Slow Sunday Stitching!

Well not entirely slow! It's Fathers Day and with one child living in Germany and the other in London, it was unlikely we would see either of them today.  I did however want to spoil him, so we went for a lovely long walk along the beach and back around the harbour and then stopped for coffee and cake and then back home for a BBQ.  Nice day and I think DH enjoyed himself (well no washing up duties and now sitting in front of the TV watching the Grand Prix, nursing a beer - seems pretty good!)  While I sew down the binding on a small picture.  So I am doing some slow Sunday stitching but not much to show for it at the moment.  This week however I've been working on my butterfly sampler, so I thought I would share progress with you!

 This is a nice stitch from the Sue Spargo Craftsy class I am taking.  I am trying to incorporate all the stitches she has demonstrated.  This one is quite time consuming but looks really pretty.  It is supposed to end up in a spiral but I'm not entirely sure I've achieved that.

As you can see from the photo below I am making progress!  I am taking a different route now and finishing off a whole butterfly - hence three of them have embroidery/bead work down their centres and you can't really see in the photo but the butterfly on the left now has a circle of sequins surrounding the embroidery.

Take a look at Kathy's blog and see what others are sewing today!

ALQS9

Every year Kate at Kate's Arty Bits blog, hosts a quilt swap - ALQS9 (another little quilt swap).  This is the fourth year I've participated and I always get lovely quilts in return for the one I make.  This comes from Diana who lives in Tennessee and the funny thing is this is the second quilt I've received from her.  It was my first choice so I obviously really like her work!  This piece is silk painting on the centre panel and pieced around the edge then machine quilting and some hand embellishments.

My little quilt was of an English countryside, with lots of fancy machine stitches to join the different coloured layers and then french knots for the sheep (including a single black one), but unfortunately I lost lots of photos when we moved over to the new computer and it looks as if I didn't retake the finished quilt - very annoying but these thing happen!  Soon Kate will do the big reveal of whose quilt went where so take a look if you get the chance.

Red work

As you can see I've completed two red work hearts for my quilt and ironed the transfer for my third one. The pattern calls for five of these and they are surrounded by nine patch squares.  But I've come unstuck!  I had enough of the linen to do one more heart but scorched the fabric when I was ironing on the transfer, which meant I needed enough fabric for two more hearts and the white squares for the in between bits, not the end of the world..... surely they would still sell this fabric? NO!  My only excuse is I hadn't planned on making this quilt so didn't think ahead to buy the fabric in one go (I know, I know, I can hear the cry of you air head - or words of that calibre )  So I'm just not sure what to do, start again once I've purchased enough fabric or buy some different fabric and cross my fingers I can match it?  I just don't know....watch this space!

Red Work

We have returned today from our month long road trip.  We had such a fantastic time and visited the most southerly and westerly point in the UK - we are now on a mission to go to the north and east of the UK but that will be after we have cut the jungle down in the back garden and got rid of a ton of weeds (that's what happens when you go away!)  That said I have done lots of embroidery.  Here is my second heart nearly finished.

Tomorrow I'm going to link up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching so you can see what others have been stitching this week.

Tintagel Old Post Office embroidery

The Tintagel Old Post Office is a 600 year old house belonging to the National Trust (what stories can that building tell?)  It has lots of wonderful cross stitch samplers hanging on the wall.  And I love this one!  It was made by two young sisters in the second half of the 1800s and was probably a practise piece for them before they went into work in a laundry.  What amazes me is how tiny the stitches are and how young these girls are - 9, 10, 11 and 12 year old!