Progress continues

I’ve been making steady progress on both pieces for the last few weeks, which is encouraging.

Once I had completed the shoe on Warning I had to decide whether to stop the border there or to complete it the same way as the original design. I finally chose to complete it properly as the border design was one reason that I liked it so much when I first bought it. So the progress continues, but I’m not doing the tent stitch shading as that’s not easy over a single thread, nor the netting on the hat itself. I’ve also discovered the leaves on the vines need to change a bit as the original size doesn’t work very well over one thread either.

The Heirloom Nativity sampler is growing fast, it’s the narrowest large piece I’ve worked on and I’m enjoying seeing it grow quickly!

This week I started an Introduction to Patchwork & Embroidery course – 3 hours a week for 8 weeks. The first day was almost all theory, but good background stuff to know/have reinforced. By the end of the morning I had cut 2 3” squares for our first project!

 But at least I can now use the rotary cutter confidently & feel like I know what I’m doing. This is a huge change for me after using traditional sewing methods (good old Home Science training from University of Otago!) for the last 40plus years. I think I will be ‘unlearning’ lots of things as we go along. The idea behind going on the course is that I’ve been doing quilting style sewing for some time as and when I needed it in my embroidered work, but have made my own rules and techniques. I decided if I learned how to do it all correctly it would speed up my work and probably make some of it easier.