Slowstitching the hidden layers of a leaf

[00:00:04]Hello lovely people. I'm Katherine and welcome to this week's A Toz of Slow Stitch. And we are on the letter L and this is community choice. And here's a clue as to what I've chosen.

[00:00:17]Picked up on my morning walk. Um actually I've kind of chosen two words.

[00:00:21]The main word is leaf or leaves. I have one leaf here. Um, and I also want to incorporate another suggestion that quite a few of you made, which was layers. So, um, I'm going to literally layer a leaf. That's a lot of L's. Um, and also I want to, as we go along, because leaves are one of my favorite things in the world because they're on trees, which are one of my favorite things in the world. Um, I want to talk about the layers within a leaf as well.

[00:00:49]A bit of a bit of sciency stuff, but hopefully interesting. and as an eco printer something that um I feel it's important to know about and I'm interested to know about it. Um so I wanted to share that with you. So in terms of what I want to stitch um I thought of representing the layers of colors that are within a leaf. So I'm talking about deciduous leaves um primarily on trees here. So, we're all familiar with leaves being green, different shades of green, but that's not actually the true color of the leaf.

[00:01:22]I'm now thinking of Cindy Looper in true colors. Um, the green is comes from chlorophyll. Um, anyway, let's get stitching. I'll talk more about that as I go along. So, I've picked up this a leaf this morning. Now, if you don't have this is um uh sycamore or maple, an asa, I think it's platininoades.

[00:01:41]Um I think so. um in my local park. Now, if you can't just go out and pick up a leaf, you could, of course, look online for outline drawings of leaves, or you could just draw one yourself. And you absolutely don't have to do um a maple or a sycamore. You could choose any kind of leaf you liked. Maybe you have a favorite tree and you'd like to choose that one. I chose this, I think, really because of its size and shape. So, um, what I'm going to do is I'm going to use these three colors.

[00:02:10]Um, red, gold, and green. Karma chamele like a karma chameleon. Um, so I've chosen a little scrap of red, a little scrap of gold, and a scrap of green.

[00:02:21]Now, this was the best plain green I had. I would have preferred a darker one, but I don't have, so, you know, I'm using what I have. Um, and then for a background, because I'm an eco printer, I've chosen a bit of eco print. And on here are um a couple of prints of maple sort of overlapped. So, but you know, if you're not an eco printer, just maybe you've got a piece of cloth with leaves printed on it or just a plain piece of cloth would be fine as well. But, you know, I've got that, so I'm using that.

[00:02:48]And I have also got a bit of old sheet for backing, but I'm not going to put that on straight away. I'm going to put that on later. Um, so that's my backing piece. So, the first thing I've done is on a piece of normal scrap paper, I drew around my leaf. Now, I found it easier with this one to turn it the other way up because it sort of laid flatter. And then just with a pencil, I just went around the outline. I didn't stick it on or anything. I just vaguely drew around the outline. We're not We don't have to be exact. Um, and then I've turned it back over so it's now the right way, but that doesn't really matter either. And I put a little X on this side because I'm going to use this template three times and I wanted to just make sure that I had it oriented the right way each time.

[00:03:36]I did actually make it slightly smaller as well, just so that it fits nicely onto my background cloth. Clear so far.

[00:03:45]So, I'm going to put my red color first as my base layer. So, I'm going to get my bit of Put the leaf out of the way for now. Going to get my bit of red cloth.

[00:03:57]And um if it's if you your cloth has a right side and a wrong side, then you need to think about the orientation of your template. So I would say always put it on the right side of your cloth with your X up and then all your leaf shapes will be oriented the same way. So I just need to I could either draw around that onto the cloth. I think what I'm going to do is sort of pin it with some pleco pins and then just cut around it.

[00:04:24]So, I'm just pinning through my template all the way around. And while I'm doing this, I'll um talk a bit chlorophyll.

[00:04:33]I'll talk a bit more about chlorophyll and so forth. Chlorophyll is um the chemical that is produced by the tree plants, but we're talking about trees during the growing season. And it's this chemical that enables the plant to photosynthesize.

