This weekend, I did the tiniest bit of stitching.

And although I don’t feel too accomplished this morning, what I actually accomplished seemed monumental at the time!

That’s it! That’s the embroidery I finished this weekend.

Impressive, isn’t it? Yep, those stitches might have taken a whole twenty minutes, all told. Maybe.

But the amount of time it took me to get to that point is quite a different story.

I am not, by habit, a collector of fabrics. If I were a quilter, I’m sure I would be, but I’m not a quilter. And so, when I had to come up with a small, quick project that involved embroidery finished into something specific, I found myself in a bit of a quandary.

As I mulled over the project for about an hour, deciding exactly how to make this little, almost-inconsequential thing, it occurred to me that having a coordinating fabric to use for finishing might be a good idea.

But what to do? I didn’t have any fabric, aside from linen…

…or did I?

Deep in the recesses of my mind, I recalled a stack of coordinating fat quarters that I’d been given as a gift. The fabric collection was called “Quite Contrary” (as in, Mary, Mary, quite contrary – I’m pretty sure there was a subtle message involved).

But, not being a collector of fabric, I don’t exactly have a place for fabric of this sort. You know, that specific place where all your fabric is neatly stored, folded nicely, in coordinated color collections? I don’t have one of those.

I’m sure I put it in a box, I told myself.

But which box? On which shelf?

I spent, literally, the whole day looking for a small stack of fat quarters. The. Whole. Day. They were not in any box, on any shelf in my workroom.

I found them, eventually, with my stationery, which is neatly stored in a pretty box that slides under my bed.

What could I possibly have been thinking, when I put them there?

My foraging adventure left me about twenty minutes to devote to actual stitching.

This, my friends, is not an efficient use of time.

But I did get something good out of it! I had one more small scrap of green linen, the last to my name, and I think it coordinates quite well with the fabric in this set, don’t you? Doesn’t it make you want to eat watermelon?

Incidentally, can you guess what the rest of the embroidery says? It’s probably pretty obvious, right?

I’ll be finishing this project today – eventually, I’ll show it to you (it’s for a tutorial on Craftsy), embroidering some ducks, and editing some stitch tutorials for you.

A busy Monday – and hopefully, much more productive than the weekend. Fingers crossed.

Enjoy your day!