I took a selection of stitching projects on holiday, most people probably take books to do round the pool or at airports, I take stitching, it’s light, easily portable and it keeps me quiet! I worked on two out of the three projects I took, with nearly four weeks away it was hard to gauge how much to take.

My main stitching for airports etc was the Little Sheepish Virtues. I’m making these to go in another fabric book, they’re ideal for stitching in airports etc as they are pretty simple designs which don’t take much concentration.

My last update on these was when I’d finished ‘Patience’, an apt choice for our long trip out to Australia – every single leg of the trip was delayed! It started when our train journey of 20 minutes from our local station to Leeds had to wait for half an our just outside Leeds, so we missed our planned train through to Manchester airport. We got the next train to Manchester but that involved changing stations at Manchester and of course there were engineering works so no trains between the two. We had to catch the tram instead, with two 20kg suitcases…and the lift and escalator were out of order! Luckily we had booked a night in a hotel next to the airport. Our flight set off fine, but a medical emergency early in on the flight meant that (much later) they decided to do a medical evacuation at Bacu! When we saw the flight path had done a U-turn and we were all going to Bacu, the whispers round the plane were ‘Where on earth is Bacu!’ It’s  Azerbyjhan apparently! Of course we then had to refuel as well, all in all our 13.5 hour flight to Singapore took nearly 16 hours! Of course we then missed our connection to Perth, we were rebooked on a flight at 17.30, but that was then delayed until 21.15…we arrived in Perth at 3am, twelve hours later than planned!!

…that’s why I always take stitching with me!!

I ran out of ecru to finish this and didn’t manage to buy any until we were in Singapore on our way home. Here is the finished piece together with the other three I’ve finished…

They’re meant to have pretty wooden buttons on too from the Just Another Buttons Company, they’re gorgeous buttons but over here in the UK they are pretty expensive, even a tiny one is over £5. I’m hoping to spot some suitable buttons at the Knitting and Stitching Show in a couple of weeks time.

The next virtue to stitch was Wisdom. I’ve almost finished the main design, then I’ve just got the border to do. I love the pattern on the sheep’s fleece! There’s rather a lot of brown in this one, the brown of the stem and the letters is actually different to the ABC bit, but not much different. The stripes down the ABC bit are all meant to be in the three shades of brown but I’m thinking of changing one of them to green or red, similarly in the border I think I might swap one of the browns out. I mustn’t forget to stitch the sheep’s tail and the apple’s leaf.

The friendship sheep was started before I left for my holiday, I didn’t feel there was enough left to do to warrant carrying it 10,000 miles! I’ve just got the green to finish on the border.

All these pieces are going to be mounted on fabric to make a book, I haven’t quite decided if I’m simply going to stitch them onto a square of quilting cotton, or if I’m going to stitch a border round, so the edges are enclosed. I’m keeping it simple which ever way I choose. I’m doing a talk about my fabric books next October to my stitch group, so I thought I’d try to make some different types of books, this one is going to be a slot and tab book where the pages slot onto each other rather than each being fixed to the spine… and no, I haven’t quite sussed out exactly how I’m going to do it!