Starting Mon Berlingot de Brodeuse - My Embroidered Humbug

I was really drawn to the cover project on one of the embroidery books I bought last weekend at the Twist Festival - Les 12 merveilles brodée de Marie. I popped over to Kim's to pick up some fabric and the variegated DMC 115 floss.

In European patterns, the fabric is measured in threads per centimetre. In this case 16 threads per centimetre. Multiplying 16 x 2.5 (cm in an inch), I get 40 count fabric. I wasn't interested in stitching that small and Kim didn't have any 40 count fabric anyway so I went with 36 count linen.

I'm stitching with one thread. The flower petals are over 1 thread and the stems are over two threads.

It's pretty slow going but I really like how it's looking.

To make the piece proportionately smaller compensating for the larger gauge fabric, I have taken a copy and have cut and pasted the flowers, moving them towards the centre so the overall stitch count is smaller. instead of 138 x70 stitches, I've modified the pattern to 120 x 60 sts.

I usually stitch with the 'darning' method but have to use the 'stabbing' method when stitching 1 over 1.