I’ve started another monthly subscription! This one is for a fabric book which is embroidered and then hand quilted. It’s by Sarah Edgar who has a company called ‘Pretty Fabrics and Trims’, this is the fourth journal she has stitched though I think she is now on her fifth or even sixth. I liked the fact that I could see the whole book before I committed, there’s nothing worse than starting a stitch-a-long and then finding you don’t really like it!

The theme of this book is foraging, so there’s a different plant featured on each page. The designs are pre-printed and the kit includes all the threads and fabrics we need to make it into a book.

January’s page is nettle, so there’s a recipe for nettle tea, not that I fancy trying it! There’s lots of nettles on the back lane which is good as they’re an important food for caterpillers. The words are all stitched with back-stitch. The plant is a mixture of satin, fishbone and stem stitch with a few French knots.

I’ve started February, the plant of the month is gorse, a prickly shrub, apparently the little yellow flowers can be eaten raw, in salads for example, they can also be made into wine or infused in gin!

Once these two pages are embroidered, they are stitched together down one side and basted onto batting, they are then quilted before putting back to back and binding with Liberty cotton.

I’m rejoining the hand-quilt-a-long next month, so hopefully by then I’ll be on with the quilting.