[00:04:50]Um a tree is an autorope. That means it can feed itself. It can literally make its own food within its within its cells. Um and um it does that by using sunlight to manufacture sugar and starches.

[00:05:07]Um and it's the chlorophyll that does that. And it's chlorophyll that makes the leaves green. And that's also why in eco- printing it is quite difficult to get greens from from plants um from leaves because chlorophylls doesn't doesn't really give its color. It can do under certain circumstances and you know with certain um chemical assistance but on the whole that's not the color that we get from leaves when we're eco printing. So the leaf the leaf colors that are there already are actually revealed in autumn or fall when shorter daylight lengths and changing temperatures trigger the plant or the tree let's just stick with trees um to stop producing chlorophyll. So as the chlorophyll production slows down, other colors within the leaf. This is where I'm bringing the layers into it become more um come to the four. You know before that they're masked by the chlorophyll and the two primary pigments that are there all along hidden by the chlorophyll. It's not that we talk about leaves changing color. Well, they do to our eye. They change color. But what actually happens is hidden colors are revealed. So, the yellows and the oranges. The oranges come from chemicals called carotenoids. Easy to remember because carrots are orange. Um, and I should have ironed my cloth, but I didn't. Um, and the red colors, uh, sorry, and the yellow colors come from zanthils. They're called zanthils, the yellow pigments. And those two pigments are there in the leaf all the time. You just can't see them. So the leaf is always yellow and orange underneath the green of the chlorophyll. Um and the job of those pigments is to help um trap the sunlight. You know, they they improve the the leaves leaf's ability to trap the sunlight. Right. So I'll pin that on. I'll go on to talk about the red colors in a bit. But so all I'm going to do now is just cut that out just around that bit of paper. Um for which I have to concentrate. So, I'll probably edit this bit out of me cutting. So, I'm just going to go around as carefully as I can. By the way, if you have freezer paper, I know if you're a quilter, um, or another kind of, you know, crafter, you might have freezer paper. You could, in that case, cut your template out of freezer paper or you might have it for the kitchen. You have to think as a crafter. Some people do actually use these things for their proper use. So, they haven't just reappropriated them.

[00:07:39]But freezer paper, you can iron it on.

[00:07:40]It's got a a shiny side and a paper side. Um, so you could then iron it on and cut around it. That would be maybe easier, but I don't have any freezer paper, so I'm doing it like this. But if you do have, you could. Right, I'm going to go ahead and cut this out. Okay, so I've cut my leaf out. Um, I'm going to get the pins out now. And now I need to make sure that I keep this leaf the right way up. I think it'll be fairly obvious with this that which is the right side. But because my cloth doesn't really have a a right and wrong side, I just have to be a little bit careful. So leaves that then turn um red and purples and reds and maroons those kinds of colors that pigment is not already in the leaf all along like the um orange carotenoids and the yellows anthils that is a pigment called anthocyanin and that is a chemical that I have a kind of lovehate relationship with as an eco printer. Um, anthsyanin is what gives beets and red cabbage and black beans and all those things their purplish colors and a lot of the berries and flowers that are those colors as well. Um, and it is the color that is most widely misrepresented in the natural dying world because it's very very unstable as a pigment. It's actually a sugar. Um, it's produced by the tree kind of and by the leaf, sorry, sort of later in its life before it's going to fall full fall and it acts as a kind of sunscreen to enable the leaf to get the last lot of nutrients that it possibly can into the plant um before the final push, which is called absition. That's the word for leaf drop or leaf fall. It basically means any organism that deliberately loses a part of itself. That's the deliberate act of shedding. It's like a a snake shedding its skin is also a form of absition I think. Um but it certainly is with leaves. And then when the leaves fall, just as they fall or after they fall and all the other pigments disappear, um just break down and degrade and then all you're left with are the the brown crispy leaves that we all love to walk on and kick through and so on. And that brown color that's left in the leaf is the tannin which was also there all along. Um but it's it's richest in the fallen leaves. So therefore for eco printing I'm often asked, can you eco print with brown leaves? Yes, if they're freshly fallen you can, but you'll only get the tannin browns. So when the leaves when the leaves are still green with chlorophyll certainly later in the season um as the chlorophyll is just begin as they're just beginning to turn that's when the carotenoids and the zanthaphils are most prominent and those give you more variations in colors when you're eco printing. So that's why I always forget the anthsyins. You will never get that color to stay. Um you just won't.

