Remember the song from My Fair Lady? “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain..” Well I think that the rain in England falls mainly here in Devon – this week at least. The garden is knee deep in mud, the skies are grey and Ben and Daisy are bored. But poor old Ben is in the wars again – now he is limping heavily on his left front paw, so he is off once more to his least favourite place. (sshhhh, whisper – the V-E-T) I don’t think Daisy is to blame this time – when he was a youngster he broke a bone in that paw, so he’s had a weakness there ever since.
But today is after all the first day of spring, and there’s a definite spring-like feeling developing in the April issue of the Bustle & Sew Magazine. Auriculas have long been a spring favourite, with their myriad of colours and variety of blooms – did you know there are more than 1,500 named varieties in the UK? Many of their flowers are dusted with an icing-sugar like powder – which is very beautiful – but easily washed away by – guess what – RAIN!! So over the centuries the idea of an Auricula theatre developed to display them at their very best – possibly the most famous being at Calke Abbey – a National Trust property in Derbyshire…..
And so I thought it would be fun to create a mini Auricula theatre to enjoy all year round – mine is a combination of freestyle machine embroidery and hand stitching, using a collection of felt and furnishing fabric scraps….
Mounted on an artist’s canvas block. And being me – there had to be some animal life in there too! Can you spot the two little ladybirds? 
Here’s one of them (sorry it’s a bit blurry – it’s such a dark grey day for photography). The Auricula Theatre pattern (together with a little more history about how these theatres came to be) will be in the April Issue of the Bustle & Sew Magazine – out next Thursday. To learn more and subscribe, please click here to visit the magazine page on this website.
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