My new focus piece

Now that I have finished The Marriage of Minds, I am focusing on 2 pieces. Toccata 1, which I started over the weekend, and The Golden Age Sampler.I have been a little stumped on the GAS because I have to do detached buttonhole stitch, and it is tricky. I got some good advice at my sampler guild on Sunday. A lady there suggested I look up the stitch in several different sources, because when you read how to do it from different explanations, sometimes it suddenly becomes clear. So I did that. I looked it up in 2 different books, and 2 online sources.There is a wonderful tutorial on Jeanne's blog here, and another one from Sharon B. here. So I plunged forward and got quite a bit done. I found that my biggest problem was being able to see. So I will be doing the rest of this by daylight, and with the highest magnification I have, which I think is 4.0. I wish I could find reading glasses with a higher magnification. I don't like to use those mag-eyes, but I may have to break down and get some.

So here is my progress on Toccata 1. I planned to do 2 motifs a night, thinking I could finish this in a month. But surprise surprize!! I finished 5 the first night and 6 1/2 the next!!So hopefully I will continue to zip through this piece. It is really great fun, I am enjoying it very much!



And here is Golden Age from Sharon Cohen:

And as for my bread and butter work, this is a crazy quilt heart pillow which will be up for sale at ebay very soon! LOVE these surface stitches!!