Despite wearing my newly knitted fingerless mitts to the park, my fingers froze. I could have made gloves, but then I wouldn't have been able to take pictures.

The park was strangely empty for a Saturday.

But filled with flashes of autumn arrested.

All I have to do it decide on a border for the picture now.  I'm not so pleased with the variety of greens in the stems, and feel I should have stuck with my permanent hunch to limit the pallette. I love the colour of the umbelliferous stem, but most of the others are too dark or the wrong hue. I live and learn; embroidering an image is no different to painting a picture with stitch.

I've nearly finished my Sunshine Flowers crocosmia piece, but whilst I put the finishing touches to it, here's my first hand-embroidered sampler:

It's been quiet in Juju's Fybercafe; we've been to Ty Cariad. A wonderful week spent in the countryside with family, with time and space to rejuvenate and take in some nature. We did some walking, but a lot of the week was raining and windy. I decided it was the right time to use some of the lovely samples sent in my recent surprise parcel from blogging friend, artist Carolyn Saxby (thanks again Carolyn!)

The samples were swatches of silk, cotton and velvet plant-dyed with Crocosmia and I combined them with a sample from my Birch jar (on the right).

I made my first attempt at hand-embroidered flowers; it's very much an experimental work in progress at the moment.

These cheery sunshine yellows were a warming reminder of the summer just past, and seemed to brighten the dark day in front of the fire.

Here are some of my photos from a walk in Bute park that we took recently with our friend Judith who visited from Somerset.

A surprising abundance of flowers remain in the borders in Bute Park and here is just one of the many dahlias that jostled for space in the beds. It was a fine day and as we walked along the river opposite the Welsh College of Music and Drama, the strains of a violin coming from a window seemed to compliment the majestic structures of the fading Gunnera.

Here are some water spirits who came to listen.