This is the third (and final!) holiday stitching project, I bought this with the holiday in mind at the Knitting and Stitching show last November. I’d admired it for quite a while (we’re talking several years!) and finally took the plunge and bought it. It’s called the Strawberry Sampler Book and it’s designed by the Cross-stitch Guild

It’s only small, the finished book is only about 4″ square, inside are several pages using different stitching techniques such as hardanger, hem-stitch, darning as well as cross-stitch. There are a few techniques which are going to stretch me a bit, I have done very little pulled thread work such as hardanger, in fact I think I’ve only done it once several years ago on a little sampler, so I’ll have to concentrate on that bit.

I didn’t do as much as I thought on holiday as I realised the pattern wasn’t going to be that convenient to carry round. It’s printed on A4 sheets, which is an easy size to use, but it’s also easy to blow away on a ships deck! I decided not to risk it and mainly stitched when I was sitting quietly indoors or whilst staying with family.

I still managed a fair bit though…

I started with the cover. I’ve still to do a folded hem round it but the stitching is done. I’m still not sure about the four-sided stitching down the middle, the instructions say to use the ecru, but the photo looks a lot more like the colour of the linen, I might still unpick that and stitch it again in a matching colour.

I’m now working on the pages. These are all stitched in pairs which are then folded in half to make a double-sided page.

I’ve changed slightly the way I’m going to stitch the pages together, the instructions use hem-stitch round the outer edge, if I say it’s like an ‘w’ rather than an ‘m’ I hope it makes sense, the solid line of stitching is on the inside of the design rather than the outer edge. The two halves are then stitched together using back-stitch along this solid line. I felt it would mean the edges wouldn’t be as neat as the two edges aren’t joined at the very edge…anyway…I decided to do a row of blanket stitch which when it’s neatly trimmed, will allow me to whip-stitch the outer edges together. I might put a layer of interfacing in it too to just stiffen the pages a little. Here’s the first page complete.

I’m making good progress with the next page too so it hopefully won’t be long before I can share that one too.

If you fancy making one of these little books, the Cross-stitch Guild do several different designs, such as a Tudor one, a country one etc, follow the link at the top of the post to see the full range.

On Sunday I’ll be linking up with Kathy’s Quilt for Slow Stitching Sunday, please follow the link to see what everyone else is stitching.