Browsing through a second hand book store the other day for old dictionaries and the like I came across this 1937 edition of "New Zealand Weeds". The book itself was reward enough as I have a weakness for aged Gardening books but as I turned the pages a treasure of another sort revealed itself. .Beautiful pressed leaves from a long ago autumn carefully placed amidst the pages and perhaps placed back into the bookshelf to relish some later day. How many decades they resided there one can surmise.
As I sat in my armchair on a warm and balmy summer evening and admired my finds, it came to me that I could use them along with some aged and tattered newspaper pieces that I had found in the ceiling space of our century old villa. These had revealed themselves last summer as we prepared to insulate the roofspace and I had pressed them for safekeeping between the pages of an unused scrapbook.
So today I will assemble all my savoured bits and bobs and make a sheet of Fabric Paper from Beryl Taylors instructions. Once it has dryed I will admire it further and try to envisage what I will embellish with the memories of seasons and years past.
At the back of my mind is the humbling thought of how truly fortunate I was to be entrusted with someones savoured memory of autumns brilliant colours revealed in nature!
