I’m in a finishing sort of mood at the moment. I happened to look at the fabric folder where I keep quilt blocks waiting to be made up and embroideries waiting to be made into something and it’s bulging at the edges!!

I’ve taken two embroideries to be framed. I haven’t had anything framed recently, partly because I am seriously running out of wall space, but I’m so pleased with these that I felt they deserved to be framed.

The embroidery of my two children walking along the beach was a stitchclub challenge, it’s very simple but it works. It was made by tracing a photo onto tissue paper and then embroidering straight through. It’s being framed with a simple off white mount and a sort of denim blue frame.

The second piece is the Leafy Tree embroidery by Mary Corbett of Needle’n’thread. I love the colours and all the different stitches in this piece.

My stitchwheel was also waiting to be finished. I have an idea to have a display of hoop art above my cutting area. Sometime ago I ordered some pretty painted embroidery hoops from Etsy in several different sizes. Although I hadn’t yet used them I went back to the same Etsy Shop (Emma Astle Embroidery) and asked her to paint one in a dark purple. It goes perfectly with the greens and purples of my stitchwheel.

I didn’t fancy using glue to secure this piece of work in the hoop so I trimmed it and then laced the back. It wasn’t perfectly flat, but it was enough for me to stitch the felt on later.

On the back I wanted to have the names of all the stitches, I decided to write them on a cotton interfaced circle, which I could then iron onto felt. Of course despite writing it out in rough first I still missed one out, so there’s asterisks where that one is meant to be!! I used a silver gel pen and just wrote it as legibly as I could.

My original idea was to stitch the felt circle on with a neat buttonhole stitch but that proved too tricky so I just overstitched it on. I’m pleased with it, it looks neat from the front and I can identify the stitches on the back.

The last embroidery to be ‘finished’ is a little Rowandean kit I stitched a few months ago. I like the Rowandean designs, they’re simple to sew but very effective. I usually make a bee-line for their stand at the big Knitting and Stitching Show as they have a stitching table where for £5 you can stitch one of their designs, it’s a little oasis amid the hustle and bustle of a show.

I decided to use one of the smaller painted hoops, this one is a soft green with purple flowers on. I did glue this one and then glued a circle of card on the back to neaten it all off…

All I need now is to find the picture hooks and a hammer and start hanging them.