One of my all time favorite craft books is The Constance Howard Book of Stitches. I find it a never ending inspiration. All of the pictures in the book are in black and white but they show the most creative embroidery stitches and opened me up to the idea of two (or more) color embroidery, which is something I'd never really thought of before.

After experimenting with two color embroidery and finding my favorite stitches I wanted a project to show them off. I love my vintage embroidered pillow cases (you can see them in this picture of my Around the Wool Blanket ) so I decided to make a modern version of them on some earthy linen pillow cases. Instead of embroidering something traditional like flowers I just sewed many lines using different stitches. I  like to think of them as embroidery samplers in action!

If you'd like to learn some of these exciting new stitches check out my Two Color Embroidery Tutorial.

And if you'd like to make some Sampler Pillows using your new stitch skills you can follow along with my Sampler Pillows Journal.