Hunningham Hare by Nicola Jarvis

It was on one blustery autumn afternoon that Nicola, her husband David and retriever Quince set out on a walk through the fields near Hunningham - a picturesque village sitting on the River Leam to the north-east of Leamington Spa, surrounded by water meadows and agricultural land.

The countryside here is low-lying, dense with crops and swathes of flowering grasses in summer, and in autumn, as the season turns and the hedgerows fill with berries and the grasses dry to gold, it is a perfect habitat for hares.

It was a walk that would stay with Nicola, and in time, find its way into one of the most quietly stunning projects in Life in Seasons 2 | Summer & Autumn.

If you’ve been following Nicola’s work, Hunningham Hare will feel both familiar and fresh.

Those who discovered Life in Seasons through Volume 1 will remember the Warwickshire Hare - a female hare cloaked in spring blossoms and pussy willow, poised with a certain defiant grace.

Hunningham Hare is her counterpart: a male hare resting in his form, draped and decorated with rose hips, hawthorn berries, ivy leaves and wild mushrooms, camouflaged in the understory of a wild autumn hedge.

Where the Warwickshire Hare was all spring energy and floral abundance, Hunningham Hare is stillness, concealment, and the muted richness of the turning year.

Same animal. Different season. Different mood entirely.

Having witnessed a male and female racing across fallow fields in late winter - those fleet-footed creatures and the breakneck speed of their manoeuvres - Nicola has been awe-inspired by them ever since.

Her passion extends beyond admiration though. The brown hare has been designated a species of conservation concern on the Red List of Endangered Species, and its favoured habitat of long grass, meadow pastures and hedgerows continues to shrink under the pressure of urbanisation and intensive farming.

Nicola is clear about what she believes needs to change. For brown hares to thrive, hedgerows need to be left uncut, creating vital shelter and providing an abundance of young shoots, buds, nuts and berries.

Uncultivated swathes of grass and drifts of wildflowers are essential for these beautiful creatures to travel along and forage amongst. It is a message she weaves naturally into the fabric of Life in Seasons - a book series rooted, at every turn, in a deep love and respect for the Warwickshire landscape and the wildlife that calls it home.

That love is visible in every stitch of Hunningham Hare.

The design is worked in surface embroidery on ivory heavy cotton drill with Nicola’s own hand-painted design pre-printed onto the fabric - the same approach used throughout Life in Seasons 2, giving stitchers a confident foundation to build upon.

At 16cm x 23cm, it is an intimate piece, yet its detail is extraordinary. The hare’s body is rendered in seed stitch using three shades of wool thread, the stitches carefully angled to suggest the direction of the fur, building a coat that seems to shift and breathe.

The eye is worked with a precision that rewards a closer look. Around him, rose hips and hawthorn berries glow in satin stitch, small wild mushrooms sit in Burden stitch, and birch and oak leaves are layered in long and short stitch across a palette of 29 threads - wools, metallics and stranded cottons - that together conjure the exact quality of light on an English hedgerow in autumn.

For those of you who have fallen in love with this series, Hunningham Hare is another beautiful example of Nicola bringing the world around her to life in stitch.

Ready-to-Stitch Kit

Kits for Hunningham Hare are now available to purchase using the link below and include everything you need to re-create this project, excluding instructions and the footstool itself, giving you the freedom to finish and display the piece in a way that suits you.

Background

As this project has been stitched on pre-printed fabric, the kit includes the fabric pre-printed with Nicola’s original design so you can re-create it exactly as it appears in the book. Alternatively, you can use the pattern sheet included in the Life in Seasons 2 book to transfer the design and create your own background elements.

Instructions

Please note that instructions are not included in this kit. Complete, step-by-step instructions for stitching Hunningham Hare are provided in the book Life in Seasons 2, sold separately.