July | 2014 | Petal & Pins

Memory & Myth

I can picture exactly where the Salvia Leucatha grew below the window of my parents bedroom in the front garden of my childhood home.

Drawn to both the colour and the texture I loved the purple spires of velvet flowers on silvery stems – perhaps an early hint of a vocation with the tactility of textiles.

Family myth is purple was one of the first words in my vocabulary and it’s still a favourite colour.

When I walk past the patch of salvia that spills onto the pavement down the road and lightly touch the velvet flowers it immediately takes me back to childhood days in that garden.

Daisy

It seems whatever the season there’s a daisy to be found!

These ones grow near my front door and although the bush is not covered in blooms it was just too tempting not to pick some this morning to play with.

Do you like the result?

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Recently one of my brides dropped in for morning tea and gave me this gorgeous bunch of ‘thank you’ flowers. It had stems of pretty brassica that also featured in my posts Mon Petit Chou and Petit Chou#2.

The process of designing and creating a wedding dress means spending quite a bit of time with a bride and during the journey from sketch to toile, through fittings to finished gown there are many varied and interesting conversations.

Some are about plans for the festivities – their excitement is contagious and I often help with suggestions for flowers or other details. Occasionally my garden offers up a welcome supply of Cécile Brunner roses for adorning hair or cake.

This last season, a bride’s mother came and picked some of my Perle D’or roses to add to the bridal bouquet and a collection of tiny pine cones I gathered from a picnic were perfect for the men’s buttonholes of my Autumn bridal party.

There was a third gown for my Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe that I created with them last June, so I thought I’d share it today.

It is one of the designs in my Haute Couture Collection along with roses,hellebores and peony. AUS$24.95+pp for a 5 card set available here.

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July 7, 2014

Jewelled Webs

I woke up this morning to a view of fog and only the tops of the bare branched trees visible. Walking down the street the city and river were also blanketed in white.

After raining most of the night everything glistened with raindrops and I decided when I returned from my morning walk I would go looking for ‘raindrop beaded’ spiderwebs in the garden.

On the weekend I discovered snowdrops in flower and one or two early blossoms on the plum tree but this morning’s fog showed there is more winter to get through yet.