I was at the craft store thinking of making a paper card, but then I thought, why not just make it out of fabric. I really don't much like messing around with paper (it gets messed up too easily). So I stitched a design and sewed it into a card. Here are the front and back:

I've been back at the flea market. This time I found some old embroideries. I don't really know what either of them are, but the stitching is really fine.

The second is some kind of folder with pockets. It's coming apart a bit on the edges.

I managed to finish stitching Iowa this weekend. I like how it turned out. You can see I filled in the corn with french knots and stem stitching on the outer leaves. I wanted my corn to have a bit of semi-realistic texture. Maybe I will do more states later, but right now I am busy with a few other things. Here are a couple close-ups:

In the meantime I have been slowly working on a new biscornu. This one has sheep, and I am thinking I will replace the DMC floss with some Appleton crewel wool just for fun. I have to go buy it though.

Here is my progress so far on the Iowa state map. I don't have too much left really. I decided to cut the pigs out of felt and do just a little embroidery on them. It feels like the nicest way to make them all colored in.

So much stitching to be done now and so little time!

I finished this last night. Lately my ATC's end up soft because I don't put any cardboard or interfacing in them. I think it turns out ok. I usually hand sew the backing fabric on. If you machine sew it with zigzag you can always put a trim over it to hide the stitches if you don't want the rough edges showing.

Yesterday I picked up a few skeins of Appleton crewel wool. I haven't really stitched with much wool thread, so it will be fun to experiment a bit with them.

On Wednesday night we were out again at the flea market and we found a little pile of old cross stitch and embroidery pattern books (in Swedish). Only one of the books has a year printed on it, and that is 1953, so maybe the others are approximately the same age, but I don't know for sure. I love finding this sort of stuff. Hopefully there will be more such finds! :)

I've begun stitching a little ATC. I should be done soon, but here is my progress so far:

I have two more projects waiting in the wings, so I must keep stitching!

Also, I have "discovered" that some of the flea markets in Gothenburg actually have embroidery threads for sale cheap! I can't really stop myself from buying it when the prices are so low. ;)

I haven't ever seen some of the DMC floss types. I found a bunch of the cotton yarn called Matina for sale, so I have bought what I could find. Having lots of thread types is an absolute must. ;)

Or nearly so anyways. I will be away for the weekend. May turned out to be busy. I was gone for 2 weeks, first on Sweden's east coast, then to Sweden's west coast. After a spring with many changes, I am back stitching everyday. Which means that I have managed to finally finish the spring wreath project, so here are a few pictures of it:

I am very happy to have this completed after so long. I think it was March that I started it! I have cut fabric for 3 more projects, and I have started stitching another biscornu. Not to mention that I see that I am 15 weeks behind on the TAST 2 challenge. So, I hope to make this the summer of stitching. I feel that I have so much to catch up on!