Wherever stitchers meet, sooner or later the discussion comes up – one project or many? And I’d be perfectly happy to let everyone enter that discussion for themselves, if it weren’t for something I’ve noticed: that it often starts with a remark like “I really shouldn’t start another project, I’ve got two on the go already” or “Do you think it’s all right to start a new project when I haven’t finished the one I’m working on?” or something equally apologetic.

Now if you happen to be the sort of person who likes finishing one thing before starting another, even if that one thing takes three years, then that’s all well and good. But if you’d like to work on more than one project at a time, why on earth shouldn’t you?

About a week ago, that discussion came up in one of the embroidery groups I’m a member of. At that time (the situation is slightly different now) I had three works actually in progress (the Wedding Umbrellas, a small pansy, and Sarah Homfray’s crewel bird), four more hooped up and ready to go (a Quatrefoil in Madeira Lana, a willow tree based on a Dutch pop-up restaurant’s logo [don’t worry, I asked their permission ], a Hardanger design on hand-dyed fabric, and a silk & gold flower called Soli Deo Gloria), three in the design stage (Tree of Life, Mechthild the Medieval Queen and Hengest the Medieval Unicorn), and two kits (Helen Stevens goldwork and Sarah Homfray stumpwork butterfly).

I will admit that a dozen projects is probably as much as I would like to have in one or other stage of progress at any given time; even I don’t usually have that many. But my point is that there is no need to apologise for this, or to feel guilty about it. Unless the multitude of projects stops you from finishing any of them, this variety can actually work quite beneficially! For example, yesterday I’d reached a part of the crewel bird which I didn’t want to do until I’d watched Sarah Homfray’s video about it, as mentioned in the kit instructions. Unfortunately, the video is not actually on her site; so I’ve emailed her, and in the meantime worked on the pansy.

Another instance: having finished the wedding project, my next big piece (not size-wise – I don’t really do big – but in complexity and time to complete) will be Soli Deo Gloria. But the bit it starts with (the French knots filling the centre) has thrown up the first dilemma of this design. This silk and gold flower is based on one I did some time ago, where I took a Kelly Fletcher freebie and worked it in completely different colours, stitches and threads (more about that in a later FoF). For that one, I used slightly variegated Gloriana silks; for this present one I’m using solid-coloured Soie d’Alger. The centre will be worked in two shades of golden yellow, but how? Blended, to reproduce to some extent the original variegation? In two distinct regions, with the darker of the two providing shading? Randomly dotted throughout the circle (as suggested in my coloured-in outline)? If I had just that one project on the go, I’d be stuck for something to stitch until this matter has been solved to my satisfaction. But as it is, I can ponder this question at leisure while doing some Hardanger, or crewel work, or freestyle embroidery. What’s not to like?

Having several (though not necessarily a dozen) projects ready to go gives me a sense of freedom; I can pick up whichever I feel like stitching – colourful or muted, big or small, counted or freestyle, simple or complex. If occasionally the range of choices on offer makes me indecisive, leading to an evening of no stitching at all, on the whole I think for me the benefits outweigh any disadvantages. After all, on evenings when I simply can’t decide what to stitch, I can always rearrange my fabrics or stroke my silks, or even write a FoF .

It’s possible to stitch practically anywhere. I have stitched on trains, in a field, and various waiting rooms, for example. But it’s really nice to have a comfy permanent stitching spot, one where it is not just possible, but a great pleasure to stitch. At home, I have two such spots, and one of them has just had a make-over.

That’s the armchair in our sitting room (the other spot is at the dining table by the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the garden). My Lowery embroidery stand and Serious Reader light stood with one of our pair of big blue wing armchairs which had a small side table and a standard lamp between them, and which were in dire need of being both re-upholstered and resprung. Now we’ve been clearing out my mother-in-law’s bungalow as she has moved into sheltered accommodation, and my husband and his sisters have been choosing bits and pieces from the house, paintings, family papers, mementoes, and also bits of furniture. Last Tuesday my eldest sister-in-law and her husband dropped off, among other things, two pretty armchairs and a side table with shelf and drawer.

The chairs have relatively recently been overhauled, and they are of a rather more moderate size than our two blue giants (they also fit much better into the overall colour scheme of our sitting room). And because they are narrower than the old chairs and a bit lower

1. I can have the really useful wider side table with drawer and shelf to put all my stitching on and in;
2. my Lowery stand actually reaches the middle of the chair so it’s much more comfortable to stitch; and
3. there is more room for a cat underneath the stitching

I have to admit that since that picture was taken I have adjusted the Lowery a bit, as with me sitting lower the stitching was rather too close to my eyes – a little less space for Lexi, but still considerably more than in the original set-up, so we’re both happy.

The project I’ve been working on in my new stitching chair is Sarah Homfray’s crewel bird Turaco, and I’m really enjoying it. But it did bring home to me how often we stitchers judge our work from the wrong distance, and in doing so are far more harsh on ourselves than we need be. We tend to look at our work from, well, a working distance, and sometimes forget that we are very probably the only people ever to look at it like that. Literally standing back from our work can be very beneficial; while working on it the stitching looks uneven, lumpy, not neat – but take a step back and hey presto, it suddenly looks much better! In my case it was the bird’s tail feathers. I just could not get them to look even and tidy, and after a while I decided to give it a rest and see if I could do better in daylight. I swung the Lowery stand away from me, got up to stretch my legs, caught sight of the embroidery while standing a little way away, and realised that they don’t look so bad after all!

