Slow Sunday Stitching

I was gone a week to visit our daughter and son-in-law in warm, sunny, beautiful Phoenix while northern Indiana was getting its first real blast of winter.

I embroidered during my time in Phoenix. Several months ago I was working on small designs for needle book covers and pincushions but didn't finish all of the squares. I'm still not finished with them, but I'm making progress.

The designs came from these books, patchwork loves embroidery and Christmas Patchwork Loves Embroidery, both by Gail Pan.



Here are some of the blocks I've completed.

I use a Frixion pen when I marked the designs. Gail tells you to use a permanent pen but I'm not talented enough to cover all the markings. I will press with a hot iron when all the embroidery is completed and the markings will disappear, unless, of course, you stick the blocks in a freezer which I won't do.

I've used regular DMC embroidery thread to embroider these blocks. 

I rolled the border of the quilt I'm hand quilting just before I left for Arizona and forgot to take a picture. I'm working on the next borders now and I have 4 needles going. Three needles are stitching in the ditch along the white edges and the 4th is to quilt the design in the border.

The thread is a variegated blue King Tut thread. It will be interesting to see how much the blue thread shows after the blue markings are washed out.

I am right handed but I quilt from left to right. I didn't used to quilt that way but several years ago I started having shooting pain in my right wrist. Since I've started quilting towards myself this way, I have my wrist bent in and no longer have the pain. Whatever works!

Linking to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Show & Tell Monday With Bambi, Em's Scrapbag, Love Laugh Quilt, Design Wall Monday-Small Quilts, BOM's Away, Quilter's Monday, Esther's Wednesday WOW!