Wednesday 2nd April - Synchronised Stitching

What happened to Tuesday's post? Much the same as happened to February's stitching; it got merged. Tuesday and Wednesday, February and March.

Ang and I were both a bit 'full-on' through the past couple of months so we cut ourselves a bit of slack.

I started this back in February. It's a square, representing a lawn of spring flowers, crocus at the top (ignore the red blobs, I'll explain in a minute), daffodils in the middle and tulips at the bottom. It makes a little seasonal corner on the back of the cover with autumn and winter. The blank patch is the last remaining area.

The background is a Christmas fabric,  complete with red berries, which I didn't want. The berries at the top will be covered over, and the ones in the middle are undered a little needle turn appliqué patch. First I rough stitched lines in two, maybe three shades of green, then French knots for crocuses and daisy stitches for the daffodils and tulips. 

Karen Turner (Stitching Life) made daffodils look so easy:

Maybe I should have used embroidery floss. Maybe I should have made them bigger. My scissors were twitching,  but I sent it off before I started snipping them out!

So the flowers encompass February crocus, early daffodils and the first March tulips, which were coming into flower at the end of the month. 

Ang sent me a patchwork of ribbons from her stash;

She chose books and music and sewing to reflect our shared interests, embezzling some of the notes with bright French knots. A brilliant way to do an awkward long thin space, and lovely choice of colours. 

Flat gifts too; an interesting looking recipe book and a little notepad. I'm looking forward to using both.

Oh oh! Just one patch each... but we won't have finished. I think we're planning to do some decorative stitching along the borders between the patches, and then add the date, and then finally make up the covers. We'll be going for a wee whily yet.

Music

I always think of this Mendelssohn 'Song without Words' op 102 no 5 as Spring-like. It's actually known as 'the Joyous Peasant'. It took me some time to find a version at a speed I like. This one is played by Andras Schiff.  Daniel Baramboim rattles through in 1'08 (not the fastest, either!). Jacopo Salvatori mooches towards the end in 1' 45" (yawn). Andras takes 1' 38" which seems gently happy to me. A few seconds make all the difference. 

A good friend from my school days used to play it, and I liked it so much I borrowed her music.

There is another 'Song without Words' which is called 'Spring' but I dislike it intensely!