After a nice little break over the holiday weekend, it’s time to get back to stitching! And what better way to do so, than to forge forward with our embroidered strawberries?

This is the second-to-last installment of this project. Today, we’ll look at the last strawberry – the small one, embroidered in long & short stitch – and we’ll see how to stitch the very simple blossoms.

Next time we visit the project, we’ll talk about stems and the large leaf.

This is a quick little episode! Ready?

Good evening (here in Kansas, anyway!) and Happy Easter tomorrow!

I’m sending my Easter greetings out a little early, because I’ll be off tomorrow and Monday, celebrating Easter with my family here in Kansas.

From my house to yours, I wish you and yours the glory and joy of a beautiful Easter!

Just in case you’re looking for something Really Exciting to do this weekend, you’ll find this year’s Spring Eye Spy game and accompanying jigsaw included below. I hope you enjoy it!

Today, we have to deviate slightly from our normal course of embroidering strawberries.

In this installment on How to Embroidery Strawberries, we’re going to stitch Strawberry #4 – which is the largest strawberry in the design.

But two things happened that detoured the original planned approach:

1. A photographic oversight – there are no photos for Strawberry #4 as it was worked on the original project (whoops!); and

2. Since I had to re-stitch Strawberry #4, I ended up adjusting the design a little bit.

I’ll explain as we go – but don’t be alarmed that this particular strawberry looks a little different from the one in the original design, or that it is isolated.

You can apply all the concepts you learn in this lesson to the original strawberry, or you can adjust your design to match this strawberry. I supply an adjusted design at the end of this article.

Every year, I find myself preparing some kind of embroidery project in anticipation of Spring – something I can enjoy while winter slides away. Something that promises sunny days and cheery blooms ahead!

Over the past few years, I’ve turned these projects into ready-to-stitch towel sets that you can enjoy, too.

This year’s ready-to-stitch Spring collection is called Garden Party! It’s a light, colorful, whimsical design set, replete with lady bugs, a butterfly, and bright stylized florals scattered along a series of swirly vines.

I’m so happy there was a lot of enthusiasm for the square-round embroidery hoop we talked about on Monday! If you wrote in to be on the advanced notice list for those, I have duly placed you on it. I’ll notify you when they’re available again.

In the meantime, I’d like to show you how I bound the inner ring of that hoop using the 3/8″ cotton twill tape that I packaged with the hoop.

Do you have to wrap the inner ring? No. But I think it’s a good idea. It protects your fabric, it adds a touch more friction, and it’s a job you only have to do once if you do it right. It’s worth it!

We’ll also touch on a few tips about using hoops and clarify a misconception or two.

You know that feeling of delight when you try something out – whether it’s a new piece of embroidery equipment or a new pair of shoes or a bowl of porridge – and you find yourself saying, “Oh yes. This is just right!”?

You half-way sigh and wonder why this wasn’t in your life just a little bit sooner.

Well, that’s how I felt when I started using a rather unique embroidery hoop that I’ve subsequently fallen in love with.

I call it The Sqround.