Do you change things when you stitch other people’s designs? I often do. Not, I hasten to assure you, from an arrogant conviction that I know better than the designer, but just because we all have different tastes, and even when I like an overall design I might tweak a bit here or change a colour there to make it just the way I like it. For example, in the Turaco kit the branch on which the bird sits has “empty lines” among the stem stitch; but I happen to love the look of closely fitting stem stitch, so my branch is fully stitched. I also adjusted the printed line of the bird’s head (but as in this case it was to make it more like Sarah’s own stitched model that doesn’t really count).

You may remember I also played about a lot with several of Kelly Fletcher’s designs. I hope she and Sarah don’t mind (and as Kelly Fletcher posted some of my pics on her FB page I assume she at least doesn’t!) – I certainly don’t, and actually find it rather satisfying when people take a design of mine and make it their own. Your stitching project is yours, to stitch as you want it to be. If you stitch a Mabel design but want to do it in pink instead of blue, or use different threads, or stitch only part of it, or stitch it lots of times to make a big project, then go ahead – and please send me a picture of it for the Stitchers’ Gallery where it can join such personalised projects as a BonBon in purple instead of pink, Blackthorn worked in poppy colours, and an extended Flodgarry.

Some time ago I started a project pouch, on which I was going to embroider “Mabel” in line-sampler letters. These letters to be outlined in stem stitch using Anchor Multicolor perle #5, with each letter being a different colour combination. Nice and bright, as random and freehand as I am ever likely to achieve, in fact the perfect pick-up-and-stitch project. If it weren’t for one or two things.

First, because of the way the pouch is constructed all stitching has to be done using the sewing method, and I am by nature a stabbing girl (only with an embroidery needle, and only on fabric, I hasten to add!) – and all fastening on and off has to be done from the front, and be kept invisible. This makes it rather less relaxing than I intended. In theory the padded lining can be flipped up so you can get at the back of the fabric, but unfortunately some of my sewing motions managed to pick up a bit of the lining, which is now attached to the outer fabric and therefore unflippable.

Secondly, I do not like the look of the stem stitch outline. I thought that would be my favourite part, because normally I really like chunky stem stitch in perle #5, and I love the Anchor Multicolors. But not only was it difficult to stitch, I could not manage to get the rope texture nice and tight, especially around corners. Oh, I know, smaller stitches help. But the fabric is relatively thin, and even with fairly long stitches it get a bit pulled and distorted; too many chunky stitches close together would be a nightmare to stitch, and look even worse.

This will need a bit of thinking. I will probably unpick the outline, and restitch it in Multicolor stranded cotton; it won’t stand out quite so much, but should be easier to do, and end up less floppy-looking around the corners. For the moment, I’m going to put this one aside; it was meant as an easy in-between project, but as it will now take rather more thought and work it no longer qualifies as such. I’ll definitely finish it – for one thing I don’t want to waste that pouch – but not now.

OK, so sometimes a project goes wrong, and that makes it less attractive. But sometimes a project can go wrong, yet be tremendous fun! I needed something easy to stitch while we were down at my mother-in-law’s, doing some sorting and clearing in the house she’s just moved out of. There wouldn’t be that much stitching time, so it had to be something simple, preferably with small parts within the design that could be finished quickly. Something like one of Kelly Fletcher’s monograms, in fact, particularly the one with the leafy border. And I happened to have a ready-to-embroider napkin bought as an experiment at the same time as the project pouch! Perfect.

Or it would have been, if I’d had time to transfer the design before we went. Unfortunately I didn’t, so one evening when there was just about enough light left I tried to do the transfer against a west-facing window. My usual pencil had somehow disappeared from my bag, so I tried one of the many pencils in the house. It was a very hard pencil, and after painstakingly tracing most of the design I thought to check, only to find that it had left no imprint whatsoever. The other pencils I found were either equally hard, or far too blunt, and there wasn’t a sharpener around. A blue pencil seemed the most likely to produce a usable line, so I gave that a try. It did leave a ghostly outline, but to be usable it had to be more visible; I decided that by now I might as well use a pen and be done with it. Tracing over the faint blue lines I realised that when holding a fairly large napkin up against a window for tracing, it is almost impossible to keep it square. It sags. It drags. And so the circular border was anything but circular. To make matters worse, I then put the initial in at the wrong angle – it should have pointed towards the corner. It doesn’t. And let’s not even mention the leaves, which are meant to be uniform in size and spacing. Quite.

But you know what? I’m enjoying stitching this enormously. It will produce a perfectly usable and reasonably decorative napkin, I’m getting lots of practice doing fishbone stitch, and if anything doesn’t go quite as planned it doesn’t matter as it can’t possibly get any worse than it already is . The perfect pick-up-and-stitch project! Unlike the pouch…