Ann Wood : the 100 day stitch book

I'm not very good at setting myself daily stitching (or drawing, painting, etc) goals and carrying them through for a month or however long I intend to make myself do them. I start off in a burst of enthusiasm, which gradually drains away, I lose confidence, it seems too daunting and the project gets quietly shelved. Soooooo .... I'm giving it another try. Textile artist Ann Wood (www.annwoodhandmade.com) is running a 100 day stitch book challenge. The idea is that you sew every day, for 100 days, but for only 15 minutes per day. Which for most of us is achievable. At the end of the 100 days you assemble your work into a fabric book. All the details are on her website, including short videos that clearly explain the whole process.

I've been gathering up fabric scraps, trying to limit my initial selection of material so I'm not spending too much of my daily 15 minutes dithering and fretting about choosing which material to applique on to a page. When it comes to the book pages, you need to cut out 20 rectangles of fabric, measuring 7 x 5.5 inches. Unbleached calico is my choice, though the book would look good with pages in different colours too.

For thread, I'm using some of the vintage ones I've bought over the years. These old threads aren't always ideal for use with a sewing machine as they've a tendency to break or tangle, but they're fine for hand stitching.

This is the result of my first day's effort. I ended up spending 30 rather than 15 minutes on it, so I've decided that it's perfectly okay to stitch for longer than a quarter of an hour. I'll see how I feel on any given day.
Just for your info: there is a stitch club membership you can sign up for, which costs about £77 to join, but equally you can simply take part in the challenge and - if you want to - post photos of your stitching on Instagram.

Fancy taking part in the challenge too? Ann Wood's blog is here, if you do. Wish me luck!

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