I have been most neglectful of my blogs for a long time – mostly, I think, because of Instagram which doesn’t require any thought or tying anything together.

Themes/connections/symbolism….oh dear oh dear.

Anyway, some summer thoughts.

Lori’s garden on Long Island…

with round pom pom shapes of hydrangeas and the swirl of hostas.

The fall of shadow on the barn with the sail boats in the window heading….somewhere.

Gone to seed dill and cilantro from the roof looking leggy.

This latest obsession with shape and color has to do with needlepoint which I have recently rediscovered – after a thirty year hiatus – since everyone has more than enough hand knitted  hats.

These are my first two efforts  – but they are done from kits where they send you everything in a little bag. (Erhman Tapestry). So the next step is to design my own. Frances (Cityviews/CountryDreams), has lent me a super book of Bloomsbury needlepoints by Melinda Coss which are quirky and charming and enviable.

So this is inspiration,

as are Florine Stehttheimer’s paintings currently on show at the Jewish Museum

What verve, what energy! How she has looked at Matisse and Chagall and Klimt and Gaugain – well, everyone really. How theatrical she is.

So after all that looking at things and thinking about things, a break at the diner is called for.

But, lo and behold there are the round pom pom shapes of the stools and spots of light scattered.

Back to the drawing board – well, photographing board

I go to Union Square and look at bouquets.

I go to the roof and eat cherries.

I contemplate the charming teacup sent me by Jo Paley and

a photo of some flowers in London which look like a painting.

I look at flowers collected by my granddaughters

and a photo of anemones taken earlier this summer…

So, I have a great deal of inspiration but absolutely no achievement so far – unless you count thinking about things…

Loving re-reading Evelyn Waugh and wallowing in Patti Smith’s M Train – the latter evocative of the late and very much lamented WG Sebald.

And now to stop babbling on the blog and back to designing.