One Step at a Time

 

We've been feeling a bit under the weather in our house lately - lots of coughs and sniffles which just seem to be lingering forever. I can't work out whether these are new colds or the same one as before that's still hanging around. This time of year I just always feel so tired and this year I've got even more on my plate than usual which isn't helping but I find that I'm struggling to relax and take it easy when I can because the to-do lists for various things just never end and I feel guilty for not doing it and just overwhelmed by it all. 

As my lovely OH says though, you can only do what you can and just take things one step at a time. Which seems apt as February's Stitchscape Swap theme is Stepping Stones. 

I've gone for calming blue tones, using up some little mini samosas of fabric I picked up at the Ardingly Quilt show with The Mother at the end of January and the plan is to make my stepping stones from felt to meander through the water and lead you to the grassy bank and beyond. 

I love these colours together, and the grass print fabric works really nicely here too! I'll add more greens at the bottom as some kind of water rush type thing which will help balance the colour out. 

Even my stepping stones are blue! I have a large stash of small wool felt squares which I ordered online as a bundle from Billow Fabrics. They have really lovely colours, lots of soft tones, and you can pick up a mixed scrap bundle from their website which has stood me in good stead for a couple of years now! The range of colours is so broad that there is bound to be one in there that suits your project at any given time. I could do with another bundle now though to refresh some colours. 

I'm not planning on doing lots and lots of stitching in this one (she says!) but let the composition do most of the talking. There's no point my stitching in any water until after I've done my rushes at the bottom anyway so I'll see how it goes. 

I've started adding a little bit of a glimmer by using the shiny section of Stylecraft Moonbeam yarn to couch along the top edge of the bottom blue fabric. This is going down first and then I'm stitching my stepping stones over the top to blend it more into the background rather than it being a prominent edging. 

Each stepping stone is having different stitches in as well. So far the big bottom one has seed stitch all over it, the middle one is edged with blanket stitch and the top little one is just stitched down with a border of back stitch. 

We'll see how they turn out!