Slow Sunday Stitching - January 31, 2021

 Rainy the last couple of days here in Kansas and it's cold and cloudy today.  It was a great weekend to hibernate craft, so that is all I did!

I'm at about three hours into Dutch Beauty this rotation round.   Working on page P/16.  I've put in the three small motifs (squirrel, plant and basket) between the lily vase on page O/15 and the big vase of flowers that flank the main center motif on the bottom row.   I'm now working on the bottom border for this page before I start on the vase of fritterlaria and parrots that are perching on it.

This is good 'audiobook' stitching since it's so repetitive. 

I also put in some time on the newly discovered needleturn applique block.  I got up to the tip of the second quadrant.  I really do enjoy applique, but finding yet another UFO was not fun.  I may do a paper-cuts quilt at some point.  Or it just may go into the Christmas Sampler with all the other odd and orphan red and green blocks. 

You can't really see it in the photo, but this one was done with freezer paper cut out, then ironed on.  Then the turn line was traced with a mechanical pencil for a narrow, accurate line and the freezer paper was removed.   Then the two layers were basted about a half inch in from the turn line (you can see the basting).  Cut a little, stitch, cut more.  Fun technique if you like handwork as much as I do. 

On the knitting front, got to the second corner of round 8 on the sock yarn blanket.   I'll do that corner while I catch up with the rest of the SSS crew (link to current round up).

ETA:  Kathy asked us about our favorite hoop in the link up.  Mine are the Hardwicke Manor embroidery hoops (from Access Commodities).  I have three: one is 5/8 inch deep and 6 inches across.  The others are 5/16 inch deep;  6 and 4 inches across.  All are from Threadneedle Street in Washington state.  Link to these hoops on their website.

Here's the littlest hoop on the cutwork napkin a while back.  They are very nicely finished with the adjustment screw being a heavy brass and the thumbscrew has a slot to really tighten down with a small screwdriver.