During the summer I discovered Anne Brook (designer of Harold the Hare) had started an on-line SAL called Stitching 4 the Soul, I was very late in starting, but better later than never! All the tutorials are on YouTube, I think originally they were released monthly, but I’m not sure, but it does mean I can go at my own speed.

I stitched the first pair of pages a while ago…

I’ve decided I want to concentrate on this project for my SAL. Anne made a book from batting and is stitching straight into the book, I decided I preferred to use the calico pages from Untangled Threads, the same as I used for the Stitchbook Collective. For fabrics I’m using a sample book from James Brindley which I got at Embroiderers Guild for £3 when the Cone Exchange came for a talk. There’s some beautiful embroidered silks and linens in there, though I’m adding a few other fabrics such as tweeds too. Anne also suggested a colour theme to run through the book, to help it to flow, each page should include at least one thing of this colour, even if it’s just a button or a bit of lace. My colour is ecru/taupe, so this nicely encompasses quite a few laces and trims in my stash, together with mother of pearl buttons!

The second set of pages had a theme of crosses and circles, but first of all we made a pocket, I decided to use a lovely sample which has a wide stripe of fine gauze and a coarse linen, I cut it on the diagonal so I could incorporate it into a cross. I then started playing with scraps and trims. This was my work table..

I stitched the pocket first, adding lace and frayed linen strips. The embroidered twined circle is from the sample book. I added rows of running stitch to echo the cross and added some buttons too.

Having made a pocket, I needed something to go into it, like a tag. I’d previously cut out an ‘M’ from one of the fabrics, I decided to use this as a starting point. I stitched it onto some tweed, added a bit of lace and some buttons, all it needed then was a length of trim to make a hanging loop.

When I was playing with the textiles for the second page I formed a lattice from lengths of tweed and trims. I decided to follow this train of ideas and make a noughts and crosses board. I believe it’s called tic-tac-toe in other countries. I used buttons and circles or spirals of running stitch for the noughts. The crosses were either embroidered or incorporated in the fabric design of the base.

I’m pretty pleased with this pair of pages, I’ve stitched them onto the calico pages already. I like the soft muted colours, though it doesn’t make them easy to photograph in artificial light! Next months involves Suffolk puffs from what I can gather.

This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis from Stitching by the Sea. We post our progress on our chosen project every three weeks, just long enough to keep us motivated. Please follow the links to see what everyone else is stitching.

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Sue, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Megan, Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, Linda, Helen