them (although they saw us before we saw them!).

I also have a few art cards, as shown below, of the work of Catherine Hyde - the mysterious white hare.  I am totally in love with these images, they are so magical.  Maybe one day I might own an original...or a large print (I wonder if hubby is reading this...😊)

Sketchbook inspiration...The White Hare

I have been looking back through some sketchbooks (I use that term loosely!) and the little pieces I had done earlier in the year and felt compelled to create another white hare.

Looking back through sketchbooks/idea books

I had researched the white hare and discovered one of the legends attached - I have put the full, woeful tale at the bottom of this blogpost if you would like to read it.  In short, the white hare is thought to be the spirit of a broken-hearted maiden who cannot rest and who haunts her deceiver until his end.  The hare would trip up and hold back the one who had betrayed her, causing him misery and stopping him from living a happy life.

It made me think a little of the things in life that can 'trip us up' and 'hold us back', and perhaps the white hare could also represent all those events and emotions we experience that haunt us day to day and perhaps stop us from moving on and letting go.  These could be anything from loss and grief through to simply the way some people have treated you.

There are definitely things that I know I have to learn to let go of in order to move forward and I need to perhaps follow the advice I often impart to other people!  I can hear myself saying now -

 "Flip things on their head. For every negative, turn it upside down and look for a positive to come out of it no matter how small" 

So, time to release my white hare and turn the negatives into positives; time to be a little braver and make sure the events and emotions of the past make me stronger instead of weaker.

So here is my white hare - a textile collage made up of snippets of vintage table cloths, fibres, chiffon and organza all stitched down onto a piece of beautifully worn quilt.

The original layout of snippets before being stitched down.

A close up to show some of the snippets I used to create the hare

I have more to add - I have one other piece of this quilt so I would like to make this into a bigger art quilt.  This will be a nice project to carry over into Autumn/Winter to do in the evenings.

I'm thinking of joining the vintage quilt pieces with some english paper piecing

In the interest of flipping things on their head, I still love the image of a white hare so will perhaps think of a different legend attached to this magical animal.

'Among the fisherfolk of the west, this ghostly visitor plays a more kindly part.  After sundown it will flit, eerie but harmless, among the up-drawn boats by the water's edge, or through the still byways of the port, a warning to all sailors of an approaching tempest and dangerous seas.'

There, that's better isn't it?  The white hare as a protector rather than a tormentor...I'll go with that!

Collage samples...

I've completed a couple of sample textile collage wall hangings with that continuing thought of holding a Crafternoon later in the year to raise funds for MIND.  I think, keeping them simple like this, that it would be possible to pretty much make one in an afternoon.

Embracing the wonky and naive in these simple fabric collages

A couple of samples - fun and simple to do

What's next...?

Spurred on by getting inspiration from my 'sketchbooks', I also came across the following:

I was quite drawn to the shape of the holed stone at Men-an-Tol, and I'd already created a felted and stitched piece of the whole arrangement of stones.

Felted and stitched - Men an Tol standing stones

 I've been reading a number of books lately which encourage you to take a shape, texture, pattern etc and isolate it and explore it in a more abstract manner.  I find this idea quite appealing and would like to try this with just the shape of the holed stone.  It will be a challenge to be more abstract...

I have a few images to use as inspiration, and I'm going to try and get up there as well to get a proper feel of the stone.

So, I'll see where I go with that...but sketchbooks are great for recording ideas, and I must try and do it more often!

Allotment news...

There's a real change in the air isn't there?  Autumn is definitely gently nudging summer to one side.

Our runner bean plants are starting to look a little tired, and with shorter days and less sunlight, I think they are heading to their natural end - but we are still picking and eating them by the plateful!!

We've had a few apple windfalls, so crumbles have been on the menu (actually, I'm not sure when crumbles aren't on the menu!) - the rest will be picked off soon and put in the freezer, together with the blackberries we've foraged over the last few days.

We are still picking lots of salad, radish and beetroot and tucking into our crop of wonky carrots and red cabbage!

Well, I've probably rambled on for long enough - but if you would like to read the story I found about the white hare you'll find it below.

In the meantime, best wishes and thanks for reading

Tanya xx

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For those of you that like a good tale, this is the story of the vengeance of the white hare...

There are many variations of the tale presented below and in this one the story tells how a rich landowner engaged a young man to manage a very large prominent farm he owned.  The young man came from a middle class family who were eager to improve their standing in the local community and they desperately wanted him to succeed so they could be seen to move up the social scale.

