Tile 2

Yes, I went to Ally Pally, and I even came back. No photos of my purchases, which were almost entirely sewing related.

Every time I've been, the West End Embroidery stall has drawn me in, to study carefully the fantastic embroidery kits. I've loved them every time, but they always looked too far beyond my ability...

Until this year, that is. I overheard someone commenting on them: it was obvious she'd done several. So I asked her whether they were really tricky - not at all, she said, much easier then they looked.

Buoyed on with her confidence, I bought Tile 2, almost the smallest and the simplest in the range.

But it lacked one thing: those lovely circular star like stitches, whose name I didn't know. I wanted to do them in the corners, and halfway along the side, in different threads to match, the rest of the pattern.

The corner stitch looked lovely. However the shiny rayon thread simply did not work at all. So I unpicked it and carried on and have now done all the squares around the edge.