[00:10:38]There's so many people showing red cabbage and beetroot and berries and all that, you know, natural dying and eco printing, but it really doesn't stay. It just doesn't. Um, you feel free to try if you don't want to take my word for it, but it really doesn't. Um, that's why I say I have a lovehate relationship with anthsyins. Gives beautiful colors in nature, but you can't get it permanently onto cloth or paper. So, anyway, so there's my red leaf, there's my anthocyanin leaf. That's going to be my bottom layer on my background there.

[00:11:08]Like I so it is slightly bigger. It's hanging off the edge a bit, but that doesn't matter. Um I turned my stalk into a kind of little triangle as I was cutting out. I thought that made more sense. Um so I think I'm going to actually stitch that on first. So I'm just going to pin that kind of I'm going to keep this. I need that again twice more. I'm just going to kind of position it how I want it and put some ple pins in it.

[00:11:36]Um, I think I'm going to just stitch around the edge because it's going to get a lot of it will be covered by the next layer.

[00:11:45]Um, so I think I'm just going to simply do simple stitching this week. Simply do simple stitching. No f well, it's I always call it fancy stitching, but that's just my shorthand for visible stitching rather than basting or things like that. Doesn't usually mean anything super fancy with me, but you of course feel free to do different if you want to. You could um overcast all the edge down if you wanted to. I think I'm just going to do a simple Don't know why I'm now going mad with the pins. Um, a simple line of running stitch all the way around the edge in a red color, I think.

[00:12:26]So, I'm going to go into my autumn woodland box. I'm going to treat myself and not use my oughts. Not nothing against my ors, but what is it, Stells?

[00:12:34]Is there a fly in here again?

[00:12:38]Um, have I got I must have nice colors in here to use cuz it's my autumn woodland box. I think I'm going to choose this red, which is a red pearl cotton, but it's quite a fine one. I think I'm going to have some of that.

[00:12:57]So, yeah, I'd be very interested to hear if you're someone who is interested in all this sciency stuff or not. To me, I was talking with a friend the other day about it. Um, and the way my brain works, what I call my librarian brain, I can't find my Oh, I know why it's stuck in another project. My um my favorite bent tulip number eight. Oh, no, there it is. I've got it. I don't know if it's big enough. Yeah. Um I um find things more beautiful the more I know about them. You know, I know some people are just happy to look at nature and be visually inspired by the beauty and, you know, but I like to know. I like to know stuff. It's probably why I did my degree in library studies. I like to know stuff. And I know for some people know finding stuff out kind of takes the magic away in a sense. Um, but for me it adds more layers of magic to understand what's going on.

[00:14:00]Um, I'd be very interested to hear how your brain works and you know what you find.

[00:14:07]Sorry, I was just running that through my mouth because it's a bit jaggedy.

[00:14:13]Um, so yeah, what what whether you find that or not. So I think I'm just going to come in maybe May maybe I can't get right to the edge there. I'm just going to start there.

[00:14:25]I'm just going to go about kind of a good eighth of an inch away from the edge. And I'm just going to go all around with running stitch. Yeah, my friend that I was chatting to about it, we're just having one of those, you know, conversations.

[00:14:40]She didn't she she found things more beautiful with the mystery still intact.

[00:14:44]You know, even if things could be known, she didn't really want to know very much. She just liked to liked the endless speculation or not even that, you know, just accepting things at face value kind of thing. It's just interesting the way we're all different.

[00:15:01]Now I've got my thread snagged around my pin. Could of course invisible based if you wanted to as well. I seem to be going straight for the running stitch.

[00:15:11]I've got a great long lazy girl length which is not helping, but here we are.

