Oriental and Checkerboard

I decided that the negative space in the oriental block should be in squares, but it was taking an age to get anywhere, so I decided to make a start on the checkerboard block.  I feel like I should have covered a lot more ground this week given the amount of time I've spent on it, but it takes as long as it takes!

The bigger picture

Tomorrow I start on the second half of the sampler!  It feels like it has taken ages to get to this point, so its quite exciting to move on.

Hemstitch

I've made a start on the hemstitch in the borders.  There is a lot of it, so I thought I would experiment with it.  My worry now is that it might look a bit odd with different borders, but I will try and keep it balanced as I go.  I'm not sure how it will work out, but let's see how it goes!