why stitching is good for the soul & the advantages of cycling to work

this is how SunriseSunset turned out: apart from the running stitch, I also threaded a few thin bits of wire to keep the shape I wanted and added a stray black/white feather (goose?); busy couple of days, last Sunday Fair Fashion Festival in Utrecht because a friend Marijke Bongers' eco-friendly & exquisite wedding dresses were shown on the catwalk and also Utrecht is fun on a Sunday afternoon with lots of shops and cafés open.....I'm not a big fan of spending too much time in towns these days, but do enjoy the occasional visit. Tuesday I went to the DDW 2017 (DutchDesignWeek) in Eindhoven together, again with friend D.....lovely how we can just hop into the car or onto the train and travel about so easily in Holland; just to contradict what I said before: this coming weekend we'll be in Amsterdam on 2 seperate family occasions, my sister's birthday and a small family reunion, anyway, the week after that will be much less adventuresome.

I am on my lunchbreak at the office right now and able to blog! which I was never able to do in previous employment...talk about freedom Grace!

the start of a new, very light piece - I do love working with these sheer fabrics - the moon piece came from Jude, I believe it's silk

 all of the stitching was done whilst watching (out of the corner of my eye) television on BBC4* these past evenings: very meditative, as the programs are all documentaries on different skills, such as silk weaving, forging a blade and woodwork, followed by an hour in Meditations in a Monastry somewhere in the UK and to top it all off a journey in India all about the Buddha....so amidst the turmoil of daily life there was peace and quiet on the settee back home 

* worth checking out on BBC website

3 quotes I kind of remember
'Naturally an artisan must be patient'
'I try to consider everything I do as an act of prayer, from chopping wood to sweeping the floor'
'routine acts are good, they let the mind wander'

addendum: 'another small cycling episode'
yesterday morning as I was on my way to work, on the bike that is, I noticed several birds in the fields to my left:
a kestrel praying* above the grasses, a crow hovering in his vicinity and two white herons afoot, observing the other two birds in the air; the kestrel swooped down and up, and down and back up again, and then it probably caught a small critter, because it flew away with the crow chasing after him, in all likelihood eager to get a free meal, all the while the herons stood majestically, twisting their necks as they watched, and who knows they might have thought to them selves: if the kestrel drops his prey and the crow is too late, we might be lucky today! 

*we have the same expression in Dutch