[00:15:21]But no, I I I I have a deep desire to know stuff. I like I like to learn stuff. It's not I guess it's partly wanting to know, but it's just a learning process as well. I love I love looking things up and finding things out.

[00:15:39]Um, and I like know I mean I I like knowing botanical names of plants for example and I loved that when I was doing my um diploma in garden design learning all the botanical names and and why plants are called what they're called. You know there's there's meaning in those names and the way things are classified and you know again that's my librarian brain. I really should have got a shorter length of thread, but as I'm rather fond of saying, we're not all the same. And that makes life very interesting, doesn't it? And it's not there's not that there's a right way or a wrong way to be. We're all different. We've all got our own ways of being, but I'm always interested to hear other people's ways of being.

[00:16:32]And also maybe the most interesting thing is why you think why why do you think you're like that? You know, why if you're like my friend's way of not wanting to know things, do you think there's a reason for that or do you think that's just the way just the way your brain works?

[00:16:51]Okay. So, I'm going to go ahead and stitch all the way around the edge of this and then I'll be back for the next step. Okay. So, that is my anthsyanin layer. not fugitive in this case because it's actually dyed with a synthetic dye.

[00:17:04]Sorry. You will get the reds and purples initially from dying with those things I mentioned. Um but it's very very pH sensitive. So your water for example can change the color from red to a bluish color or a more pinkish color. Um but also it breaks down very very quickly if you wash it or if you expose it to light. um if you keep it shut in a journal then it might last for a little while but yeah it's anyway I just wanted to be clear that the color does appear originally so initially so when you see videos or posts on social media of people saying they've dyed with beetroots for example or red cabbage they'll show you the lovely results they got straight away but they don't always come back a week or two later and show you the gray that it's faded to um and I don't like people people's time being wasted so that's why I bang on about it anyway Right. So, the next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to take my template and I want to make it smaller cuz I want my gold to sit within that.

[00:18:07]Now, you can either get a pencil and draw it or you can just go for it and cut it. Dear Henry, make sure I've got the right scissors. I'm going to cut the stalk off first cuz I'm not going to repeat the stalk. I don't think um I'm going to draw it. Actually, I am going to draw it. I'm feeling a bit wimpy. So, I need to make sure that I come inside my stitched line. So, I want it to be maybe half an inch or so smaller all around. And you might have to do some um ad adaptations to make sure that you keep the shape, you know, you keep the points and it still looks leaf like.

[00:18:51]Sorry, I've gone quiet cuz I'm concentrating.

[00:18:54]So you still want it to look nice and leafy. So don't worry too much bit about being exact. You might have to like here I've got this sticky out bit. I don't know if I can keep that going. Maybe a little bit.

[00:19:09]So it's more a question of does it look good?

[00:19:13]Does it look right as I'm drawing it rather than am I being entirely accurate and keeping the perfect distance away every time from the edge. Does that make sense?

[00:19:27]So, drawing it first, you do get a chance. This bit here has gone very skinny.

[00:19:33]Um, I think that looks a bit odd. I think I'm going to make it a bit shorter.

[00:19:40]So, it's more in proportion and get rid of that dodgy shape indeed.

[00:19:45]So, do you see what I did there? So, I'm getting rid of all that. Hope you can see. And I've just made it just simplified it a bit.

[00:19:56]Yeah, I think that's okay. So now I'm going to cut that out of my template.

[00:20:00]I've got the right scissors. Yes, the blunties. So now I've got that slightly smaller and rather wonky looking leaf, but it's good enough. And I can now audition it on here to make sure I like the way it sits within my red leaf, which I think I'm quite happy with that.

[00:20:16]And so I'm going to repeat that process again now with my gold colored cloth.

[00:20:21]Pin that on and then cut it out. Um and I'll do all that and then I'll be back again. Okay. So I've cut that one out.

[00:20:28]So I'm going to get pins out.

[00:20:32]Same thing again. Really pin it onto the little piece of cloth. Excuse me. Little piece of cloth and stitch it down with gold thread that I've got standing by. I keep that cuz I'll need it one more time.

