Preparing hand stitching.

Today was a tiring day at work as I had 6 hours of teaching with a new group. The traffic was quite light on the drive home and so was quicker than normal Once home having greeted Scamp and Picasso and spoken to Richard I decided to get on with preparing the three blocks I am behind on the splendid sampler. The first is from a week ago and when I first saw it I hated it. In looking through the photos of the  block as made by other people I still wasn't sure I wanted to be bothered with it. Still I'm not a person who makes rash decisions and so I had another look at it and decided I would see what I could do. I found some floral fabrics and fussy cut out the shapes and this is what I have so far.

Everything is fused down but it all needs top stitching and I need to embroider the stems of the flowers. It's growing on me slowly so I'll see how it goes as I top stitch. I love the effect of the flowers jumping out from the fabric. I'm hoping that will stay as I topstitch.

Block 7 is an embroidery block so I drew this one out. My following the lines wasn't very good as I usually use fabric solvy to transfer my embroidery patterns but it will be OK. I'm currently deciding on the threads I want to use.

Again I'm having a period of indecision. Do I just outline the quilt or should I add some quilt block patterns to it. I'll think I'll complete the little one and her two snuggly friends before I make a final decision.

I should have had time to complete the stitching on one of these blocks but my younger brother phoned. He's recently had spinal surgery and needed to talk. Still the blocks are all ready to start on tomorrow. I've also chosen the fabric to make block 6 which is pieced and that should go together quickly tomorrow evening.

I was going to cut the fish template and individual fishes for the baby quilt but I forgot to print out the template so I'll do that tomorrow . I have almost enough plain fabric for the fish but I do need to purchase a couple of colours.I can probably do that on the way home tomorrow. I feel I deserve a browse in a quilt shop. 

Today was very tiring or it could just be me getting old so I've decided to go to bed and curl up with my book and Scamp. He loves to cuddle before I settle down to sleep. Richard gave him a bath yesterday so he smells all lovely and fresh and clean. His fur is very soft like hair and it is so relaxing to stroke him. I'm also going to have a chocolate rice crispy cake. I had some rice crispies left over from camp and I bought some chocolate. Melt the chocolate and add the rice crispies and you get super easy chocolate cakes that don't need cooking. Ummm yummy.



I'm going to take the flower block to work with me to stitch during lunch time. The good news here in London is that after tomorrow the weather is supposed to turn milder. It would be lovely if the temperature would go up as I'd feel much more like exercising.

Lyndsey