I’m slowly catching up with my foragers journal, this is a monthly stitch-a-long by Pretty Fabrics and Trims. Towards the end of each month I get a little parcel through the post with everything I need for that month, fabric, wadding, plenty of threads and clear instructions. August has just arrived, but I’m still stitching June! Three weeks ago I was still stitching April…

That border round the flowers took FOREVER!! It’s very narrow satin stitch, it looks effective but it was a so and so to stitch! Several evenings later it was finally complete. I could then trim it to size (9″ square) and machine stitch it to the March page. Apparently the attributes listed are things associated with dandelions over the years.

With both pages complete the next task was quilting. I’m hand quilting all the pages and so far I’m following the suggestion of Sarah Edgar, the designer. She uses a hera marker to mark the quilting design, I tried it this time but it wasn’t clear enough for me so I resorted to little dots with the Frixion pen. Once it was marked, I used 505 spray baste to attach the wadding and then spent a couple of evenings quilting the pages. The finished pages are bound with Liberty tana lawn which is a very fine cotton fabric. There’s no backing fabric so the binding is stitched to the wadding at the back.

With another pair of pages complete, I opened the May packet. May is a lovely design of hawthorn flowers, it was fairly quick to embroider, helped by not having a satin stitched border! The leaves are stitched with fishbone stitch and the flowers are satin stitch and French knots.

I’ve just started stitching June which is elderflower. I’ve a purple elderflower in my garden, my dad used to make rather potent wine out of both elderberries and elderflowers.I like drinking elderflower cordial and tonic, so maybe I should try making some, it might come out a pretty pink colour if I use the purple elderflower!

I’ve a short holiday in Majorca next month, I might take the pages with me and see if I can catch up, stitching round the pool!

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Deb, Margaret and Daisy