[00:20:48]So now I need to keep it the right way up and make sure I position it correctly, which is like that. And fiddle about with it.

[00:21:04]That's okay.

[00:21:08]Just put a few pins. I was just thinking actually then while I was cutting out um about you know what I was saying about liking to know about things to learn about things and find making that and that that makes the thing whatever it is in this case we're talking about the chemistry of leaves um that makes it to me more beautiful and more magical to know about it whereas other people find that you know if some of the mystery is gone then they find it less beautiful and less magical.

[00:21:42]Um, I was wondering if there's an association there between being a process focused person and a product focused person.

[00:21:52]Um, I don't know how to make more sense of that really. It's just popped into my head. I guess thinking that all the all the things I described for example that happen within I'm just going to stitch the same round the edge just a good eighth of an inch in. I'm a I'm a good eighth of an inch in because if you go too close when you're just doing this you can you know the edge can start degrading unless you don't mind it going raggedy and then just go for it. Yeah because I was thinking part of the the the stuff I was talking about. Sorry I don't feel very articulate today. um if I ever am is understanding the processes that are going on rather than just the product which is a pretty leaf.

[00:22:37]Do you see what I mean? I was just wondering if there's a connection there with the way I like to work and why when I went from because I used to be very much a product focused person when I was making quilts and textile art um mostly by machine and using more um prescribed techniques, you know, do this, do that, do the other in order to get the result you want rather than um the slow stitch way which is going with the process and doing what is necessary in the moment and not necessarily following, you know, a pre-ordered way of doing things.

[00:23:19]Yeah, I just wondered if there was a connection in I'm learning so much about my brain particularly in the last couple of years since I've been living on my own. I think I've finally had the freedom to learn more about myself and allow myself to learn about myself and not be so self-judgmental. Is that a word?

[00:23:41]Um because of, you know, personal circumstances that I'm not going to go into, but if you've been here a while, you you know what I'm talking about. Um, and I think that that that's an ongoing process, isn't it? For all of us, learning more about ourselves hopefully. And I hope that you can I hope that you have the space and give yourself the grace to be the same about yourself, you know, and certainly through this beautiful art of slow stitching which begins with the materials that we're using, the cloth and the thread and engaging with the process of stitching and so on. And then if we allow it to and if we want it to, you don't have, you know, nothing's obligatory.

[00:24:29]you can um allow that to become really more personal and and examine your feelings about what you're doing and why you're doing it. And I think that's why that just popped into my brain then as I was cutting out that this little scrap of cloth was I guess the connection with the word process that um I was thinking that I was describing the processes that the leaves go through with the chemical changes um rather than mere merely I don't mean to belittle people that because I I don't I don't you know like I say we're all different rather than enjoying the product simply enjoying the of the pretty leaves on the floor um or on the tree still but you know on the ground.

[00:25:19]So yeah I mean this sit sitting here and talking to you gives me opportunity for self-reflection in a way that I could never have imagined. If someone had told me when I first started doing YouTube I would have thought no I'm going to be teaching you know in a vertic in the same way that I teach in person. I mean, I do in person talk about these things as well these days, but when I was first teaching, it was really just, you know, this is what you need to do kind of thing. Um, so I thank you for that opportunity, but I do like to hear from you as well if you're if you're um inclined to share in the comments, not only with me, but with everybody else because I know there's many of you that read comments and respond and you respond to each other, you know.

[00:26:08]Um, so yeah, I was just I wonder and I'll give that some more thought as I'm um, you know, not talking to you about if I think there's a connection between that what I call my librarian brain, the desire to know things, to find things out. Um, and that I have fallen so readily and comfortably over the last dozen or so years, 15 years maybe, into this slow stitch ethos of of process and endless learning. It's not slow stitch I don't think is something that you learn, you know, you you can do a course in slow stitch that will give you the basics, but I think it's a lifelong um lifelong learning. I'm I'm certainly always learning something.

