I'm 10 days late getting these photos up.  I have no excuse except laziness.  I like the Hungarian Ground stitch which is often used as a background stitch to help a basketweave tent stitch design stand out.  It can also be used to create a lace effect in a design.

My first bock, as usual, according to the directions in the book:

My zigzagged stitches aren't very good here, but I like the colour combination.

My second block uses all 5 colours and is much better:

My third block was done is one colour so I could see how it would look as a background stitch:

I need to get neater with my stitches if I want to see a crisp delimination between the zigzag columns and the Hungarian Points.  Practice, practice, practice.

I also started the background for the sampler.  It's simple basketweave tent stitch in the main colour (in other words, the colour I have the most of):

I've done a lot more in the past week.  I've told myself I can't do the 3rd block of my next stitch until I've put background around at least 4 squares.