I think I could easily hoard buttons if you let me...

Busy couple of days. Filled with family gatherings, good friends visiting town, work, you name it.

On Sunday we were at a family gathering at Trev's Oma & Opa's place, and in preparation of my being there, his Oma set out all kinds of pieces of embroidery and crochet that she had done over the years so that she could show me. I was quite touched!

Above is a photograph of some stitching that Oma did when she was in grade 1 or 2!!! She said she received a tea set as a gift, and with it came this little square cloth with a pattern stamped on it, and you were to embroider it yourself. I thought that was pretty neat. And, as lame-o as it sounds, I have to say it - they don't make toys like they used to!

And let me introduce you to a beautiful piece of her embroidery cutwork. Each corner of this cloth had this same gorgeous design. I oggled it for some time. Though it's not necessarily my style, I do appreciate the work that went into it (and how gorgeous the results are!).

Here's another shot so you can get a better idea of it.

Well, I do believe I've set myself up with a pretty tough act to follow... On Sunday I went out and stocked myself up with various and assorted embroidery goods:


So I decided to be diligent from the get-go and wind all my pretty colours onto labeled bobbins right away. SOOooo to make a long story short, I got little to no stitching done on my first day in possession of the wherewithal to do so.


But behold! Virgin stitches! Right now I'm doing the "stab method", which is what the books all refer to - but the online tutorials I've watched have been with the "sewing method", so it takes some brainwork to transfer one to another when I'm watching it played out in front of me.

My fabric isn't wrinkled in this picture. Merely sun-dappled.

I've hardly had time to practice. It's turning out to be a busy summer.

An eventual (lofty) goal? My own variation of the Martha Stewart quilt pictured here: http://www.marthastewart.com/article/bird-embroidered-quilt

It's hard to make out in this photo (at least on this computer monitor it is), but it consists of square patches with a different bird (in an old-fashiony outline pattern) in each square. I think it's sweet, and I LOVE birds.

(Though between now and there, there will be a lot of practice, stabbed fingers, a multitude of smaller, "finish-able" projects... and oh yeah, learning how to quilt!)

I've been searching for embroidery images of freshwater fish (the kind we have around here: muskie, pike, walleye, perch, small and large mouth bass) because I'd like to surprise my mom with some embroidered items for the island (where they've got a STRONG fish theme going).

Before I got onto this whole embroidery kick, I thought it'd be neat to get them a set of towels for each of the guest rooms at the island and embroider each set with the name of that room. Now, we're talking terrycloth towels here so, though I still think I'm going to follow through with this plan, I certainly am not going to tackle this myself. I'll embroider tea towels to hang in the kitchen, if I'm going to try my hand at anything for that cottage.

Alright. Off I go. My goal is to get to bed early tonight and give my pre-work run another try tomorrow morning. (I got only one mile in today before I had to stop because of this stupid stomach cramp - WHICH stayed with me the entire day, I might add. Boo-urns. Will do it again tomorrow, hopefully sans crampage this time around.)

And if you're wondering what today's subject has to do with today's post - the answer is nothing.