[00:26:56]just through the process about myself or about cloth or about thread or you know about the way things interact with each other whatever right so the third step it won't surprise you to learn is to do the exactly the same with the green so I've got this I need to make it smaller still and again I need to make sure that it's a reasonable leaf like shape But it's going to have to be really simplified, I think, in order to not get really oddl looking. So again, I've just gone around kind of half an inch or so from the edge.

[00:27:44]Um, this this shape here is not pleasing to me. I'm going to make it a bit more swoopy.

[00:27:51]Technical term.

[00:27:53]I think that'll be okay. and cut it out.

[00:27:56]Cut it, dear Henry. So, there it is again. I can audition it.

[00:28:04]Yep, I think that's fine. It's very odd shaped, but I like the look of it overall in the in the leaf. Um, now I'm going to use my less than perfect green, but I've got a little thing I'm going to do in a minute. I think this is polywy cotton as well. I think it's lining cloth. So, same thing again. And I'm going to pin that on there and cut it out. And then I'll be back. Right. So there's my little green bit. Let's get the paper off and stitch it on. I'm going to do exactly the same thing again. I'm going to stitch it on around the edge.

[00:28:39]Oh yeah, I think that looks fine. See, one way of telling it's poly cotton is it the pin holes remain visible. Could also be if it was a very high thread count cotton, but this is not a high thread count. So, I could also go and burn a bit in the sink and see if it melts, but I don't mind that much to be bothered really. It feels like polyw cotton.

[00:29:00]So, I'm going to choose a green. And I'm going to choose a green closer to the color that I really wanted it to be. So, this is embroidery floss.

[00:29:14]So, I'm going to get some of that little template in the recycling because I don't need that anymore.

[00:29:23]I guess you could if you wanted to work bigger, you could do more layers. You could have gone through, you know, all the different purple, red, orange, yellow, all the colors if you really wanted to um go mad, so to speak.

[00:29:40]So, I'm going to get two strands of the embroidery floss. Okay. So, I've got two strands of the green floss. I'm going to do the same thing again. Exactly the same as before. Just stitch around the edge. I'm now going through one, two, four layers. So, it might get a bit thick, but what you can do, you don't have to stitch through all the layers.

[00:29:59]All you need to do is stitch the green piece onto the gold piece. So, you could just go through two layers if it's, you know, too hard to stitch through all.

[00:30:06]It's not necessary. Did I go through with the gold? Yes, I pretty much did go all the way through with the gold, but you don't have to stitch right through if it's hard. Okay, so I've gone around once around the outside.

[00:30:21]I'm going to go through to the back.

[00:30:24]And now, in order to kind of give the impression that that bit of green is a bit darker, I could do one of I could do several things. I I thought I might do some seed stitch in the middle or what I might do is just carry on doing the running stitch just kind of, you know, what do you call it? Concentric.

[00:30:45]So, I'm just going to go around again about the same distance apart. But, of course, I mean, seed stitch would be appropriate. It could represent actual seeds cuz we're dealing with plant materials. Um, or it could represent the little cells of chlorophyll.

[00:31:00]Um, but I'm just going to do the running stitch round and round and round until I get towards the center.

[00:31:08]But that's a little tip. If you want to sort of visually change the color of a cloth if it's not quite right, do a lot of stitching all over it in a thread that's more the color that you want.

[00:31:21]That makes sense.

[00:31:25]I think I quite I went for this um radiating not radiating concentric um stitching to just carry on the theme of layers within layers within layers. You know, it's like an onion. So, I've gone around twice. I'm going to go around again. So, I went around a fourth time and now I've just got this tiny space in the middle. So, I think I'm just going to do just going to do one stitch in the middle.

[00:31:55]just to finish it off. There we go. I think that's okay. So, I'm going to finish that off on the back. So, the reason I had this bit of backing standing by and I hadn't put it on yet was because, well, number one, I've been stitching through at least two layers every time already, but I wondered if I might want to do any stitching in the in the background, in which case, you know, into this, in which case I would want to put a backing on. Um, but actually looking at it, I don't really think I do. I think I'm quite happy, especially since it's going to go in my book to just leave it like that. So, that bit lives to fight another day. So, yeah, I'm just going to put that in my book, I think, as it is. Um, so I'll get my tape. I'll try and get the date correct.

