Last night I finished another letter in the bird alphabet, so I have stitched A to H now, almost a third of the way through. This morning I also worked out what size to do the back-stitch squares round each letter, these will be used to slip-stitch the letters together. I’m going to do them 70 x 70 stitches, which is about 4.5″ square, it gives me a comfortable border round the letters without being too big. It took a bit of working out as I want the letters to be centralised but the flowers and birds are often more to one side. I’ve decided to use a variegated DMC thread in very pale blue, brown and white, it blends in nicely with the blue and the white linen and occasionally picks out the brown of the birds, hopefully it will work out OK.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s H…

We occasionally see wrens in the garden so I was pleased they were included in the alphabet. They are tiny birds so not easy to see but they have a very loud and melodious song so we know there are lots of wrens on the back lane behind us. For a couple of years they nested under our carport which was wonderful, but dawn chorus was deafening!!

These designs are from the French company Les Brodeuses Parisiennes, they are a delight to stitch. I think they have a shop in Montmartre so I’m hoping to find it during our visit in June.