These are the days I curse my day job for taking away so much potential stitching time. I am very close to completing the All Shall Be Well cross-stitch piece, but I have not quite finished.

Over this past weekend I continued to work on the lettering. In the photo below, I only had two words left to complete by Monday evening.

After stitching on Tuesday night, I completed the backstitching on all of the lettering!

I know backstitching takes time, but I love, love, love how the lettering looks with it. Not only are the edges sharp, but the letters practically jump off the fabric. The photo above doesn’t quite do it justice.

So, I am done with the lettering, and I just need to complete the decorative motif in the bottom corner. I might have a finish for next week’s update!

In other news, I did dig through my stash of needlework fabric for the pinch purse project, and I selected a scrap of linen for the outer sides of the purse. I think it’s a 28-ct fabric, but it should be okay for the ribbon embroidery. We’ll see. Then I pulled the patterned pink fabric for the coordinating fabric that will line the inner sides of the purse.

Time to start tracing the templates!

I probably will trace the template onto the linen but not cut out the shapes right away. I am thinking I will leave the linen intact to make it easier to work with — secure in a hoop — as I do the embroidery embellishment. Once the embroidery part is completed, then I will cut them out and begin the assembly.