I was late to the party with this SAL, it was organised by Anne Brooke during the first lock down, she’s now doing a 52 week one of little embroideries to go on a luggage tag. I managed to resist that one! Last time I showed this project I’d just done the complicated one with circles…

Since then I’ve finished the penultimate pages and I’ve just started the last pair…

There was quite a lot of stitching for these two pages, there’s probably a day and a half’s work here. Anne sets it out (on YouTube) in two stages, I actually stitched them the opposite way round as I found it easier. She’s more prescriptive with these pages than usual, though obviously you can do your own thing if you want. The first stage required three fabrics and three threads to make a background and two pockets. I made my pockets second when I knew how big they needed to be…

The first pocket was for a mini book, made by concertinaing a length of calico 10cm by 30cm into 6 pages, room for a mini piece of work on each one. The first one was three rectangles and three squares, then five buttons and so on. Many are a reflection of previous pages. This is my finished book…

I’m pretty pleased with my mini book, there’s even a mini pocket with an even smaller tag! I’m particularly pleased with the couched one in the middle, I went all wavy 🙂

The second pocket was for a heart, I’ve kept mine pretty simple as I liked the fabric too much to cover it up.

For the pockets I used the fabric patterns more than adding embroidery. The monograms are from the sample book I’ve used throughout the book, I used the piece with the M on as background and covered up the other three letters on the fabric with the pocket and patches. I did a bit of embroidery, with fly stitch, french knots and blanket stitch.

The second pocket needed to be a good size as it was for the heart. I decided to use this beautiful embroidered silk from the sample book, again I liked the fabric too much to embellish it so I just stitched a length of lace along the top of the pocket. I was a bit stuck what to do on the top half, I did the running stitch which Anne had used all over her pages to add texture. I was happy with the lace flower but puzzled for a while what to put on the left hand side. I tried three buttons, different sizes and colours, but nothing jumped out. I looked in my ‘labels’ drawer to see if I had anything suitable, no labels but I did find a Suffolk puff left over from an earlier page, no idea why it was in there but it worked perfectly!

With these two pages stitched I watched the video for the final pages. This includes an ‘index’ page and a page with a few words embroidered on. Anne used the quote ‘My soul is fed with needle and thread’ She keeps that page pretty simple with words embroidered onto the corner of an old white linen cloth.

I chose a phrase which I already have a version of in my sewing room. I decided to use evenweave linen which has been hand dyed in subtle shades of grey together with a variegated embroidery thread. I found a few different alphabets on pinterest and started stitching…

I’ll probably titivate this with buttons and bits of lace, but it’s a start. Just have to do my index and then the covers and another project is complete!

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,  Megan, Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, Linda, Helen