At the lovely tea shop I was sat next to a copy of Poppy Treffy's book Free and Easy Stitch Style.
Hmm I thought, how difficult can that be?
Well, with my machine and temperament, very! Foot off, darning plate on (no such thing as dropping the feed dogs on my trusty steed), and off I went... creating a mass of knots on the underside and nothing as attractive on the top!
Unpicking and trying again... and again, until, with the foot back on, plate off and cajoling the fabric about a bit, I ended up with this...
I'm not convinced, but I know there are a couple of machine tweaks left to try. I just wasn't in the mood for hours and hours of frustration (again!), so I quit before the swearing got too loud! One of my 4 year olds took one look this morning and said 'hmm, sweet' in a matter of fact way and walked off; that's as near to a seal of approval as I can expect!