Hi there, Well, well, it seems that February is National Embroidery Month. (I'm not sure who gets to decide that, but what the heck!) It seems like a fitting pastime for February, since it's a good excuse to stay inside and work on a cosy project while we wait for the weather to improve. I did a fair bit of embroidery when I was younger and my parents still have a few of my finished pieces around their house, I think. Back then, most of what I did was from kits, and I still remember the thrill of paging through a brand-new Mary Maxim catalogue. There are so many more options these days! I thought this tutorial on how to make an embroidery pattern from a photograph was pretty neat. (From Feeling Stitchy, a great embroidery blog.) I'd love to make a "newfangled" embroidered sampler, one of those masterworks that demonstrates a variety of stitches and features a quote. I think mine would impart this gem, from author Sarah Vowell: "Being a nerd, which is to say going too far and caring too much about a subject, is the best way to make friends I know." What would you put on your sampler?