Hi, I’m Rachel from Sweet Thorn. My plan with this blog – which I think I will call Taking Notes – is to continue developing a habit of noticing details in nature.
Some years ago, when I was thinking over ideas about embroidery and what I found inspiring, I realised I had lost the time to notice details we see every day. Nettles and dandelions, or the flowers we see in
hedgerows and brownfield sites, get taken for granted. But, given the time, I like looking more closely at plants and flowers, to see the detail of petals and leaves and notice distinctions. I also like to know what I’m looking at. I realised how easy it was to glance at a hedgerow and label the lacy flowers as umbellifers, without knowing which ones were cow parsley and which were Queen Anne’s Lace. Or hemlock for that matter.
My embroidery art is influenced by these small details, many of which I have learned only in the last few years, through taking photos and looking up what I’ve seen. There are a lot more white and lacy umbellifers than I knew, and their flowers are so varied! The seed heads can be just as intriguing – cow parsley seed heads have exquisite little curling details like filigree. Other plants are a bit more familiar – I particularly enjoyed stitching the distinctive heart-shaped seeds pods which make shepherd’s purse so easy to identify.
Hand stitching is an excellent way to highlight details and draw the eye but of course it develops much more slowly. I choose my subjects carefully – I want to be able to recreate my sketches in thread and communicate
what I find most captivating. But even simple designs take time. The advantage of this is that hand embroidery creates a lovely, careful rhythm of work. But writing will add to the scope of embroidery, as I can describe a wider variety of plants more easily. I can also communicate more than the appearance of different wildflowers – I can talk about the fragrance of honeysuckle, juicy blackberries and the feel of leaves in different seasons. I am hoping that taking the time to reflect will allow me to notice more details each time I go out, and that the busyness of life can be balanced against things like noticing the shape of hawthorn leaves or the gleam of rowan berries.
I’ll be back next month – thanks for reading! All best,
Rachel