Queen Stitch strawberries

On Saturday, I sent in my registration for EGA's national seminar. This year is EGA's 50th anniversary, and seminar promises to be spectacular. Since it's being held in Louisville, Kentucky, home of national headquarters, one of the advantages is that we'll get to see the National Exhibit! I've never been to a national seminar before, and am really looking forward to this. Now to see what classes I get!

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To ensure the colors dried completely, I wanted to wait a bit before continuing with Winds of Color. For a change of pace, I picked up Catherine Theron's Examplar IV. I started this at the regional seminar last year, and thought it would be a good idea to make some progress before national comes and more class pieces find their way into my WIP pile.

Continuing around the border, on Saturday and Sunday I stitched the strawberries at the bottom. These are stitched in queen stitch. This stitch was one I struggled with for years, until I took a class with Eileen Bennett. I found that, contrary to my brain's logic, they really do work best if stitched left to right and all tacking stitches are taken right to left (or vise versa - tied down stitches right to left, tacking stitches left to right). They don't turn out the same if you do the two outside (or inside) tied down stitches first and take the tacking stitches always from the inside out. I don't know why. They also have to be stitched fairly tightly. (If anyone wants to see this stitch done step by step, let me know, and I'll try to do a queen stitch tutorial and take pictures along the way.)

Ok, Blogger's being stubborn and won't let me upload the picture of the entire piece. It will have to wait!