Red Carnation for Mother's Day

I'm feeling a little discouraged.

I said to Hubby I'm not sure why I do this and he said because most of the time you love it.  He's right of course. We were talking about my stitching.
 I've had to do some tweaking on the Contentment Garden blocks to make those straight lines straighter and after relatively smooth sailing with the Indigo Snowballs, I've had to undo a few lines of stitching in that too. So I'd had an afternoon of unstitching as it were.

 And just when I was thinking I was improving my machine stitching, too.
  I did discover and correct a problem I repeatedly made...trailing to the right when ending a line of stitching.  Don't know why I did that...but I did and it really made for inaccurate seams.  I've learned how even just a smidgin off in each block adds up when joining up with other blocks.  I guess it's a good thing I learned that at least!

Anyway, not discouraged enough to stop mind you. Forging onwards.
Here is my little table topper I finished up. It will do. Enjoyed the bit of hand quilting I did.

I'm trying to take smaller hand stitches as well. Jenny of Elefantz makes the tiniest stitches which allows for very tidy looking lines of embroidery.  She suggested trying a one inch test to see how many stitches you make per inch.  She makes 15 stiches to the inch and when I tried that test back in 2015, I made just 8. When I tried to make 15, my stitches got a bit uneven and wobbly but as Jenny says it is all about practice.

My practice piece

In this project, my Sew Laugh Love piece, it is mostly back stitching so a great chance to practice executing  those smaller stitches.  I've taken out quite a few along the way but as long as I'm mindful, I can achieve the stitch length I want which is continually smaller.  At least that is one of my goals as I work on this project in the coming weeks.

But as was told to me years ago, it is not about how many stitches per inch. As long as you are consistent with the size within a piece, the end result will be pleasing.

My stitching it seems, just like me, is still a work in progress.

Because it is Mother's Day, I want to share this photo of the last owlet to fledge, Dock, (the three owlets were named Hickory, Dickory, Dock) with his Mom keeping him company now that he's been left alone at the nesting box.  She has been very attentive to him providing him with lots of food (he ate a songbird at 3 am this morning that she brought him) and frequent visits.  Because he was the last to hatch, it is natural that he be the last to fledge. That's going to happen any minute now.

From Kris on Twitter

Did any of you do this?

So Happy Mother's Day to all who celebrate. Being from the dark ages, I remember wearing a red carnation to church service for Mother's Day and you wore a white one if your mother had passed on.  Say what you want, there was such respect in those old rituals.

Joining the other slow stitchers over at Kathy's Quilts.  Also linking to Crazy Mom Quilts, Sew Can She, Small Quilts and Doll Quilts, Stitch All the Things, Em's Scrapbag, In the Quilt Room With Mel and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.