  

A splendid opportunity

The young man was a clever, handsome fellow and was delighted to take on such a splendid opportunity to show the world his worth and build a fine name and career for himself.  He moved into the farmhouse and went about his tasks in an highly efficient and businesslike manner.  The farm prospered and so did his standing with his employer and in the local community.   His family gained greater respect and status in the local social circles and all was well.

The milkmaid

Then one day his employer announced that he was employing a young peasant girl from a local family as the milkmaid to work in the dairy for him.  The girl, although from a poor peasant family, was very pretty with a most pleasing personality, but had received no education at all and was very naive and inexperienced in worldly matters.

Love

The young man and the milkmaid were considerably attracted to each other, as young men and milkmaids often are, and a passionate romance followed.   The couple were not very discreet with their affair and it soon drew the attention of the young man's family who were terrified that it may come to the attention of his employer who was known to be very strict and unforgiving about such things.  But it did come to his attention and he sacked the milkmaid banishing her from the farm and gave the young man a stern warning.  However, the two lovers were still passionately in love and continued to see each other.  

The young man marries

When his family found this out thinking that the young man would put his prospects in jeopardy and also their standing in the community, they found a girl who they deemed a more suitable and a more  appropriate wife for him to lavish his attentions on and married him to her much to the despair and heartbreak of his former lover.

The milkmaid is executed

For the milkmaid things turned from bad to worse.  A short time after her former lover’s marriage she found she was carrying his child.  Although she tried her best to cover it up and often feigned sickness she could not fool the cunning folk of the village or avoid the wagging tongues of the maliciously minded.

Tragically, one morning a new born baby was found dead in a field.  The maliciously minded of the village immediately accused her of being the mother and branded her a murderess. She was arrested and put on trial for her life.  Her former lover was called as witness and confessed to being the father and largely through his evidence she was found guilty and sentenced to death and executed.

The white hare appears

Soon after her execution things began to go wrong for him.  The farm whiçh had once prospered under his management began to be plagued by problems and became unproductive.  Everywhere the young man went he found a white hare following him.  Sometimes it would flit under his feet trying to trip him up while at other times it appeared as a harbinger of doom bringing bad luck to any new endeavor he started on the farm. The prosperity of the farm began to suffer and the young man feared for his job.

Each time the phantom hare appeared bad luck ensued,  He tried to catch and kill it but it easily eluded him.  Even when he thought he had cornered it simply disappeared into thin air as his hands grasped at it only to reappear later to continue haunting him.

The young man is sacked

The business of the farm went from bad to worse and his employer did indeed sack him.  With no job and his reputation in ruins the young man decided to leave the locality and go off on his own where no one knew him.  He hoped that the white hare would not follow and that he could salvage his reputation and start afresh in some new enterprise or job.

He tried his hand at many new projects but each time he was on the brink of success the white hare would appear and bad luck would ruin his success.  Soon the ghostly hare began to follow him everywhere again getting under his feet trying to trip him up.  He moveď from town to town but people saw him tripping and staggering as he walked and thought him a drunkard.  Indeed he fell into the habit of using drink to drown his sorrows but the hare continued to haunt him everywhere he went.   He even took to riding a horse to escape the hare but it easily matched the pace of the horse and would run between its legs causing it to panic and race uncontrollably, sometime rearing and bucking in fright.

The vengeance of the white hare

One morning after a heavy snowfall his horse was found wandering along a lonely road.  Nearby the broken body of the young man was found his blood staining the snow scarlet.  Back down the road the hoof prints of a galloping horse could clearly be seen, but intertwined with them were those of a large hare.   When news of his death got back to his village the cunning folk nodded knowingly for they knew that the white hare must have its vengeance and the maliciously minded were please  because that is their way.

Finding inspiration in nature...

Nature inspired...

Even as a little girl, I always had my head stuck in a nature book - whether it was about birds, bees and butterflies or foxes, badgers and hedgehogs.

Nature still excites me...and inspires me.

I've been watching a family of wrens in our garden over the last few weeks - there are two or three youngsters who scuttle around like mice in and amongst the shelter of the plants 'peeping' away and waiting for a very diligent parent to return with food.  I've tried very hard to take some photographs of them, but they are quite rightly very wary of me and my camera and without a good zoom lens it's tricky to get any close up shots.  I probably looked quite comical creeping around the garden trying to get closer to them! They move so quickly, darting and bobbing around - a wildlife photographer I am not!!

I'll share just a couple, but the images aren't very sharp, and bearing in mind they didn't keep still for a second I hope you'll forgive that!

Giving up on the wrens, this sparrow seemed quite happy to sit still to have his photo taken!!

