Inspiration in the bluebell woods

It is regular haunt of ours, not just in the bluebell season but all year around.

Over the past few weeks I have been making up gorgeous silk collections into different colourways. Each set has an evocative title as I thought that it would perhaps give you ideas of how to use them – and also because it helped me select the colours once I had a title in mind. At this point, I will admit that I did change my mind a few times as I made up the boxes and even started robbing completed boxes to make new ones. Not very bright really!

Anyway, I know that you would like a little collection named Bluebell Woods which was simply based on these pictures of Badbury Clump. (You may have heard me talk about it before in an earlier Jotting.) It is regular haunt of ours, not just in the bluebell season but all year around. There is something special about the ring of beautiful trees and the views across the Thames flood plain to the north and the historic market town of Faringdon to the east. There is a feeling of magic in the air… The National Trust describes it as a “Woodland with an Iron Age past” as there are the remains of an Iron Age hill fort from about 600BC.

Because of the thousands of visitors who come to see the bluebells in the spring, the area is now carefully managed so that you can see the flowers but not trample through them. Special raised wooden plinths have been constructed around the woodland for photographers, so that is how I managed these pictures. One of these photographs includes dear Bumble who never learnt to read the signs but did keep to the deer paths, if not the footpaths.

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