one year on(ish)! french knot flower embroidery tote with bee applique

it's one year and two days since i first started this blog....i would have written this post two days ago but i've been horribly ill. i've made loads of stuff, too much stuff really, not all of it turns up here, here's one example of an abandoned and unpublished piece which i'm rather fond and proud of:

the plain, recycled cotton totes were down to 50p at work a while back (i think they're back up to a pound now). anyway, i picked one up, drew a large heart in pencil on the inside and, using the heart as a guide, proceeded to try and fill the whole thing with flowers made up of french knots and 'lazy daisy' stitches. it doesn't look like much, but it took up days, literally, days of my life to get this far. as you can see i gave up before it was finished, it's ok though - i tell myself that if completed it would have looked cheesy or childish or something.

i used to dread having to do french knots, but no more! : ) in that respect, at least, i've improved somewhat over the year.