Last time I shared my progress with my phenology wheel was at the beginning of May, I had just started stitching catkins for February so I was already behind!

The French knots were taking forever, not helped by the fact that I was using a single thread of DMC. When I returned from my travels it was one of my priorities so I started stitching it on an evening.

I changed to two threads of DMC instead so it grew a little quicker and I don’t think it’s that noticeable. I used a second shade of DMC variegated which is slightly darker so the three catkins wouldn’t merge into one blob. It still took more than an evening to do one catkin, I nearly left it at two but I decided to spend one more evening stitching the third one. I’m pleased with how they have turned out.

As you can see I’ve also stitched March, some primroses, we have some near our pond in the garden and there’s also a few up the back lane. It still needs a good press to remove the Frixion pen marks but I thought I’d stitch April first. For April I’m going to stitch brunnera, I’ve got several brunnera plants in the garden, I love the sprays of intense blue flowers in spring and good foliage ground cover the rest of summer. It does mean more French knots though!!

Hopefully in three weeks time when I share another update on my wheel, I’ll have almost caught up.

Please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching…

Avis, Claire, Kathy, Margaret,

Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Daisy, Cathie,

Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen