Tuesday 21 December 2010

William Morris flowers

Today I visited our city market for some Christmas goodies. Our 'Adelaide Central Market' has been going for 140 years and it is a wonderful place of visual delight and full of the most amazing aromas. Their website is worth a look;
http://www.adelaidecentralmarket.com.au/
Fresh flowers are abundant and I bought myself a rare treat - a bunch of peonies.



I have never seen them grown in my home state - this bunch comes from Tasmania where I am sure the climate is better than home. Peonies feature in many Morris designs including Cray:

I've appliqued peonies in a wall hanging which is a project in my new book. This is the original embroidery and then below is my wall hanging version:
 Above Photo "Portiere" is courtesy of the Art Gallery of South Australia;



I know little of peonies but our ABC television garden show has a wonderful fact sheet: http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s933726.htm
I have recently received another wonderful 'William Morris' plant. This is a rare specimen given to me by my friend Valerie last week- it is 'Fritillaria'. Valerie took a photo of it flowering but of course now it is dormant. Her photo was carefully displayed with Jane and William in the background!

 I have found the most common Fritillaria meleagris is known as 'Snakeshead' as seen below:
The above photo is courtesy of wikimedia;

And below is William Morris' design of the same name. The mystery is unravelling and I always wondered why this design had such an odd name - I can now see those flowers! Thankyou Valerie.
Snakeshead 1876
So I am looking forward to next winter when my bulb hopefully produces flowers. For now I will get great pleasure watching the peonies open.

4 comments:

  1. Those Peonies are just gorgeous!! Your pattern really looks like a peonies too love it..fabrics are really to dream over they are so lovely...almost romantic to me
    I have different varieties of peonies on my yard. The red ones I cut in different stages of bloom and dry them. They look like rose buds and last a very long time.
    I tried white they do dry but to a really lovely beige that almost look like old paper...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your peony wallhanging is fantastic Michele!!! I can't wait to see this new book and that wallhanging will be hanging in my house soon. I just love it. I can't wait to show my friends the wallhanging. They will love it too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Peony is one of my favorite flowers. Your wall hanging is absolutely beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Beautiful Peonies. I love the wallhanging and have just the spot for it. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete

Thankyou for dropping by and sharing in my journey. And thanks especially for your lovely comments….I may not always respond (especially if there is no email address) but please know you are appreciated x