For me, life is at it’s happiest when things feel like they are moving forward.

I love the feeling of making progress.

My first little stitchy picture was a breeze to do.

Small, easily manoeuvred under the sewing machine, made on a sudden whim and constructed from start to finish in an afternoon, it felt almost effortless. As did the second one.

So I thought I’d tackle a larger work in similar vein. Which hasn’t proved quite so easy.

Inspired by the English country walks in summer that I love, I knew the colours I wanted to use, and I knew what I wanted it to look like.

But the practicalities of bringing it into being have been more difficult than I was expecting.

Handling lots of little bits of fabric that need to be individually layered in the right order and stitched into place, without losing any, or forgetting where they’re meant to go, has been a challenge.

I’ve taken far longer over it than I intended. It has occupied much of my waking hours this week – I even started to dream about it.

But when the pieces fall into place like a jigsaw (not the one I did at Christmas!) it is a very good feeling.

I’m not quite done yet.

But I have made good progress.

Which makes me very happy indeed. ♥