However, I love our little Jenny Wrens and I was inspired to do a little needlefelted version - perhaps I'd have more luck with that!

I had already created a background of layered, printed chiffon which I had stitched to a piece of blanket.  I hadn't planned a use for this, but it seemed a perfect backdrop for my birdy.

Chiffon layers stitched down

Starting my woolly sketch

As I didn't have a good enough photo of my own to work from, I used one sourced from google (hooray for google images!).

Finished!

Whether it was because it was all a bit spontaneous and unplanned I'm not sure, but it worked out really well!  I made it on the small side to keep it manageable, but that does have its challenges as it's quite fiddly to add detail with the wool and needle at that scale.  The finished picture is 4" square.

A bit of embellishment with french knots, scrim and buttons

I'm super pleased with it - hope you like it too.  I've framed it up in a little white frame which sets it off really nicely.

Framed behind glass - forgive any reflection!

I'm quite happy to give this wren a home, but it is up for sale if anyone would like to purchase it.  Please do get in touch if you would like any more information.

Staying on the bird theme, I'm in the process of making a similar small piece with a blue tit.  My background was initially a little piece of nuno-felt that I made especially - I have a beautiful chiffon scarf that I had picked up in a charity shop a while back and I cut a small piece and felted it to some wool fibres which creates that lovely crinkly effect.

Can anyone else see the creepy guy in the blue shirt?

I began my blue tit, but I just wasn't happy with it - I think it was a combination of needling into the nuno felt and the pose of the bird with its head facing forward was proving tricky for me to get detail to stand out.

Loose wool sketch - but not happy with its progress!!

So I have made a new background, in the same style as the wren picture, simply stitching the chiffon onto some blanket - this has given me a much firmer surface to work into.

Chiffon stitched onto blanket

I chose a different pose for my blue tit as well - this is just a picture of it in progress, there's a lot to do yet.  I'm still not sure of it though...I might put it to one side for a bit and come back to it. I think I've given it the head shape of a great tit or something silly like that.  So frustrating when something's not going quite as planned!  Perhaps I should have been more spontaneous as with the wren!

Blue tit in progress - lots more to do yet, but still not happy with it!!

Something I sometimes struggle with is the 'drawing' element - I'm really not sure it's where my strength is!  I think that's why the textile collaging keeps calling me back - it's much more free and easy, whereas the needlefelting is quite painstaking and fiddly.

I've shared successes and failures on this post - I could so easily show you just the great bits but in reality for every one thing that I'm pleased with, there are probably four or five that I'm disappointed with!!

Anyway, as long as I'm creating something there are always new things to learn and enjoy...and that's part of the journey.

Photo inspiration...

Whilst I may have failed to get 'that' photo of a wren, I have been taking photographs of things that don't move.  Walking the dog down to the estuary at Lelant, there are lots of different colours and textures to take note of along the shore line.  These images are great to refer back to as inspiration for surface design and background ideas - I've shared a few of them below, some taken along the estuary and some out walking around the farm.

Boat moored on estuary at Lelant

Love this blue and the contrasting buoy xx

nice bit of flaky paint on the side of the boat

More flaky paint! Would make a great background

Sea battered wood - and that lovely pop of yellow lichen

Seaweed and lichen

Nice pattern in the stone wall

That green!

Saturated the colours on this one a bit - old, sea worn wood

 Had to include a little picture of Rufus, who thinks he's an otter and just casually swims along whilst we walked along the shore!

Walking Rufus also takes me along the country lanes and fields of our farm, and there are already those wonderful colours of an approaching autumn xx

Grass heads

Dock flowers drying out

Gorgeous seed heads

Grasses blowing in the breeze

The camera flashed!

In sepia - some treasure that I brought home in my pocket xx

Other news...

I've started on a sample for the 'Crafternoon' I have in mind for the autumn - keeping it really simple so that hopefully anyone that wants to come can more or less finish it in an afternoon.  This is really fun to do - embracing the lovely naive look of it and the simple shapes and stitching so that anyone can do it, regardless of sewing experience.  It's amazing what you can do with just a running stitch!  Hopefully I'll get some takers for the session and raise some money for MIND in the process!

In progress - buttons and words to add yet!

Allotment news...

Well, we are pretty much self-sufficient in salads and veg and potatoes which is wonderful - and our sprout and leek plants are looking really good for autumn/winter.  I think the recent rain did everything the world of good.

However, I'm surprised I haven't turned a shade of green with the amount of runner beans I've been eating!!  We have beans with everything and are giving a lot away to family and friends as we have such a glut of them...but I'm not grumbling, they are delicious!!

Until next time...

