Yesterday, when all was calm and quiet in the studio, the blinds were drawn against the sun (because, yes, we’re up near 100 degrees here in Kansas! gaaaaaaah!), a book was playing in the background, and I had the place all to myself… I started a new and small embroidery project.

This is the type of project I really love, because it can be finished in a weekend.

And I don’t mean a weekend only devoted to stitching, either. It’s a project that you can start on one of those Friday evenings when the weekend has started, the weather is cold, the dark comes early, you don’t feel like going out, but you need something to do. Creative things fill that need well!

You start the project, you entrench yourself in it, you work most of the embroidery that evening. Saturday comes, you want to get back to it but you have all those typical Saturday chores, so you get them done and – voila! You’re back to your project. You finish the embroidery. And at some point on Sunday, you take an hour or so from your day and you finish the project into a beautiful little something.

It’s that kind of project. I love that kind of project.

I’m not going to show you the whole project just yet, but I promise that I will soon! For now, I just want to introduce you to it and chat a bit about “quick” slow stitching.

As I was trucking along on this embroidery project I showed you on Monday, finishing all the line stitching and venturing on to the satin stitched berries, I decided to put two powerful – and yet very beautiful – embroidery tools to use.

I’ve mentioned these tools and their maker before, but this particular set of tools is so intriguingly beautiful, so luxurious to hold, so exquisitely balanced, so smooth and glassy while being nicely weighty… aaaaahhhhh! I just have to share them again.

I managed to get in a bit of stitching this weekend!

That’s Big News! Once upon a time, weekend stitching was a normal thing in my life. I’m trying to reclaim that.

And while I didn’t get massive amount done, it was nice to get something done. Just a little bit of progress is always better than no progress at all, after all.

The stitching I’ve been doing on this project is very simple, very relaxing, not complicated at all.

This is going to be a very long article today!

When we last visited the project, we basted the turned hem in place, so that we could launch right in to the hemstitch, so if you’re at this point with me, you should have your hem turned on the back of the work and your corners mitered, and the hem basted in place.

Today we’re going to accomplish the first step of the hemstitch around the frame of Sweet Marguerite, stitching the hem in place along the way. The hemstitch that we are working will be both decorative and functional, since it is hemming the accent linen.

We can’t cover the entire hemstitch process in one article here on the website, so we’ll finish off the decorative parts of the hemstitch next week.

If you’re a member of the Needle ‘n Thread Community on Patreon, I’ll have the PDF up for you soon covering all of the hemstitch process through to the end of the project. I’ll be adding a few extra diagrams to the PDF, so that you’ll have photos and diagrams to take you through the hemstitch process. Although I’ve fallen way behind on working with video, I’ve got one video almost ready on the drawn thread / re-weaving process, so once that’s finished, I will post it over there, too. In the meantime, if you want to move ahead on the project, the instructions below will get you going on the hemstitch.

As always, please read through all the instructions carefully before you begin. In fact, it doesn’t hurt to read through them twice, so you know where you’re going as you work.