Now, THERE is progress!

What a difference a great tutorial makes!

And better materials!

And taking one's time!

OK, so here is the full story . . .

First of all, I'd like to say a big THANK YOU!! to all of you who left me such kind comments! Many of you gently pointed out that I need to not be such a perfectionista, and I totally admit that is one of my downfalls! I've taken your advice and slowed down and am truly enjoying the process now.
I've been working in the evenings on a lovely Elefantz Design stitchery . . . this is Block One of her new Psalm 23 stitching series.

Wow! I'm pretty proud of the progress I've made!

I put a link up there at the top to the great tutorial that helped me a good bit. My stitches are much more even, and I'm getting them made correctly - no more faux chain stitch! (Grin)

I also followed Jenny's advice and got some Robert Kaufman Essex linen blend to work on. It's made a big difference for me! 
And the Whisperweft! Awesome! I love how it's so thin and drapey -- I hardly know it's there behind the stitchery, but it helps everything look much better. Plus, it's easy to adhere -- just iron it on.

Here's the problem - where to find it? I did manage to get a yard of it from a supplier link on the Elefantz site. I went to a (ahem!) local store that shall remain nameless and they had no clue. They offered me a product for backing my embroidery that felt like I would be stitching through a sheet of printer paper! (Grin)

I know that some of you swear by the stabilizer that washes out, but my one experience with that was not a really positive one . . . I was picking out pieces for quite a while. 

Any recommendations? Sure would appreciate it!

Thanks for stopping by! You're always welcome here at the Lilypad!

Love,

Viewer discretion advised . . .

I've mentioned before that I'm enjoying some stitcheries from our talented friend "down under," Jenny of Elefantz . . . 

I'm warning ya right now, viewer discretion is advised on this post! (Grin) Some of these are downright shocking! LOL
(You can zoom in on all of these, you know, the old "spread or pinch" maneuver with your fingers!)

In an effort to be totally transparent and honest (and a chance soon to toot my own horn as I make progress) I'm showing you some pretty bad stitching!

I will admit to being in too much of a hurry.
I will also admit to not wanting to take out stitches. 
I am rationalizing that it's going to go on the kitchen table where it will not be noticed as much, since we'll be putting a centerpiece there, place settings around, and we'll be concentrating on our food!

And more importantly, I'm resolving to do much better in the future. I'm going to follow Jenny's lead, and relax and contemplate the words I'm stitching. I'll allow myself the "luxury" of taking time to remove errant stitches. 
So, here they are -- honest photos of stitching that will be improving soon!

Some of the arrows are for stitches that are just not lined up correctly. Those should have been pulled loose and done again.
Some of the mistakes are where I was not doing the backstitch correctly -- they look more like chain stitch in some places! (Grin) 
And of course, in some places you will see: small stitch, small stitch, BIG stitch, small stitch!!
All of these are from her free patterns on her site, so hop over and check out all the lovely things there! She also has great tutorials, which have helped me immensely!

I'll be back soon with some better stitching! The weather lately has kept us inside, instead of working outdoors, so the stitching continues!

Love,

Yes, half square triangles are our friends!

I wanted to re-introduce you to my fave ruler as I have been working my way through these Summer Moon blocks: the Bloc Loc ruler is awesome!

See that groove in the center? Here is how it works . . . grab an unsuspecting half square triangle that you just finished, and lay the Bloc Loc on it, shifting and wiggling it so that the groove nestles in the diagonal seam, like so:

Let's say we want our finished squares to be two inches -- slide the ruler so that it covers a little more than two inches. See up there?
Now, grab that rotary cutter and trim the two exposed sides of the block. Like this!

Now you want to trim the other two sides, but DON'T PICK IT UP! (Just kidding, you can if you want to.) But you can also just slide it along the seam and rotate the whole block till it looks like this:

Now you can trim that bad boy's last two sides and you have a lovely, perfect, exactly two inch half square triangle!

And the possibilities are endless!
The next block for Summer Moon is the Split Nine Patch and it's nothing but HSTs! Here are mine:

Here's a close up:

This is sew much fun!
What's under your needle these days?

Love,