Thank you for reading my ramblings, and although there's not as much creating as I'd like going on (too much to do and enjoy outside during summer!) I do have a number of ideas milling around that I hope to get my teeth into soon.

Best wishes

Tanya xx

A prayer flag, a holiday and a mini-quilt...

Prayer Flag

My finished prayer flag - an exercise in printing with plants, slow stitch and textile collage...

There were no rules to making this, no worrying about straight lines or doing anything with precision, just straight forward handstitch and intuitive collage. All of the materials used were scraps, bits of old chiffon scarves and vintage doilies - cut, torn and reassembled into something new

Certain parts of it were dabbed with a wet teabag to get rid of the 'whiteness' and this helped everything blend together much better and gave a more time worn feel to it which I really like.

I did have a lightbulb moment when stitching on the backing - I used some old linen trousers, and realised that the trouser hem, once cut,  made a perfect sleeve to put a piece of floral wire through to use as a hanger!

This sort of thing is so doable by anyone - no real skills required, just fabrics, needle and thread,  a few buttons and an open mind.  No real sewing skills required, just a simple running stitch, or variation of, will do everything you need it to do.

Those of you who read my last blog post will know that I'm planning on doing some more simple prayer flag samples with a view of holding a craft session in the autumn to raise funds for MIND.  I will work on that over the summer.

Holiday to North Wales

We managed to organise everything at home in order to escape for a week to North Wales/Snowdonia - we don't go away very often so it was a much needed break for the two of us.

We had a wonderful few days with fabulous weather, walking, cycling and views.  Here are a few photos that I took, which of course never do the landscape justice.  There were some big landscapes to enjoy, the type that make you feel small and fairly insignificant. I love that feeling of vastness and being in a big, open space and most often it was just the two of us - we tend to try and stay away from the 'touristy' bits, and we succeeded in having a very peaceful week with just the sound of cuckoos and skylarks keeping us company - oh and sheep of course, mustn't forget the sheep, of which there were many at every turn!!

Alwen Reservoir

A climb up Moel Elio from Llanberis near Mount Snowden

Mountain Pass back to Llanberis - so peaceful, hardly saw a soul.

View towards Moel Siabod - love the remote little cottages nestled in the trees - inspired to do a felted picture from this!

Moorland view above Arwen Reservoir

A perfect picnic spot by the Miners' Bridge, Gwynver

Another picnic stop - joined by this guy along the Ledr Valley

Walking along Forestry tracks

A windmill on Anglesey, passed on an epic cycle ride!

View at the north end of Anglesey

There are MANY more photos, but I won't bore you with them all!  It was a lovely few days away with time to just 'be' - precious...

Solar Dyeing Results!

So I couldn't wait any longer, and emptied the contents of my solar jars - with some really nice results.  It was difficult to capture some of the more delicate colours with the camera, but I ended up with lemons, pale greens and wonderful yellows and rust marks from the nails and washers I wrapped the materials around.

All created from plants, onion skins and sunshine - magic!

These pieces will go back in my naturally dyed stash to hopefully use in a future fabric collage.

Mini Quilt

Occasionally on Instagram, there are little 'join along for fun' things that crop up, and there's currently one for making mini-quilts.  So, up for a challenge I thought I'd try a bit of hexie english paper piecing (typical me to make it complicated!!)

This is a great way to 'stash-bust' and it's a really nice, portable thing to do - I've yet to finish it, it's all layered up with wadding and a backing and being hand quilted,  but it's coming along nicely.  Don't peer too closely though, because it's far from perfect!

If you're on Instagram and are interested, just follow #dsgminiquilt to see what others have been making - or join in yourself!

On the Allotment

Oh my goodness, we've started harvesting our home-grown goodies and enjoying lots of strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries...and we have a glut of courgettes, so it's thinking of  '100 things to do with a courgette'!!

We've also been digging our first potatoes, which are delicious, as well as salad and mangetouts - just waiting on those runner beans now!

Of course, as well as things to eat, it's always lovely to bring in some flowers from the garden to enjoy, and our hydrangeas are now getting into full flower - they are quite possibly my favourite!

So that's us more or less up to date!  I'm really missing the felting, so I'm going to get some of that on the go as soon as I get a chance.  It's been nice to try other things though, and I still like the idea of mixing up a few of the ideas into some finished pieces to sell - I have a folksy shop which is languishing empty, so I may reinstate that to spur myself onto getting some bits made to pop into it.

Wishing you a wonderful week, and thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings - I'd love to hear from those that read my blog, so feel free to leave a comment or two and let me know what you're up to!

xx Tanya xx