In the Stash — applique

At a northern dawn, a weary soul pulls a small tree, crooked and lacking a crown, towards a place he knows in the woods. Most would have chosen a more perfect specimen but nearly every tree here is sparsely branched and misshapen. As it stands in this woodsman’s eye, the little fir is as stately as the finest of pines. From a branch of the biggest tree around, a small blackened and flat bottomed kettle hangs with an enamelled mug, just where he had left them. Here he makes a small fire, fills the kettle at a nearby brook and...

It was inevitable that once we got around to ‘A Cuppa Tea in the Woods’ that a Canada Jay would show up. Our designs often start with memories and stories; our love of this place and its culture and traditions. The way to get a good idea is to get lots of ideas. Didn’t take long for us to go from Jam Jams to Jays when we were remembering ‘boil ups’.  Canada Jays are winged greyscales. Little surprise that they are so at home in the boreal forest. Northern light is low, the shade and shadows long and grey, picking...