a chance to sit down and stitch

Hubby has gone back to work today in spite of being very much under the weather, I had expected to see him back on the doorstep within the hour but no sign of him as yet.
I don't return to work until this morning so I've been having a tidy up whilst I don't have anyone under my feet!
I just realised that I didn't show the progress on my hat yesterday, so here it is...

I've also joined in 'a year of stitches' on Facebook, the idea is to try and stitch everyday. I think this would be good to spend 10 mins or so once hubby has gone to bed (usually around 8.30 due to early starts)

I hadn't realised how rusty I was at this sort of thing and faced with a blank canvas I'm really at a loss. In the future I will colour my fabric but didn't have much time with this as it was a bit last min.

So far I've managed to find my embroidery hoop and some off white cotton, onto this I've layered some handmade lace to give me a starting point...the photos aren't much good as taken at night but you will get the idea,.

My first thought was to embroider down the sides but after looking at it I decided that it really doesn't work.

so back to the drawing board and I found some textured threads to play with.

I'm couching these down with herringbone stitch, now this feels a bit more like me but I still have to think about where this going next.

However this is still very much in line with my plan to use up my stash :-)