A few days ago a lovely surprise came in the post – I’d pre-ordered Lizzy Pye’s Goldwork Embroidery: Techniques and Projects and although we had been warned on her FB page to expect some delay, that delay turned out to be shorter than expected! So here it is, signed and all.

And a first perusal shows it to be a wonderful addition to my stitching library – good photographs, clear explanations, and some interesting facts I didn’t know. And as an unexpected bonus, two of the projects in the book turn out to be designs I had been eyeing up on the Laurelin website: The Holly and the Ivy and the Silk and Goldwork Butterfly. Both very pretty designs, but until now only available as kits, and I could see that I already had all the materials in my stash. So now I can have a go at them whenever I like! (Well, after the SAL, the Certificate, the goldwork race horse, Hengest, Mechthild, the Llandrindod cross, the silk and gold flower, the silverwork umbrella…)

I also received some cotton sateen fabrics, about which I will write more in the near future. These are Empress Mills’ heavyweight Mountmellick fabric (the white) and cotton sateen (the cream). A friend of mine will be using the Mountmellick for her Tree of Life, so I’ll be sure to ask her opinion of it as well.

And finally, something only tangentially (or tangerine-ly?) stitch-related. I love embroidery and (very un-British of me to say this, but then I’m not British ) I’m quite good at it. But I have long since realised and accepted that there are extremely talented people out there who produce work of a kind and standard that I will never produce (take a bow Mary Corbet, among others). And you know what? It doesn’t matter! I do the best that I can, and – very important, this – I enjoy it. And for all of us who are never going to be the absolute best at something, I’ve found an encouraging quotation. Commenting on the fact that small can be beautiful (and I will stretch this to mean that small achievements can be beautiful) the Rev Canon Dr Rob Kelsey remarked “A satsuma is not a failed orange”. It can be inspirational to look at the oranges of this world and admire them, but for those of us who are not, let’s take pride in being jolly good satsumas!