wandering wonder

She began a little while ago, a combination between a wish to make another rose covered hat, a curiosity as to whether i was still able to make slightly bigger little beings and an inspiration towards a doll who could hold and inspire time spent noticing the minature detail of nature treasures. 

When I was a little girl, walks along French country lanes, and later in Sussex woodland were full of pauses, of bending down or up on tiptoes or peering through, for better looks at treasures half glimpsed, for sucking nectar from hedgerow flowers, for stroking bark. Often empty snail shells, particular pebbles, acorns, petals, seed heads, twigs, were carefully carried home. My children notice and glean as I did, we take notebooks on our visits to beautiful gardens, more for the safe keeping of fascinating fallen petals than for sketches, and as a mummy I am aware that the preciousness of their sea shells and special stones, is as much in the moment of coming across them as in their perfect detail. 

The coming about of this little being held a dedication to the wonders of wandering, her hat roses and those at the end of her plaits were in her beginning before I started stitching, they were an indication of her nature, when her face came her eyes held both attention and dreaming.

The wild dog roses grew across her body over her hand sewn seams and adorned her wrists and ankles, and when we went into the garden we found shades of fairy bells, purple and lilac as her  skin and soft white as her silk undergarments.
Her shoes soles give messages of love to the ground where she skips.
                 

                                   Her gathering cloak came with a great sense of satisfaction, now she could go wandering in the arms of a child, and have the honour of holding the findlings with love all the way home

 and sometimes her little cloak pocket fairy might jump out to play in the petals