Flowers in the Snow

After a prolonged cold snap that had us all bundled up to the eyes it is finally possible to push back my hood and properly see where I am going again. The air is not so bitterly cold and the daylight is lasting a bit longer every afternoon. It is still hat weather though, and a plain beret is a blank canvas. I usually have an embroidery project on the go and for this winter I completed the Rambling Rose hat pictured above, with roses of pink and cream felt and beaded centres, linked with a scrolling vine of whipped running stitch. A plainer butterfly-themed hat is in progress, and my weather-worn standby from last winter is also ringed with butterflies.

I may stop here with the butterflies and keep this one relatively simple.

From a few winters ago, a Renaissance-inspired flower trellis with pearl details.

One my earliest embellished berets, with cherub bears in cross-stitch,


continuing the cherub bear motif of my Woodland Christmas and Woodland Nutcracker books.

Another blank canvas - perhaps bluebells for spring and the return (only 8-10 weeks away) of balmier weather.
"Over the winter glaciers
I see the summer glow,
And through the wild-piled snowdrift
The warm rosebuds below."
Ralph Waldo Emmerson