Hand stitching

Last week was rather frantic at work and as a result I was down on my number of daily steps. I aim to walk 10 to 11 thousand steps a day but I can only achieve that if I go out for a walk. A day at work can give me 3000 steps if I'm in meetings or about 6 to 7000 if I'm teaching. I walk more if I'm teaching because I walk up and down the stairs while meetings usually take place on the same floor as the office. Because of the lack of exercise during the week it's important to get out and about at the weekend and so bring the step average for the week up to a reasonable number. Yesterday was very wet so we didn't take Scamp out but today was dry and clear and perfect for a walk. I took my camera with me as I wanted to get some photos of Scamp but unfortunately he wouldn't co-operate but I did see a great tree I want to draw so I took some photos of it instead.

I just love the texture on the trunk. Following our walk I spent a few hours marking before I needed to cook dinner. Whilst dinner was cooking I got on with some hand stitching. I worked on the two blocks I made from the splendid sampler that needed some embroidery. I stitched around the heart using blanket stitch.

Since my eyes were tired from marking I was very pleased that my stitches were reasonably even. I then added the antennae to the butterflies.

I couldn't make up my mind whether to have all the antenna on the same side or not but in the end decided to make one facing the opposite way. I altered this block slightly from the original pattern as I only wanted to use the three colours. After all patterns are made to be altered....right?

After dinner I pulled out the millennium sampler as I wanted to finish the foot on my horseman. It's such a small addition I didn't take a picture. I'll show you again when I've finished a little bit more of it.  So only a little stitching done today but at least I did some. Block 7 of the splendid sampler was released today so tomorrow after work I'm going to make three blocks. Block 5 is applique, block 6 pieced and block 7 is embroidery. I don't expect to get them finished but I'll certainly make a start. I also want to make the fish template for the baby quilt and maybe start cutting the fish out.

As it's Sunday I'm linking up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching. I can't wait to see what everyone has been up to this week.

I hope you've had a good Sunday with time for some stitching.

Lyndsey