[00:32:42]Did I witter on about my calendar and how it's weird before? Let me get my tape. Okay.

[00:32:49]So, I've stuck that in. I'm going to write leaves at the bottom.

[00:32:55]That is for leaves.

[00:33:00]And under there, I'm going to write layers.

[00:33:06]And it is the 15th of June, which is the sixth month. I'm telling myself, I know you all know 15 06 2026 and last time it was not 03, it was 06.

[00:33:26]There we go.

[00:33:30]I don't know. I I don't know what it is.

[00:33:32]But anyway, finish off your quote marks.

[00:33:35]So, that's this week's leaves and layers, but primarily leaves. Of course, you're free to interpret the prompt in whatever way you like. You're free to take a completely different prompt. You can stitch leaves in any number of ways.

[00:33:48]This was just my idea to talk about the different pigments and so on. Just put that away. Sorry about that. Um, so yeah. So, I hope you enjoy stitching that. Before I go, I did just want to share something with you. If you're in the southwest of England, um, there's the F open art trail. Now, this little booklet was given to me by Judith, who comes on to my comes to my monthly in session, monthly slow stitch session in person. Um, and it's on from the 4th of July till the 12th of July, 10il 5 daily, I think. Um, is there a website or something? Sorry, I sneezed. I'll edit it out. Yes, Judith is there as admin. The website is fume-open-art-trail.co.uk.

[00:34:40]Um, if you want to find out more about it, but it's but Froom itself, if you don't know, Froom is a lovely lovely arty alternative kind of town. I just love Froom. It's really maybe, you know, it's different vibe to Glastonbury, but it's kind of in the same league, I think, if that's fair. Um, so there's lots of artists, all different kinds of media, painting, sculpture.

[00:35:09]Um, I think there is some there's collage, mixed media. I think there is some textiles as well. Mixed media. No, that's paintings. This looks interesting. Juliet Duckworth installations and sculpture in the studio and garden that respond to nature's cycles and capture forms and shapes in the environment.

[00:35:27]Um, yeah. So, each one tells you what days they're open and what days they're not. So if there was something in particular that you wanted to see, here's a textile artist, Vanikica Thompson. Um, yeah. So some of them are in Froom town center and some of them are in the villages around Froom. But you see there's a lot of variety. Little maps here. You can go to, you know, a certain area and walk around. This is around F. This is in the town center.

[00:35:51]There's all those. So do check out the website. I will put a link to it in the um description box below. But if you have trouble finding that, if you just Google F open art trail, by the way, if you don't know, is spelled like that.

[00:36:05]It's from with a ne on the end, but pronounced Froom. Um, okay. So, that's that. Do go and check that out if you're in the area and you think um it's something you'd be interested in.

[00:36:16]So, that's it for this week. Next Monday will be the letter M. M for Mike. M for mother. Mic I say cuz that's the thingy Bob alphabet, you know. Alpha Bravo.

[00:36:29]That one. Alpha Bravo. Alpha Bravo.

[00:36:31]Charlie. I'm not going to do the whole thing, but I can do the whole thing.

[00:36:34]It's another one of those things that I've learned.

[00:36:37]Um, so thank you so much for Oh, Friday's video will be part two of the slow stitch journal. Thanks so much to you for your response to last Friday's video, which was well over an hour long.

[00:36:49]Um, I can't quite accept yet that you're all happy to listen to me witter on for an hour, but some of you actually commented, which made my heart give little jumps of joy, that how delighted you were when you opened YouTube to see my Friday video and saw that the time stamp was well over an hour and and one of you in particular said that it had brightened up your Friday. Um, so that was yeah, thank you so much for messages like that. They really mean a lot to me.

[00:37:16]Um, and thank you so much for watching.

[00:37:18]Happy stitching. I'll see you on Friday for beginning to create the cover of our slow stitch journal. Those of you that are going to do that project with me.

[00:37:26]And um lots and lots of love and kisses.

[00:37:30]And I look forward to you joining me next time for more cloth tails. Bye-bye.