When I sat down to write this post I was feeling a little sad because I have not touched the stumpwork embroidery project since last week. But, I did get some things done over the past week.

First, I finished my chicken scratch embroidery project by turning the piece into a small pillow. I actually dusted off the sewing machine for this one, so it was a minor accomplishment. This was my first attempt at sewing a ruffle, and I botched the corners, but otherwise it turned out okay. If you look at the bottom edge of the ruffle, you can also see I pinned the ruffle the wrong way so the seam ends are facing the front of the pillow instead of the back. OH WELL. :)

I stuffed the pillow with fiberfill and added a teaspoon or two of lavender buds to the stuffing, so the pillow smells very nice.

I finished the pillow this past weekend because I needed to bring the chicken scratch piece to my embroidery guild dinner on Monday night. This was the sample piece I stitched for the little workshop I’m going to be leading in October for the guild. I think I had 6 or 7 people sign up for the class on Monday, which is pretty good!

I also brought my Liberty Stars counted canvaswork piece to the dinner for my summer challenge project. Everyone votes on their favorite project, and I was delighted to win third place this year! Woo hoo! There are so many incredibly talented ladies in this guild who do such incredible needlework and quilting, so this was a real surprise. I never even had a chance to get it framed, so I brought it to the dinner still on its stretcher bars. Here’s Liberty Stars again:

Last, but not least, even though I have not touched the stumpwork project since last week, I did make a start on the fifth and last flower petal. There will definitely be some progress on this for next week’s update:

Until next time, thanks for reading and following along!