Hello! Last week is a blur. I am finally feeling back to normal after working nights last week, but I was so out of it last week that I had to look back at my own blog posts just now to remember where I left off last Wednesday with my cross-stitch projects.

First, I am still charting my next “Alice in Wonderland” pattern. I have not made much progress on that in the past week, but I hope to have a decent working draft finished by the end of this week.

I did make some progress on my “Let go and let God” stitching. Here is where I am at now:

I still have a ways to go, but I made a fair amount of progress last week while I was sitting in the library at 4am.

Finally, over the weekend I started a new project. About a month ago I decided I wanted to try to do stumpwork embroidery. I had seen some beautiful projects on Instagram and Facebook from embroiderers doing gorgeous stumpwork, and I thought it might be fun to try it. Fortunately, Carol K. from my embroidery guild offered to help me. So I gathered the supplies I needed, including muslin fabric and 28-gauge wire, and attempted a start.

I am using a free pattern and tutorial from The Floss Box. I have also been looking at other tutorials online for additional help. I traced the flower petal shapes onto the muslin and couched down the first wire around one of the petals. Now I am doing buttonhole stitches all around the wire to hold it in place. It doesn’t look like much right now, but here is where I am at:

You can see the full pattern peeking out in the middle bottom of the photo. I included my embroidery stitch pocket guide because I’ve done so little surface embroidery that I needed to look up how to do a buttonhole stitch to refresh my memory.

Here’s a close-up of the petal that shows the tiny buttonhole stitches better:

I went to my guild meeting on Monday and showed Carol my progress. She also brought two stumpwork books to the meeting which she let me take home and borrow for the month:

Both books are filled with stunning projects, and they also include detailed instructions, so I have a feeling I will be consulting them heavily over the next few weeks.

Thanks for reading!