Well of course I took some stitching on holiday! I may not have done a huge amount but I did a little most days.

I decided to take my Strawberry Sampler Book kit with me, it’s a kit by the Cross-stitch Guild which I bought last year at the knitting and stitching show in Harrogate. There’s a different page for different types of counted work, all on a strawberry theme. Here’s a previous page…

This time I was working on the hemstitch page, probably not ideal after a long walk as it does take some concentration. I haven’t found the instructions the easiest to follow with this bit, so I’m not sure I’ve neatened the threads off at the back correctly, particularly with the two big squares, but it looks neat from the front! There’s some red silk included in the kit to put behind the page.

As you can see I’ve removed the threads ready for the next border, you basically take one thread out as far as you need and then weave the end in to the next row. There’s then certain stitches to create the patterns in the threads left behind. The third row is somersault stitch, the fifth row is diamond hem-stitch. The one I’m working on at the moment is zig-zag stitch, though I haven’t found the instructions for that particular stitch yet!!

There’s still some beads to stitch on and another row like the top one, these two will have ribbon slotted through them. Once that is done I just need to edge stitch the page and then it’s finished. Each page is then folded in half and stitched round the edge, I haven’t started doing that yet as I’m still undecided whether to add a little stiffener of some kind in between the pages.

I think there’s another three pages to do altogether. This kit is certainly pushing me to try new techniques!