Remember my finishing plans for Floral Lace? I’ve finally got round to picking felt colours for most of the designs from my stash, although for about four of them I may have to buy some new colours as nothing I’ve got quite sets them off the way I want it. Still, I have plenty to be getting on with, and so far my modifications to the method I tried with the Floral Lace Variation seem to be working. The main change so far is using an oversized square of felt, and trimming it after it has been attached with running stitch. As you can see, it doesn’t even matter if the felt is a bit lop-sided, as the excess gets cut off anyway . My little pointy embroidery scissors are really proving their worth with these projects, both in trimming the felt and in cutting very closely around the buttonhole edging – I doubt I could do it without them!

I am now attaching the felt to several of the squares and trimming it so that they are ready for buttonholing, because it struck me that these are ideal travel projects: all I need once they are at this stage is white perle #5, a needle, and a pair of scissors – and if I decide to leave the final cutting-round-the-buttonhole-edge until I get home, then any scissors will do as long as they’ll cut my working thread. So if I keep a pile of them and take one or two whenever we go away, I should get them all finished before they disintegrate with old age (or I do…)

One of them will serve me very well on Saturday, when I’ll have a table at the DBC Arts & Crafts Fair – one of the many activities our church is organising in aid of the building fund. It’s part exhibition, part sale, and there will be paintings, jewellery, vintage clothing and, oh yes, some Hardanger. I thought I really ought to demonstrate as well as simply saying “Here’s one I made earlier”, but I don’t relish the idea of trying to work some complicated bit of stitching while also chatting with viewers/customers, answering questions etc. So here’s the compromise: work on the buttonhole edge of one of the Floral Laces, but also have a hoop ready with some pre-stitched Kloster blocks so I can demonstrate cutting and, if pressed, some filling stitches. And just to show you how extremely organised I am about all this (ha!), here is what our dining room looks like at the moment. Can you spot the world premier Notebook kit?